Academic performance in college online courses: The role of self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy

Student academic performance in college online courses was examined in relation to self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia & McKeachie, 1991) was used to identify participants' self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy. Both correlational and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to identify the relationships between and among students' academic performance, self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy while prior online experience, degree requirement of courses, and instructor feedback were held constant. Results of the correlation analysis indicate that self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy are positively related to students' performance in their online courses. Results of the hierarchical multiple regression indicate that self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy account for 43% of the variance in students' grades, with academic self-efficacy playing the most important role in accounting for variations in students' success in their online courses. In addition, when the linear effects of all major student related factors were considered in the regression analysis, the relationships between students' academic performance and motivation, and self-regulated learning changed. Motivation became negatively related to students' performance and self-regulated learning was no longer found to have a significant relationship with students' performance. Overall, results suggest that self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy are related to students' academic performance in their online courses. However, when self-regulated learning, motivation and academic self-efficacy are considered together, self-regulated learning becomes unimportant for good academic performance and high motivation becomes negatively related to students' success in their online courses.