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The human element: Self-regulated learning skills and strategies through role-

modelling and guided mastery

A. Merino*

School of Accountancy,

e-mail: andres.merino@wits.ac.za

M. Aucock*

School of Accountancy

e-mail: michele.aucock@wits.ac.za

*University of the Witwatersrand

Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of a black male student as he undertook a challenging

academic journey through high school and university to the completion of a four year degree in

Accountancy. Data were collected by means of three in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which

were then analysed to identify the key themes that shaped the student’s academic journey. Two

distinct cycles of failure followed by success emerged from the analysis of the data. In both

cases, through the role-modelling and guided mastery of Self-Regulated Learning strategies and

skills by a few committed and dedicated persons, the student was able to develop academic

resilience and achieve his goals. Drawing on the findings of the case study, the authors identify

some of the challenges faced by students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds within

the present day South African context, and suggest possible solutions through the adoption of

Self-Regulated Learning and the principles and practices of Guided Mastery.

Keywords: self-regulated learning, motivation, role-modelling, guided mastery, academic

resilience, accounting education

INTRODUCTION

Changes of government and educational policy in the post-apartheid South African context

have resulted in students from diverse economic, educational and cultural backgrounds

gaining access to all tertiary institutions within the country. These institutions, together with

others across the world, face the dual tension of raising educational standards while providing

educationally disadvantaged students with the means to achieve success. With an average

throughput rate of 15 per cent across South African universities (DHET 2013), and with

negative labels such as ‘deficit’ and ‘at-risk’ being directed at students, tertiary institutions are

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being pressed by the government and by civil society to find effective ways of addressing

these challenges. Research conducted in the field of teaching and learning has shown that

holistic approaches that take into account the behavioural, emotional and cognitive

dimensions of students are best placed to address these. One such approach, Self-Regulated

Learning, offers practical ways of dealing with the challenges associated with maintaining

educational excellence while achieving educational redress (Doll, Zucker, and Brehm 2004;

Schunk and Pajares 2004; Zimmerman 2008; Moseki and Schulze 2010; Dembo and Seli

2013).

This article interrogates the experience of a black student, Calvin (pseudonym), as he

negotiates his academic journey through high school and university until he finally obtains a

degree in Accountancy. Calvin failed the fourth year of his degree in 2011. After undergoing

a journey of self-discovery with the help of mentors, he was able to redirect the behaviours

that had impeded his performance in the previous year to become one of the top performing

students of his class in 2012. After the completion of his degree, Calvin was invited to share

his academic journey with a teaching and learning research group in order to explore the

factors that a) contributed to his initial failure in fourth year in 2011, and b) resulted in his

‘recovery’ and graduation in 2012. The aim of the interview was to better understand the

affective, effective and cognitive patterns of behaviour of a student who had overcome

adversity to successfully complete a very challenging degree. Calvin agreed to be

interviewed. The interview was audio-recorded and the content analysed to identify the

themes that played a crucial role in his academic life. A conceptual framework comprising

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) (Zimmerman 2002; Dembo and Seli 2013), Motivation

(Pintrich 2004; Zimmerman and Schunk 2008), Self-efficacy (Bandura 1977; Bandura et al.

1996; Schunk and Pajares 2004) and Role-Modelling with Guided Mastery (Nicol and

Macfarlane-Dick 2006; Bandura 2011) was used to direct the analysis, while a single case-

study research design was adopted as the methodological framework (Yin 1999). Two

additional semi-structured interviews were conducted with two people who played a crucial

role in his academic journey, the then fourth year course coordinator, and an academic trainee

in the School of Accountancy (SOA), Greg (pseudonym). These interviews, along with notes

drawn up by both interviewees, were also content analysed in terms of the SRL framework,

but with a particular focus on the guided mastery of various aspects of SRL role-modelled to

Calvin by the course coordinator and the academic trainee.

The following questions were used to interrogate Calvin's academic journey:

What is Calvin’s background?

Who or what were the driving forces assisting Calvin in achieving academic success?

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What learning and teaching themes emerged during this journey and what theoretical

constructs are helpful for understanding these themes?

