At this university, writing instruction varies from instructor to instructor. Teachers are granted much creative leeway. We can choose our own textbooks, design our own curriculum, and shape writing tasks and assessments. As we set about selecting materials and designing lessons it is easy to assume that the college-aged students we teach have more self-knowledge and employ more metacognitive strategies than they actually do. The results of this study will help instructors better understand the pre-writing strategies college students are already employing as well as those strategies that need explicit instruction and reinforcement.

     Furthermore, much of the SRSD research has been done with learning disabled elementary school students, while not many studies have explored model as it applies to college students. This study contributes to the body of research in self-regulated strategy development as it relates to the planning phase of the writing process in college students.