The What, Why, and How of Distractions from a Self-Regulated Learning Perspective

College students do not study in isolated environments; rather, they encounter obstacles as they complete academic tasks. Using a qualitative approach, the present study explored the distractions and underlying causes students face as well as the strategies they use to control these distractions. Our findings suggested that students’ distractions, underlying causes, and strategies can be categorized into five themes. Four of these themes–cognition, motivation/affect, behavior, and context–have been well represented in prior self-regulated learning literature. The fifth theme, physiology, has not been well represented. We also identified the most common distractions (i.e., contextual), causes (i.e., motivational/affective), and strategies (i.e., contextual). Overall, our findings highlight the highly contextual nature of the obstacles college students encounter as they work toward their academic goals.