The article starts by setting out the conceptual framework underpinning self-regulated

learning and guided mastery. This is followed by a discussion of the case study findings and

their implications for both teaching and learning practices.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK UNDERPINNING THE CASE STUDY

Self-regulation refers to the ‘thoughts, feelings and actions that are planned and adapted to the

attainment of personal goals’ (Zimmerman 2002), while ‘[S]elf-regulated learning comprises

a number of processes that assist students in managing their thoughts, behaviours, and

emotions in order to successfully navigate their learning experiences’ (Zumbrunn, Tadlock

and Roberts 2011). These processes involve a series of components that must be utilised by

students in order to meet their goals. The components identified in the literature can be

grouped into three interdependent areas of action: motivational strategies, behavioural

strategies, and cognitive (learning and study) strategies (Zimmerman and Risemberg 1997;

Dembo and Seli 2013). Motivational strategies influence the amount of effort that is put into

the achievement of goals, and include goal setting, self-efficacy beliefs, and effort control.

Behavioural strategies, on the other hand, include time management and the management of

social and physical environments. Finally, learning and study (cognitive) strategies control the

activities that are carried out during learning and assessments within a variety of learning

contexts.

Implicit in the self-regulation model is the idea that students must take responsibility

for the acquisition of knowledge by learning how to monitor and exercise control over the

learning process. In a process referred to as ‘metacognition’, students are required to be aware

of and to have knowledge about their own thinking processes (Zimmerman 2002; Dembo and

Seli 2013). This involves assessing one’s current reality, setting mastery goals, exploring

alternative strategies and determining those best applicable to meeting those goals,

implementing the strategies, and then reflecting on whether the desired goals have been

achieved (Rock 2007). Students who are able to master this self-regulation cycle of planning,

implementing, monitoring, reflecting and evaluating are able to acquire new skills and to

achieve academic success (Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons 1986; Zimmerman 1989). As can

be seen in Figure 1, the various components of the model interact symbiotically, and unless

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all the strategies are addressed in a holistic way, long-term gains in skills development and

academic performance may not be achieved.

Figure 1: Self-regulated learning components and strategies

Motivational strategies

Motivation is believed to be core to students’ successful academic outcomes. When students

are motivated, the likelihood of them investing the necessary time and energy needed to learn

and apply appropriate SRL skills is far higher (Zumbrunn, Tadlock and Roberts 2011). The

level of motivation of students is influenced by their self-efficacy beliefs. To have strong self-

efficacy beliefs means to be confident in one’s own ability to complete tasks or to achieve

particular goals (Bandura et al. 1996; Dembo and Seli 2013). Mentors and tutors have an

important role to play in this regard as they can lay the foundational support that students

need to increase their self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura 1986).

Students who display strong self-motivation are also more likely to be able to set

challenging but achievable goals for themselves. Lock and Latham (2002) argue that goal

setting is an important strategy to master as students who set goals outperform those who do

not. Goals have been shown to have a direct impact on performance through four different

mechanisms: they can direct attention and effort to the completion of goal-relevant activities

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(Rothkopf and Billington 1979); they can have an energising effect, particularly with regard

to demanding goals (Sales 1970); they can affect persistence and lead to prolonged effort

(LaPorte and Nath 1976); and finally, they can encourage creative thinking (Wood and Locke

1990).

Behavioural strategies

Behavioural strategies focus on how to use time effectively and on the management of

physical and social environments. Time management has been found to be a good predictor of

academic performance (Steenkamp, Baard, and Frick 2009; West and Sadoski 2011).

Problems with time management manifest in the following behaviours: students are unable to

set goals, they fail to break down objectives into a series of tasks, they lack knowledge of

time management strategies, and they are unable to estimate how long it will take them to

complete tasks (Britton and Glynn 1989). Students can, however, be taught time management

and procrastination-avoidance techniques (Ellis and Knaus 1977; Ferrari 2001).

