tioning rather than specific responses (Rosenthal, Zimmerman, & Durning,
1970). For example, an aspiring journalist might emulate the succinct prose
style rather than the actual words of a senior editor. Learners will increase
their accuracy and motivation during efforts to emulate, if a model provides
them with guidance, feedback, and social reinforcement (see Table 12.1 sec-
ond row). Reception of social rewards is negatively associated with detrimen-
tal academic emotions, such as school anxiety (Zimmerman, 1970). In order
to emulate a skill, novice learners need to incorporate modeled features of a
complex skill into their behavioral repertoires. By emulating using a model’s
task, novice learners can master basic response elements in a setting where
corrective feedback, social modeling and assistance are available. Once an
advanced level of mastery is attained, a model’s support is reduced usually.
Some critics have decried teaching to promote emulation because of fears
that such teaching may produce nothing more than response mimicry, but
these fears are largely unwarranted because mimicry constitutes only a small
part of emulative learning (Zimmerman & Rosenthal, 1974).
At a third marker or a self-controlled level of self-regulation, learners
should practice outside the presence of models in structured settings, such as
when aspiring journalists practice writing articles on their own (see Table
12.1 third row). To optimize this form of learning, novices should self-
monitor and control their practice using cognitive and behavioral process
standards gleaned from an expert model’s performance (Bandura & Jeffery,
1973). Learners’ success in matching a covert process standard during prac-
tice will determine their amount of self-reinforcement (Bandura & Kupers,
1964). Regarding the importance of self-reinforcement, Bandura (1986) com-
mented, “by making self-satisfaction conditional on a selected level of per-
formance, individuals create their own incentives to persist in their efforts un-
til their performances match internal standards” (p. 467). Persistent failures
to reach one’s standards can lead to severe emotional reactions, such as de-
pression (Bandura, 1986). Use of a skill can be self-controlled better when
learners engage in self-instruction (Schunk & Rice, 1984, 1985). At level
three, learners who set learning process or technique goals rather than perfor-
mance outcome goals will achieve automaticity more readily (Zimmerman &
Kitsantas, 1997, 1999). Automaticity refers to the execution of learning proc-
esses without specific attention to their form and represents the completion of
level three functioning. By focusing their practice goals on the strategic pro-
cesses of proven models, level three learners can circumvent the frustrations
of trial-and-error outcome learning and experience self-reinforcement for
personal mastery of a model’s technique.
To achieve the fourth developmental marker or self-regulated level func-
tioning, learners should practice a skill in dynamic personal settings (see Ta-
ble 12.1 fourth row). To become fully self-regulated, novices must learn to
make adjustments in their skill based on the outcomes of practice or perform-
336 ZIMMERMAN AND SCHUNK