This distinction reflects the difference between means and ends:Means are not results. An efficacious technique is a means for producing out-
comes, but it is not itself an outcome expectation. For example, an effective
cognitive skill for solving problems can be put to diverse uses to gain all kinds
of outcomes. Useful means serve as the vehicles for exercising personal efficacy.
(Bandura, 1986, p. 392)Yet how does the means–ends distinction between behavioral processes and
environmental outcomes become linked to personal sources of control?
Triadic Forms of Self-Regulation
Social cognitive researchers hypothesize bidirectional relationships between
personal (cognitive and emotional), behavioral, and environmental sources
of influence (Bandura, 1986). Changes in behavior lead to changes in envi-
ronments and personal beliefs, such as when an illiterate person becomes able
to read. This new literary capability leads that person to form new social rela-
tionships as well as to experience an enhanced sense of personal efficacy and
satisfaction, such as personal pride in discussing a newspaper article with fel-
low passenger on a bus. Triadic efforts to self-regulate can be described in
terms of a person’s proactive use of strategies and their resulting feedback
(Zimmerman, 1989). Mastery of any skill usually requires repeated attempts
to learn (i.e., practice) because it involves coordinating personal, behavioral,
and environmental components, each of which changes during the course of
learning. For example, the strategy needed by a novice writer to plan an essay
is very different from the strategy needed to correct the grammar of a draft.
Because the effectiveness of a learning strategy depends on changing per-
sonal, behavioral, and environmental conditions, self-regulated learners must
constantly reassess their effectiveness using three self-oriented feedback loops
(see Fig. 12.2).
Behavioral self-regulation involves self-monitoring and adjusting behav-
ioral processes, such as a method of learning, whereas environmental self-
regulation refers to monitoring and adjusting environmental conditions or
performance outcomes. Note that this model distinguishes formally between
self-regulating behavioral processes and environmental outcomes. Covert
self-regulation involves monitoring and adjusting cognitive and affective
strategies, such as writers’ imagining the personal consequences of failure to
motivate them to work harder. These three cyclical feedback and adaptation
loops operate jointly to produce changes in learners’ self-beliefs, overt behav-
ior, and environment. The accuracy and constancy of learners’ self-moni-
toring of these triadic sources of self-control directly influence the effective-
326 ZIMMERMAN AND SCHUNK