With regard to managing the physical environment, students are required to create

study environments conducive to studying. This requires choosing study ‘spaces’ in which

they will be able to maintain high levels of concentration. With the advent of new

technologies and the widespread use of laptops, electronic tablets and smart phones, it has

become increasingly important for students to learn how to regulate the use of these tools to

favour learning, above distraction and procrastination (Lavoie and Pychyl 2001; McGlynn

2005; Levine, Waite and Bowman 2007).

Self-regulation of the social environment involves determining when and how to work

with others and also when to seek help from lecturers, tutors or peers. Students refusing to

access help often do so in the mistaken belief that asking for help is an admission of

incompetence or a sign of weakness. On the other hand, students who self-regulate are

inclined to ask for help when they identify a learning need or gap in their knowledge. These

students consult with their lecturers and peers to check their understanding of the subject

matter and to improve their learning strategies (Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons 1990). Role-

models can play a very important role in helping students engage with tutors and lecturers in

effective ways. If the role-models are able to show how they have benefitted from such

interactions, students may start following their lead (Silén and Uhlin 2008).

Cognitive strategies

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A key challenge that students find on exiting high school and entering university is the lack of

academic structure and support that was previously provided to them by their high school

teachers (Cross et al. 2009). At university there is often a shift from a teacher-directed to a

student-directed environment in which students are expected to manage their own learning.

To succeed in this new context, students need to engage in self-creation, self-initiation and

self-evaluation of academic tasks (Weinstein, Acee and Jung 2011).

Alongside the need to acquire skills to ‘learn how to learn’ is the need to perform well

in assessments. Mastery of the topic being examined, anxiety control and examination

techniques can all influence the marks obtained by students (Pintrich et al. 1993). Although

good examination techniques by themselves are not going to make up for lack of content

knowledge, some students do in fact need to learn how to apply anxiety reducing techniques

to deal with the pressure that comes with formal evaluations (Zeidner 1995). It has also been

shown that students who use examination techniques such as time management, active

reading, determining the best order in which to answer questions, structuring coherent and

cohesive answers, and using appropriate academic discourse, achieve higher marks than

students who fail to use these techniques (Fowler, Aaron and McArthur 2010; Dembo and

Seli 2013).

Role-modelling and guided mastery of SRL skills and strategies

Finally, although it is believed that self-regulation and beliefs of self-efficacy begin to form in

early childhood with exposure to a variety of experiences, tasks and situations, their

development is not necessarily restricted to these early years but continues to evolve

throughout life as long as individuals engage in new experiences and acquire new skills. A

major factor in the growth of self-efficacy is that of role-modelling: ‘from observing others,

one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded

information serves as a guide for action’ (Bandura 1977).

Bandura (2001) has identified, what he terms ‘Guided Mastery’, a process through

which new competencies can be acquired based on the current level of self-efficacy displayed

by students. Guided Mastery comprises three distinct stages: first, the appropriate skills are

role-modelled, next, students receive guided practice under simulated conditions, and finally,

they are provided with ongoing support by the role-model so that they persevere in their

efforts to internalise new behaviours. The success of this approach depends on two factors:

first, the ability of the role-model to motivate students and second, perceived similarities

between the role-model and the students themselves. Students are likely to adopt and cultivate

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new behaviours more readily if they see someone they can relate to successfully apply

strategies to solve problems similar to the ones that they themselves encounter (Bandura

1986; Silén and Uhlin 2008).

CALVIN’S ACADEMIC JOURNEY

Calvin was born in a small town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. His parents

had immigrated to South Africa from a central African country and were both school teachers.

He stayed in his home town until he completed Grade 7 and then moved to Johannesburg with

his father in order to attend a former Model C boys’ only school. Prior to the early 1990’s,

Model C schools were reserved for the more privileged ‘white’ population. All other ‘race

groups’ were required to attend comparatively under-resourced schools. The move proved to

be a challenging experience for Calvin as sport was a priority in the school and sporting

ability played a major role in determining whether learners were allocated to the A class or

not. Not being a sportsman, Calvin was allocated to the B class. He deeply resented being

seen as second best, and through determination and hard work he was eventually allocated to

the A class in Grade 9. Throughout this period, Calvin had to endure being ridiculed by his

peers as well as by his class teacher for his ambition to excel academically: they felt that a

boy from a ‘bush school’ could not hope to achieve the high grades he aspired to achieve.

Although Calvin did well throughout high school, he was allocated to the B class at

the start of Grade 12 as a result of a decline in academic performance due to ‘dating’

distractions. Reflecting on this demotion, Calvin admitted: ‘This was a wake-up call and got

me to work harder.’

At this stage his father forcefully intervened: ‘He literally pulled me out of bed at 4am,

and made me concentrate on my studies, going over past mathematics and science papers.’

Prior to this, his father, along with his mother, had played supportive roles in his

academic life. While at junior school both his parents had encouraged him not only to

conform socially but in particular to excel academically: ‘You cannot afford to be average’

was their catch phrase. This was driven by the belief that his background would be a serious

impediment to future educational and job opportunities unless he succeeded academically. At

school he was frequently the recipient of xenophobic remarks, and also had to deal with issues

of racism in a newly post-apartheid society.

During the holidays, Calvin's father would ‘force’ him to go the town library and

would encourage him to read accounting text books, his aim being to expose Calvin to the

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world of finance. Calvin was encouraged to read widely and he succeeded in writing several

children’s books, as well as producing a play.

His relationship with the teachers was ambivalent: he found his Art teacher very

inspirational and creative, but found it difficult to respond positively to his English teachers

who frequently ‘down-graded’ his essay marks without adequate explanations or feedback.

He did not feel he could challenge the teachers’ decisions, despite his frustration around the

allocation of marks. Eventually in Grade 12 he was not prepared to ‘sit back’ and he

questioned his results: he had been awarded 100 per cent for the first essay of the year but

only 80 per cent for the second one. Although the essay had been free of any grammatical or

spelling mistakes, his teacher felt that his use of language was too ‘outlandish’. Calvin

challenged what he considered to be an unfair judgement by insisting that his choice of

language was a reflection of his personality and originality; consequently the essay was

reassessed and awarded a 100 per cent. Reflecting on this experience he said, ‘she accepted

that that was my writing style’.

When his Biology teacher predicted that he would get a B for his final matriculation

exam, he set out to ‘prove her wrong’. At the end of the year, only four students from his

school achieved distinctions in Biology, and Calvin was one of them. He made the following

observation about this success: ‘So that was an interesting motivator in that if I set a goal for

myself I can achieve it. I can always rise back up no matter how much I’ve been down or how

much no one believes in me.’

Around this time he made the decision to become a Chartered Accountant because he

thought it would be the easiest route for him to become a successful business man. Calvin

applied to and was accepted to study a Bachelor of Accounting Science degree.

University life

In his first year at university, Calvin was very anxious about failing: ‘I wanted to show I was

worthy of being at university. I was a nerd in my first year.’ Nervous of approaching his

lecturers, he asked for advice from his peers on how best to study for examinations. His

reluctance to approach his lecturers was based on the belief that ‘the lecturer was there to

make you fail. I didn’t want them to know me.’

In his second year, Calvin began to relax but this period of relaxation was short lived.

He recalls: ‘I started to have fun and having passed the first test for a course became

overconfident and ended up failing that course.’ After registering for the course again as a

part-time student in the second semester, he was able to pass the course, and moved into third

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year. During this year he never consulted with lecturers or tutors as he was still deeply

mistrustful of them.

The situation began to change at the beginning of Calvin’s third year when his father

was retrenched and could no longer pay for his education. For Calvin, ‘the pressure of getting

the fees paid started to get to me, and mediocrity started to creep in’. In addition to his

financial woes, Calvin began to feel the academic pressures of a particularly demanding

degree; the third year of a Bachelor of Accounting Science degree comprises four courses:

Financial Accounting, Finance and Management Accounting, Taxation and Auditing. For the

first time ever, Calvin began to struggle with the academic content, Financial Accounting

being his nemesis. His marks began to decline but he was reluctant to take responsibility for

the situation as he felt that his marks were not a fair reflection of what he actually knew and

could do. He felt victimised by the lecturers, and believed that they intentionally wanted him

to fail. His reaction was one of indifference: ‘Ah! Whatever! You put so much effort in and

the marks don’t reflect it.’ His end-of-year results reflected a pass mark but with a slim 51 per

cent aggregate for Financial Accounting.

Fourth year was ‘a shock to the system’. He failed the first test of the year, and things

did not improve as the year progressed. The dynamics at home also changed with his father,

still without work, starting to put ‘enormous’ pressure on Calvin to perform well. The cracks

finally began to show: ‘[T]here were family problems at home. Unfortunately I allowed those

factors to affect my studies and I became a depressed person. I would go and study but my

mind was not there.’

Asked whether he made use of the Counselling and Careers Development Unit

(CCDU) at the university, he replied:

No, Um, unfortunately I didn’t; I don’t know if that’s a weakness and maybe it is also the way I

have been brought up. I think it is more of a black dynamic in that as a man you are supposed to

stand by yourself. You don’t go for stuff like psychological or therapy sessions because that is a

sign of weakness. So you try to absorb everything, and cope with it all on your own.

At the end of June, Calvin failed Financial Accounting Four and, in accordance with Faculty

regulations, was required to de-register from the course. Down but not out, Calvin decided to

appeal against his deregistration. Even though Calvin was successful in his appeal, things did

not improve in the second half of the year. After writing his final examinations, his results

were not released because of his yet-to-be-paid fees. With the aid of his mother they were

finally able to secure an education loan and settle his fees. However, he had failed his

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examinations. Initially he reported being ‘stunned’, but ‘quickly made the decision to

persevere and overcome the setback and return to [his] studies’.

Guided mastery of SRL skills and strategies through lecturer role-modelling

Towards the end of 2011, with imminent failure on the horizon, Calvin’s attitude and

approach to his studies started to undergo a dramatic change. One particular lecturer, the then

fourth year course coordinator, played a prominent role in his change of behaviour. Calvin

referred to her as ‘The Watchful Eye’, and attributed part of his change of attitude, and

ultimate success, to the support and the guidance she offered him in his studies. She took the

role of the ‘stern mother’. ‘She motivated me all the time, and because of that she was more

like the watchful eye, you know. Which I think it’s also very necessary, even though at times

it felt like, Oh my gosh, she is putting a lot of pressure on me.’

From the interview it became apparent that, albeit this particular lecturer was the fourth

year academic course coordinator and a lecturer on the Auditing Four course, Calvin’s

interaction with her did not centre on academic/cognitive support alone. It included the

provision of motivational and behavioural support and guidance in the form of skills and

strategies that would encourage the development of affective and effective patterns of ‘being’

in the academic context (Levine 1999). In the interview with the course coordinator, she

explained:

I had to set high expectations of him because he needed somebody to believe that he was capable

of achieving more than he thought he could achieve. So, at the beginning of his repeat year I am

not sure that he really believed that he could get through. But as he changed his way of learning

and he recognized the superficiality of how he had learned the year before, his confidence grew.

In the 2011 academic year the course coordinator had occasionally encountered Calvin when

he accompanied a small group of black students who used to regularly ‘pop into’ her office if

they needed support or clarification on an issue. Although she was aware of Calvin’s

presence, she regarded him as the ‘silent partner’ of the group as he seldom spoke or drew any

attention to himself. The event that precipitated a change in their relationship occurred in

November 2011, just after the release of the fourth year results, but prior to the supplementary

examinations. These are additional examinations for students who have achieved 48 per cent

or 49 per cent to provide them with another opportunity to pass. Although Calvin had not

received his final results due to non-payment of fees, he was informed that he would have to

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undergo two supplementary examinations. It was then that Calvin approached the course

coordinator for the first time, on his own, and ‘opened up’ with regard to his anxieties. He

reported being devastated by his failure and also highly anxious about his ability to write and

successfully pass the supplementary examinations. His stress was compounded by the family

and financial troubles he was experiencing at the time.

