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Abstract

The aim of this dissertation was to contribute to the understanding of university students’ self-regulated learning and the effectiveness of specific learning activities in a real-world learning setting. In university settings in particular, learning is not only simply delivered by a teacher and absorbed by students but learning success largely depends on students’ behavior. Hence, it is necessary to analyze what students do in a real-world learning setting and how these activities are related to successful learning. To do so, I assessed students’ learning behavior and motivation while attending a lecture class and their association with learning outcomes. In this dissertation, several evidence-based learning activities were implemented in a large university course and their use as well as learning outcomes were evaluated empirically across five cohorts of students between spring 2018 and spring 2022.

The dissertation builds on a supply-use model of learning in higher education. In addressing all parts of the model, I describe learning in a university setting and models of self-regulated learning that fit into this context while also discussing different desirable learning outcomes. I present findings on the role of evidence-based learning activities as well as students’ individual prerequisites for academic success. Finally, I present my own empirical findings and, in the last section, I discuss how they can be placed in the context of the state of research. In all three peer-reviewed and internationally published Papers, the use of specific evidence-based learning activities was assessed in large university lecture classes. I continuously aimed to improve the understanding of learning activity use by assessing students’ learning intentions (Paper 1), adapting the assessment of activity use (Papers 2 and 3), and identifying different activity use patterns (Paper 3). Students who used many learning activities gained more knowledge beyond motivation and prior achievement (Papers 1 and 3), they further experienced less motivational decline over the course of one semester (Paper 2), and acquired a more accurate self-assessment of their own knowledge (Paper 3).