3 values supported by SRL: self-efficacy, volition, cognitive strategies. The article itself, in its conclusion, points out that self-efficacy is part of most (all?) of the SRL models under comparison. Self-efficacy seems related to anxiety or negative self-images that cannot be addressed in online courses in quite the same way the article talks about (as its models assume in-person learning, unless I'm mistaken).
I see a parallel between the motivational beliefs that develop in Zimmerman (et. al.)'s model and emotional realities related to "alibi" in live interactive environments (LARPs, some escape rooms) -- some audience members or players experience anxiety when faced with tasks that demand they self-regulate and self-assess, or rather, when the success will be judged by something more involved than whether or not they find the right button to press. This anxiety prevents some from participating even in very simple non-skill-based activities.
Googling "self-efficacy" turned up defiition from APA -- it refers to (I'm paraphrasing to help me think through it) one's belief in their own ability to control their own motivations. IE ppl know they are responsible for their attitudes toward learning, yet it seems like the barriers toward taking that step are influenced by emotions but come down to a simpler cognitive toggle -- they will/can either get started or not.
Escape room design tradelore holds that you can't expect ppl to role-play, even if the narrative premise of your puzzle room casts them as "spies" or "explorers" or experts of any kind. Yet the medium of escape rooms seems to promsie them that their competence will be assumed. Even so, there's a line most players can't cross.
Specific example - You can tell the players they are wizards. If you tell them that to activate their power they have to press a button, no problem. But if you tell them they have to MAKE UP magic words -- and that any words at all will do -- the average audience member or player just won't. They seem afraid of "messing it up" even though it can't really be done incorrectly. It's an either/or kind of thing, they either do it or not, and if they do, they won't be judged...
I saw another example of this in a steampunk themed escape room in Atlanta, there was a role of "engineer" and to activate its ability, the player simply had to take a provided pad and pen and draw a diagram of anything, and claim it was a machine. It did not have to be a good diagram -- it was simply the dramatization of activating their ability, but the venue owner told me that resistance to exactly that is a barrier most players can't pass.
When I tried to encourage self-directed learning in an MFA-level creative writing class, I found a similar problem -- this is interesting bc it's already creative writing, so they knew they'd have to mostly take the reins. But when it was non-traditional kinds of writing, things went south. For instance, a worldbuilding prompt asking them to create a map... they could draw it with crayons on a napkin if you want to. In a class, unlike a game, there's a sense that "they have to" so it does tend to get done, but the lack of exact criteria for what makes it successful or not seems like a huge barrier for many students, and this must be the "self-efficacy" bit.
I am having trouble locating or discerning where the sub-process of "covert self-regulation" happens. The text says "motivational beliefs" form and become part of a student's routine when they encounter a lesson (that may be a really bad and over-general paraphrase, but I'm looking for something specific here).
Automaticity is the concept I find most actionable. Zimmerman and Moylan (2009) discuss process goals as a cognitive support for student's self-efficacy and volition. Task analysis and goal-setting will become automatic partly (or entirely?) because they ensure outcome feedback for the student. This very automatic quality to the processes (which will become a reflex instead of a technique eventually) could pose some barriers to effective strategizing later, but at the outset this automaticity is beneficial
Okay, so in my own words, and in the xontext of my own work, I can see how I could cheat this. Bearing the above notes about how some creative challenges cause players to balk, even when there's no need, I did say that there was no way to do those things wrongly... so they could be automated. In other words, a quiz (or a tutorial that uses the LMS's quiz-feature or assignment-type) could be created that asked for some creative input, and no matter what the student entered, the quiz would congratulate them. I hypothesize that this would need to be supported with the automatic awarding of something tangible, not just points, but something like a badge, and not a "participation" badge... if, for instance, student was challenged to write any two lines that rhymed, they should automatically get the "magic words" or "rhyming couplet" achievement-thingie, whether that's a badge or a sticker or a whatever. The point is for them to experience the fact that with some activities, they're going to be _assumed_ to have done it correctly, and the feedback is just details... I'm thinking about testing this in a tutorial quiz so that the precedent is started right away, and there's positive outcome feedback for "jumping in" -- I realize this isn't entirely what is championed throughout the reading, but it's a way I can use the surveyed authors' discoveries for my own purposes (hopefully it'll work)
Zimmerman talks about this kind of environmental support a bit, but really the outcome feedback I mentioned isn't supposed to be automatic, it's supposed to come from the teachers and other student-collaborators. This is where I start to wonder if the "covert" self-regulation couldn't be supported by an obviously automated confidence-building (or rather, self-efficacy-verifying) activity like the quiz automatically congratulating the student on the only part that demands self-efficacy, even though the rest of their work will not be automatically approved. It's kind of like jump-starting a car until the battery can run of the alternator -- the automated outcome-feedback to reward their uncertain task-analysis (and thus get them to automate that process) is necessary for the rest of it to work and to set the stage for self-regulated learning to be the student's go to approach whenever they feel uncertain (as an alternative to paralysis).
If the automatic support (which is aimed at the emotions, which are particularly effective in higher education, according to the article's conclusion) were repeated too often, or at all, after the first tutorial quiz, they would conflict with Zimmerman's other processes involving self-assessment and self-observation... or maybe I'm just assuming that they would.
The section on EMOTIONS puts the onus on students to have emotion-regulation strategies so that they end up on the learning pathway instead of taking a more defensive and unproductive route. What can the instructor do to support this? The article's survey of scholarship on this only seems to cover the approaches students have, and acknowledges that meta-cognition is impacted by the emotions in question (which seem more specific than "frustration", "inspiration" etc, and seem more related to super-ego and ego responses and protectiveness of self-efficacy ... as if students are aware that self-efficacy is a resource, not a skill, as they strive to preserve it instead of seeking opportunities to practice it. This is also supported (just in my view, this isn't in the article it's just my reaction to it) by the fact that students don't seem to seek a flow state for the "skill" of self-efficacy itself, so strategies related to the preservation of self-efficacy are focused on preserving a resource rather than honing a talent. This is important because it means they are aware of meta-cognition and seek out situations where meta-cognition is supported, but the very concept of self-regulated learning puts meta-cognition at risk.
I must search this article for anything about how to deal with the inevitable uneven distribution of self-efficacy among students -- some will have more of it (it seems wrong to say "better at it") than others, and not only for the reasons the article mentions (it says that basketball players are better at self-efficacy where basketball is involved, but there are other reasons related to past esucational experiences, and, as the article does say, because grouop work and collaboration makes certain emotional demands that some are better equipped for than others.
Overall, it seems as though the presence of self-regulated learning is signalled by a sort of "dog whistle" somewhere within the curriculum design, and it triggers a resource-inventory, so that students who don't feel they're up to it shut down before the exercises start. I realize it's a lot more complicated than this, but I'm looking at a lot of different thinkers' theories here, and they've all got different diagrams and models...