The course coordinator’s immediate response to him was: ‘[I]f you don’t try, you

won’t know.’ This was followed by an invitation to help him through this process. And so

began a series of lengthy meetings with Calvin from December 2011 through to November

2012. During their initial meetings in 2011, the course coordinator worked on providing a

‘caring’ or ‘safe-holding’ space for Calvin to work through his situation as she recognised

how devastating the concept of failure was for him, not only from a financial perspective but

also from a motivational perspective (Christie et al. 2008). Once Calvin was able to take

responsibility for his failure, she challenged him to reflect on what needed to change in all

areas of his life in order for him to return and succeed the following year.

During the first few months of 2012, Calvin visited her office on a regular basis; these

meetings sometimes lasting up to three hours, working through his insecurities as well as

learning motivational and behavioural strategies and skills that could assist with academic

success. However, the main themes of their conversations revolved around the role and

responsibilities of a resilient student and a future professional chartered accountant.

The course coordinator believes that the role she played in Calvin’s life was meant to

be one of role-model and facilitator rather than of lecturer – directing Calvin to the relevant

content lecturers when issues of a more cognitive nature arose. She explains:

The problem with someone like him [Calvin] is that there are no real role-models for him. And

so what I needed to do was give him that role-model. As a white woman, and a young black

man, it’s a difficult thing to do. I had another student, a Zulu student who used to call me Nkulu

Mama, which means something like Big Mother. For Calvin I was more of the Nkulu Mama

than I was a specific lecturer in a skilled subject.

From the end of February 2012 through to November 2012, Calvin and the course coordinator

continued to meet, but less and less frequently as her role as role-model and motivator had,

for the most part, been fulfilled. During the year he would visit on a fortnightly basis, but for

shorter periods of time, half an hour at most. When he did come for longer periods it was

usually to allay his anxiety before a test, or to discuss how he had done in a test.

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Guided mastery of SRL skills and strategies through mentor role-modelling

As a result of his interaction with the course coordinator, Calvin’s attitude and approach

towards his lecturers and tutors underwent a dramatic change: Calvin recognised that he could

no longer ‘go it alone’ and that he needed to reach out to them for academic support and

guidance:

For the first time, I was now going to the lecturers and the tutors and started to consult with

them. I had to throw away my insecurities and say, if I am going to get through, I need to

develop relationships with these people. I need to make sure they get to know me despite my

weaknesses. I tried to get over this so that I do not have fears when I approach them. I stopped

seeing them as the enemy, as someone who wants to fail me. I started to see them as liberators.

They are the ones who are going to get me through.

Early in 2012 he began to interact with the academic trainees on a more regular basis. He

explained: ‘I needed to know what they were doing that made them so successful.’ He began

by approaching a previous classmate, Greg, now an academic trainee within the School, and

asked him to become a mentor to him. Academic trainees are students who have finished their

four year degree and who are afforded the opportunity to further their technical and

professional skills for a year in an academic environment prior to moving into the profession.

Calvin credits Greg with having played a pivotal role in his turn-around strategy and

success. Not only did Greg role-model a number of learning skills and strategies, but he also

acted as a great source of motivation and inspiration to him through the use of guided mastery

practices. As mentor and role-model, Greg ‘motivated’ Calvin in a number of different ways.

First and foremost, be began by assuring Calvin that his being in fourth year was ‘no

accident’ and that he truly believed Calvin ‘was more than capable of succeeding in Financial

Accounting Four’. He encouraged Calvin to drop a defeatist mind-set in favour of one that

viewed his fourth year as ‘a challenge, an opportunity to learn and to better himself, to do the

best he could, because his best was good enough’. Second, he emphasised the need to stop

thinking in terms of periods of time for ‘studying’ and ‘not studying’. Greg suggested that

Calvin view his entire university experience as one continuous period of study: ‘the aim was

to make him realize that half the job of the year was already done and thus worth celebrating’.

In addition Greg strove to make Calvin understand that all his studies should be done with the

bigger picture in mind, that is, that of passing the South African Institute of Chartered

Accountants (SAICA) Part I Qualifying Exam the following January.

