Tailoring instruction to personality: The mediating role of cognitive tendencies in the effect of extraversion on higher vocational college students' self-regulated learning

Self-regulated learning refers to an individual's ability to set learning goals, select and adjust learning strategies, allocate resources, and optimize the learning process. This study examines the relationships among extraversion, cognitive tendencies, and self-regulated learning (SRL) in higher vocational college students. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 1524 vocational college students. The results showed that the Planning-Monitoring strategy, as well as the Task Value strategy, were important learning strategies for extraverted students. Cognitive tendencies toward positive other-relevant attention partially mediated the relationship between extraversion and learning motivation. Cognitive tendencies toward positive other-relevant attention and cognitive tendencies toward negative self-relevant attention exerted a full mediating role between extraversion and cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and a partial mediating role between extraversion and resource management strategies. The study indicates that extraversion can directly correlate with higher vocational college students' self-regulated learning and can also exert an indirect influence through cognitive tendencies.