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This study examined the temporal and dynamic nature of students’ self-regulatory processes while learning about the circulatory system with hypermedia. A total of 74 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: independent learning or externally assisted learning. Participants in the independent learning condition used a hypermedia environment to learn about the circulatory system on their own, while participants in the externally assisted condition used the same hypermedia environment, but were given prompts and feedback from a human tutor during the session to facilitate their self-regulatory behavior. Previously published pretest–posttest shifts toward more mature understanding of the circulatory system indicate that the externally assisted condition leads to greater learning. The present article uses think-aloud data during learning to explore process issues in light of models of self …