anecdotal, as well as experimental evidence of the effectiveness of these tech-
niques (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994). The biographies and autobiographies
of successful writers, musicians, and athletes often reveal use of these self-
regulatory techniques (Zimmerman, 1998, 2001). For example, among the
common personal self-regulation strategies, writers and athletes use goal set-
ting to help them perform or practice more effectively. Another personal
process, imagery, is used by writers to create vivid scenes, by pianists to pre-
pare for concert performances, and by golfers to visualize difficult shots.
Among the common behavioral self-regulation strategies, self-instruction or
verbalization has been used by tennis players to stay focused after bad shots
and by musicians to count out the timing of difficult passages. Professional
writers often behaviorally self-record and chart their daily literary outputs to
guide and motivate them. Two common forms of environmental self-regu-
latory strategies are environmental structuring, such as locating a quiet place
to study, and social help-seeking, such as soliciting advice from a teacher.
Although these self-regulation strategies were described according to their
primary source of triadic influence (personal, behavioral, environmental),
each technique affects the other two sources of influence indirectly because of
their triadic interdependence. To optimize learning and motivation, students
should use all three strategic sources in synchrony, such as setting specific
goals, self-monitoring and self-rewarding their attainment. Later we discuss
how these and other self-regulatory processes interact within three cyclical
phases.
Learning Strategies, Self-Monitoring,
and Strategy Attributions
Social cognitive researchers are not alone in making means–ends distinctions
or in hypothesizing that self-beliefs about possessing the behavioral process
means(i.e., competence) to attain important environmental ends (i.e., per-
formance outcomes) are key to solving the reciprocity issue between learning
and motivation. Metacognitive theories (Flavell, 1979) have also stressed the
importance of strategies as a means for achieving personal outcomes or ends.
Strategies are conscious methods for learning in a systematic and parsimoni-
ous way, such as a mnemonic grouping strategy for memorizing a social secu-
rity number. Educators have developed a wide assortment of task-specific
strategies to assist students to learn, such as analyzing complex academic
tasks into components for sequential solving (Wood, Woloshyn, & Willough-
by, 1995). To think strategically is: (a) to envision one’s methods of learning
as a personally controllable process that can produce differential outcomes,
and (b) to appreciate that successful outcomes depend on constructing or
adapting strategies to specific personal settings. Viewing oneself metacogni-
tively as an effective strategy user is assumed to be a major source of motiva-
328 ZIMMERMAN AND SCHUNK