Student Differences in Self-Regulated Learning: Relating Grade, Sex,
and Giftedness to Self-Efficacy and Strategy Use
Barry J. Zimmerman
Graduate School and University Center
City University of New York
Manuel Martinez-Pons
Brooklyn College
City University of New York
Forty-five boys and 45 girls of the 5th, 8th, and 1 lth grades from a school for the academically
gifted and an identical number from regular schools were asked to describe their use of 14 selfregulated
learning strategies and to estimate their verbal and mathematical efficacy. The groups
of students from both schools included Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Students came
from middle-class homes. Gifted students displayed significantly higher verbal efficacy, mathematical
efficacy, and strategy use than regular students. In general, 1 lth-grade students surpassed
8th graders, who in turn surpassed 5th graders on the three measures of self-regulated learning.
Students' perceptions of both verbal and mathematical efficacy were related to their use of selfregulated
strategies. Evidence of relations between students' strategic efforts to learn and perceptions
of academic self-efficacy is concordant with a triadic view of self-regulated learning.