Self-regulation is a key part of who we choose to become and how we choose to live our lives. It has been defined as deliberate efforts to regulate one’s behavior so as to reach a preset goal. Although the definition of self-regulation seems unequivocal, it actually involves a vast array of complex self-directed processes such as setting a goal, use of metacognitive knowledge and skills to direct the process, organization of the sources as well as the environment, and also monitoring and reflecting on the process (Butler & Winne, 1995; Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007). Self-regulated learning can be described as students’ self-generated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to attain particular goals (Zimmerman & Schunk, 1989). Directing strategic action as a demonstration of metacognitive skills and motivation in academic studies is self-regulation taking place in the school context (Zimmerman, 2002; Winne & Perry, 2000). There is a paucity of research indicating the impact of self-regulated learning on school readiness (e.g., Denham et al., 2012a; McClelland et al., 2006) and academic success of students (e.g., Denham et al., 2012b; Nota et al., 2004) which takes us to the role of the teacher in enriching self-regulated learning process. Teachers are regarded as one of the crucial elements contributing to the promotion of self-regulated learning in many studies (e.g., Magno, 2009; Rozendaal et al., 2005). As underlined by Boekaerts and Cascallar (2006), “clarity and pace of instruction, the amount of structure provided, autonomy granted, teacher enthusiasm, humor, fairness, and teacher expectations about students’ capacity” can prompt the self-regulated learning process. Besides, Peeters et al. (2014) emphasize that the competencies of teachers in terms of self-regulated learning processes as well as their beliefs of self-regulated learning, have a great potential to impact their acts in the classroom. This signals the importance of investigating the factors related to teachers’ promotion of their students’ self-regulation. For this reason, uncovering the predictors of teachers’ promotion of students’ self-regulated learning has the potential to contribute to both research and practice. With this rationale in mind, the present study explores how well the intrinsic interest of teachers and their beliefs in self-regulated learning predict their promotion of student self-regulation strategies.

Correlational design was used in this study, in which data were collected from 106 teachers (58.3% male, 39.8% female) working at five science high schools in Turkey. Teachers’ years of experience ranged between 7 and 37. Cluster random sampling was used as the schools were randomly selected from the top ten science high schools in Turkey. These high schools accept top-rank students based on a competitive national exam. The current study benefits from Teacher Self-Regulation Scale (TSRS, Capa-Aydin et al., 2009), the Self-Regulated Learning Teacher Belief Scale (SRLTB, Lombaerts et al., 2009), and a third scale assessing teachers’ promotion of student self-regulated learning strategies (Capa-Aydin et al., 2007). The TSRS originally involved various aspects of SRL, such as goal setting, intrinsic interest, self-instruction, self-evaluation, and self-reaction. Only intrinsic interest, including six items, was used in the present study. A sample item read, “It makes me happy to see my students learn.” The SRLTB is a one-factor structured scale including ten items, and it explores the beliefs of teachers on self-regulated learning. “Pupils should be able to decide when they work on an assignment more often” and “Pupils have the capacity to determine what they want to learn” are example items from this scale. The third scale was developed in a research project. It is unidimensional with eight items (e.g., I teach my students to manage time efficiently). Cronbach alpha coefficients were .78 for intrinsic interest, .86 for the SRLTB, and .93 for the scale of teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning. In order to reveal how well intrinsic interest and beliefs predict certain teacher behavior, namely teachers’ promotion of student self-regulation strategies, a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was used. Teachers’ year of teaching experience was included in the first step as a controlling variable. The assumptions of multiple regression (independence, normality, homoscedasticity of residuals, linearity), absence of multivariate outliers, and absence of multicollinearity were checked before proceeding to the analysis. No issue was detected. 

The results of the multiple regression analysis showed that the first model, including only the years of teaching experience variable, was not significant, F(1, 104)=.04. After controlling for years of experience, the second set of predictors significantly contributed to the model, F(3, 102)= 10.08, p < .05. Both of the predictors (intrinsic interest of teachers and the beliefs of teachers on self-regulated learning) were found to be positively and significantly related to the outcome variable. That is, as teachers tend to have a more intrinsic interest in their profession and have more positive beliefs regarding self-regulated learning, they tend to show more practices to encourage students to use self-regulated strategies. Regarding the unique contributions, intrinsic interest contributed 18.93% of the variation in the outcome variable, whereas teacher beliefs contributed 3.31% of the variance. Overall, the model accounted for 22.9% of the variance in the outcome variable, that is, the teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning strategies.