The development of measures of individual differences in self-regulatory control and their relationship to academic performance

Two studies ark reported describing the development and validation of the Strategic Flexibility Questionnaire (SFQ): a self-report instrument aimed at eliciting students' beliefs about the need for, and conditional nature of, self-regulatory control over learning. In Study 1, 281 first-year university education students completed a 40-item pilot questionnaire. Factor analysis of responses revealed a 21-item instrument indicating three types of control beliefs: adaptive executive control, inflexible executive control, and irresolute executive control. In Study 2, the predictive validity of these conceptions was tested against the academic performance of 105 third-year university education students. Results indicated that students reporting adaptive executive control beliefs were more successful academically: while those students reporting inflexible or irresolute control beliefs were significantly less successful academically. (C) 1996 Academic Press. Inc.