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Having created ‘the big picture’ scenario for Calvin, Greg then set about assisting

Calvin with taking back control of his Achilles heel: Financial Accounting. From the very

beginning of their relationship, Greg emphasised two things: a) that although the approach he

adopted worked for him, it may not necessarily work for Calvin, and b) there was no silver

bullet and that to become proficient in Financial Accounting, a large time commitment was

needed. This was, however, followed with the following piece of encouragement:

[A]t the end of your articles you’re going to be paid a nice sum of money each month as a

Chartered Accountant – you are being paid for your knowledge of IFRS [International Financial

Reporting Standards] as an expert in the field. And the general consensus is that it takes 10,000

hours to become an expert in anything – and fourth year is where you’ll be putting in some of

those hours. You’re going to be regarded as an IFRS expert one day, so put the time in to make

this opinion justified!

The tone set for the year, the two of them met on a regular basis to get feedback from Calvin

with regard to the weekly targets that they had agreed upon. These meetings comprised

assessing Calvin’s current work situation, prioritising tasks, setting new goals, and drawing

up realistic timetables (West and Sadoski 2011). For the first time in his academic life, Calvin

was being guided and supported by someone he admired and in whose footsteps he now

wanted to follow: to not only pass fourth year, but to pass it well enough to be selected as an

academic trainee within the School the following year.

With the motivational and behavioural supports in place, Greg and Calvin began

working on developing appropriate and effective learning and study strategies. His weekly

schedule comprised variations on the following practices: pre-reading before the lecture, with

particular reference to understanding IFRS completely; attending lectures in order to get

greater depth and insights from the lecturers; post-reading on the day of the lecture to gain

greater understanding of the topics covered and in order to prepare for the application thereof

in the tutorial questions (every two-hour lecture required two hours of post-reading); and

finally, compulsory attendance at the Friday discussion sessions to gain greater understanding

of the link between the theory and the principles in the financial standards.

In addition to the above, Greg introduced a new way of approaching preparation for

the weekly tutorials session in which each tutorial question was to be treated as a mock test.

This included the following: giving oneself ample reading time for every question and

sticking to the time limit when it came to answering the question, and then marking each

answer thoroughly, bearing in mind that if one was unable to follow one’s own logic, one

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could not expect an external marker to do any better. Finally, and most importantly, after

marking each answer, one had to draw up a ‘principles page’ in which one was required to

write down every principle one had learnt from the tutorial question.

By the time of the actual tutorial session, Greg expected Calvin to have resolved 60–

75 per cent of his questions. Greg’s motivation for such stringent tutorial preparation lay in

his belief that the tutorials were designed to consolidate concepts and not teach them. On

completion of the tutorial session, Calvin was required to go back to his ‘place of study’ to

rework the notes he had made during the tutorial and to merge them with his principles page;

the purpose of this being to review what he had learnt from the tutorial and to reinforce the

knowledge gained.

Greg, who went on to become the number one candidate when he sat both the SAICA

Part I Qualifying Exam and the Part II Qualifying Exam, was happy to act as role-model and

provide guided mastery to Calvin and other students, but only to the extent that he felt that his

advice was of some value. On numerous occasions he would reiterate the need for students to

take ownership of their studies and not to rely on his techniques if they were not of specific

benefit to them. In his personal notes to his fellow students on how to ‘Navigate Financial

Accounting Four’, Greg writes: ‘If you think my advice isn’t working, STOP FOLLOWING

IT. Speak to someone, think about potential changes in your approach, and see if your new

approach works!’

The new approach paid off and by June Calvin was one of the top performing students

of his class. At this point he approached an auditing firm regarding a bursary and he was

successful in his application. Calvin was now able to focus solely on his studies, and on his

second attempt he not only passed the fourth year but was selected by the School of

Accountancy to remain at the university for his first year of articles as an academic trainee.

The human element: The catalyst for change

Two major cycles of ‘failure’ followed by significant ‘success’ in his academic career

emerged from analysis of the interview with Calvin. The first was his demotion to the B

stream in grade 12, followed by his excellent matriculation scores (one score being an ‘A’ for

Biology), which guaranteed him access to a challenging university degree: the Bachelor of

Accounting Science. The second was his failure in fourth year at university in 2011, followed

by his subsequent graduation in 2012.

