Don’t Waste a Crisis: COVID-19 and Marketing Students’ Self-Regulated Learning in the Online Environment

This research examines the extent to which a crisis situation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, affects marketing students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) and grade expectations. Data were collected from 841 undergraduate marketing students and analyzed using the Hayes process macro to test the proposed framework. The results show direct and significant effects of SRL and its substrategies (goal setting, environmental structuring, and time management) on students’ grade expectations. However, help-seeking and self-evaluation strategies do not have a direct effect on students’ grade expectations. Instead, the analysis shows that the comparative appraisal of grades mediates these effects. In addition, crisis impact moderates the relationship of goal setting, time management, and self-evaluation with students’ grade expectations. These results advance the understanding of SRL and self-determination theory by showing how a radical disruption can transform students’ learning and, in turn, affect their perceptions of performance outcomes. This research contributes to the pandemic pedagogy by suggesting not only that marketing educators should be upskilled in the use of technology but also that they should develop curriculum design and pedagogical strategies that support SRL and work to devise appropriate curricula that help marketing students become independent learners.