Abstract:
If students are to become independent learners they must be provided with opportunities to develop the capacity to monitor and regulate their learning from the outset of their academic careers. In this paper we explore first year undergraduate students’ experiences and perceptions regarding the use of exemplars, with reference to the development of student self-regulation. The study was carried out at a tertiary education institution in a large city in New Zealand where the second author was employed as a lecturer. In her role as a teacher, this author used exemplars with two classes of first year students enrolled in a core introductory paper taught as part of the students undergraduate business studies degree. Data were gathered from these students through three complementary approaches: responses to a short anonymous survey at the end of each of the four sessions where exemplars were used, written notes in the teacher’s Teaching journal and semi- structured interviews at the end of the course with student volunteers. When strategically employed as part of the teaching design, it was found that exemplars have the capacity to motivate, enhance students’ self-efficacy, promote understanding of task requirements, expand knowledge, understanding and skills in relation to the structure of academic tasks, support and advance subject knowledge, and develop evaluative and productive knowledge and expertise. It was concluded the use of exemplars with these students demonstrated their potential as tools for the promotion of student self-efficacy, self-monitoring and to a lesser extent, self-regulation.