In both cases, cognitive, motivational and behavioural strategies and skills were

needed to create his successful ‘turn-around’ in academic achievement (Doll, Zucker and

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Brehm 2004). With regard to his school career, Calvin identified a number of power strategies

modelled, fostered, and in some cases enforced by his father: time-management, the value and

practice of reading for growth, the value and practice of writing extensively, and the value and

practice of perseverance and discipline. Other SRL strategies may well have been modelled

and fostered in his years at a former Model C school when his father moved him to

Johannesburg.

With regard to his time at university, Calvin made special mention of the skills and

strategies that he had been exposed to and ultimately adopted, through his interaction with a

course coordinator and an academic trainee as role-models. These included, among others,

being able to assess his current academic reality, taking responsibility for his weaknesses

while still leveraging his strengths, identifying the type of help he needed and whom to

approach for that help, the value and practice of drawing-up academic goals and enabling

timetables, making one’s own notes during the lectures and tutorials, and converting these to

principle (summary) pages afterwards.

Running parallel to the development of these skills and strategies is the presence of

‘motivation’ – both extrinsic and intrinsic (Bembenutty 2011). Interestingly, the ‘spark’

igniting intrinsic motivation appears to differ radically in the two cycles. Although his father

appears to have played an extremely positive role in motivating Calvin and providing a ‘safe’

space (both literally and figuratively) for his academic growth and development, Calvin’s

general experiences with teachers and peers was not as positive. Ironically, it was their

seemingly negative and prejudiced behaviour towards him that motivated him to ‘prove them

wrong’, and to ultimately succeed at school. It may well have been these negative motivating

experiences that laid the ground for his failure at university: his deep mistrust of

teachers/lecturers and resultant reluctance to engage with them, even when he desperately

needed both cognitive/metacognitive assistance and personal guidance. It would appear that

without the presence of the human element, particularly in the form of the academic

coordinator and the academic trainee, Calvin’s old motivating pattern of ‘prov[ing] them

wrong’ would not have earned him his academic success. He himself acknowledges this, and

as an academic trainee he has been able to use his own experience of failure followed by

success to encourage demotivated and failing students within the School of Accountancy.

CONCLUSION

Calvin’s personal mantra is ‘failure is not an option’. His academic journey to success is

testimony to the fact that, although it has been a difficult one, and one in which he has

16

stumbled and sometimes fallen, he has ultimately succeeded. During the course of his

academic journey, Calvin acquired the skills, strategies and attitudes of a self-regulated

learner. His successful journey strengthens the findings of advocates of SRL and guided

mastery, which suggest that when students become more engaged in their learning and

achieve greater success therein, that is, they adopt self-regulatory processes, and they are far

more likely to achieve academic success.

Unfortunately, few students are prepared or know how to use self-regulatory processes

independently, and as a result, many are unable to take full control of and accountability for

their learning. But as shown in this account of Calvin’s journey, self-regulation can be taught

through role-modelling and acquired through guided mastery. Findings from this case study

suggest that use of the SRL model may well be a way forward for lecturers and students in

tertiary institutions across South Africa. The greatest challenge to the successful

implementation of SRL may, however, reside with the human element, in terms of the time,

energy and commitment needed for the role-modelling of motivational, behavioural, cognitive

and metacognitive strategies to students, alongside the guided mastery thereof.

Having seen the major roles that Calvin’s father, the fourth year course coordinator,

and the academic trainee, Greg, played in his journey, it would appear that without the human

element to provide a ‘safe space’, to ‘motivate’ the individual, and to ‘model’ the skills and

strategies of SRL, the potential of the SRL process to increase throughput rates may be

severely limited. It may not be possible for lecturers to address the individual needs of

students when faced with large classes. However, a possible way forward may be through the

use of small-group tutorial sessions run by lecturers or tutors (peers, in some cases) schooled

in SRL practices and willing to operate as role-models. The advantage of using this system is

that it could create a more enabling environment for the students, one that could be more

conducive to the development of SRL and a resilient student body. This, in turn, could lead to

an improvement in the performance and results of the tertiary student population in South

Africa.

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