Motivational orientation and practice-scheduling patterns as correlates of self-regulated learning strategies in pre-professional cello students: a predictive-correlational study

Vollständiger Abstract

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Background Self-regulated learning (SRL) theory and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) propose that motivational orientation is statistically linked to the cognitive and metacognitive strategies learners use during independent practice. Prior research on instrumental practice—including earlier descriptive analyses of this population—has relied on concurrent correlational designs that cannot establish predictive ordering or test underlying processes. Aim This predictive-correlational study examined whether a self-reported, single-item indicator of primary motivational reason (interest/mastery-oriented vs. exam-oriented) and a self-reported practice-scheduling pattern (daily/structured, unstructured, or pre-examination) were statistically associated with five strategic practice dimensions—attention, rehearsal, elaboration, organization, and comprehension monitoring—and whether comprehension monitoring statistically mediates the association between these variables and academic achievement and self-perceived competence. Methods Participants were 166 pre-professional cello students from Fine Arts High Schools in Türkiye (convenience/purposive sample; school identifiers were not retained, precluding multilevel analysis). Data were analyzed using Welch’s t -tests and Welch’s ANOVA with Games–Howell post-hoc comparisons, hierarchical multiple regression with full diagnostic checks (including HC3-robust inference for one heteroscedastic model), and bootstrapped (10,400 resamples) mediation analysis; because the proportionality assumption of the ordinal logistic model was violated, mediation was re-estimated using multinomial logistic regression, which does not require this assumption. Holm-Bonferroni correction was applied within each hypothesis’s family of five strategy-dimension tests. Results Self-reported interest/mastery-oriented motivation was associated with higher rehearsal, elaboration, and comprehension-monitoring scores. The hypothesized (H3) block-level associations of motivation and scheduling with elaboration and comprehension-monitoring strategy use did not survive Holm correction; an unhypothesized, exploratory association between motivation and rehearsal was the only regression finding to survive correction (Δ R 2 = 0.107, p _Holm < 0.002) and is reported as a hypothesis-generating finding rather than a confirmed one. Self-reported daily scheduling was associated with higher comprehension-monitoring and attention scores. Under the assumption-appropriate multinomial specification, none of the twelve bootstrapped indirect effects (motivation and both scheduling contrasts, via comprehension monitoring, on achievement and competence) reached statistical significance. Conclusion Self-reported motivational orientation is statistically associated with several, but not all, self-regulated practice strategies in this sample, with the strongest and most robust association observed for an unhypothesized dimension (rehearsal); comprehension monitoring did not emerge as a statistically supported mediating mechanism once model assumptions were satisfied. Findings are correlational, based on single-item self-report measures and a non-probability sample from one country, and should be interpreted as hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory.