Hanna Järvenoja & Sanna Järvelä (2009)
Emotion control in collaborative learning situations: Do students regulate emotions evoked by social challenges?
British Journal of Educational Psychology , 463-481
Research moves from ideas of self regulated learning to how motivation is regulated in collaborative contexts where there are socio-emotional challenges.
P463 ‘ During recent years, self regulated learning (SRL) has become a major research field. SRL successfully integrates the cognitive and motivational components of learning. Self regulated learning (SRL) p463 ‘ an active, goal orientated process that encompasses the control of cognitive and metacognitive actions, motivation and affect, and context’ with social as primarily contextual article goes on to interrogate the impact of socio-emotional challenges.
In collaborative learning individuals need to regulate the process of learning together and this involves
· Negotiate
· Compromise
· Reconsider
· Explain
· Listen
P464 ‘ group members regulate their emotions and cognition together through shared responsibility for the learning task requirements’ can be conceptualized as either
1. Shared regulation – group employs common strategies and tactics to control challenges together’
2. Co-regulation , ‘in which individuals assist each other’s regulation’ – ‘ the individual seeks to affect others and is affected by others with the intention of achieving their own goals’
RQs p 466
1. What kinds of socio-emotional challenges students experience during collaborative learning
2. Whether students use self, other, or shared regulation in socio-emotionally challenging situations
3. How group members interpretations of the group challenges and of the different forms of regulation vary within and between the group
Method
63 first year teacher education students. Studied (f-f) in groups of 3-5 and participated in 3 different collaborative tasks(1-structured, creates cognitive conflicts between group members, stimulate student augmentation n and negotiation), (2-case, encourage discussion and sharing of authentic real-life experiences, share expertise), (3=Open, stimulate group to take responsibility and regulate their work, encourage students v to be persistent and tolerate uncertainty))
Measurements
Adaptive Instrument for the Regulation of Emotions (AIRE - ? whether methodology paper published). 4 sections
1. Personal task specific goals (originates from research on achievement, well-being and social Goals Dowson & McInerney(2003) – Students asked to identify the most important goal from 12 options)
2. Socio-emotional challenges (5 point Likert scale – the extent to which they experienced 14 socially challenging situations - based on empirical studies ( Van den Bossche et al, 2006) why learners fail to successfully complete. After rating all the challenges, students were asked to indicate which challenge triggered the most emotions in their group in the specific task they had just finishes) p469 ‘The 14 challenge scenarios represent five different challenge types, namely challenges in personal priorities (A,B), work and communication(C,D,E,F), teamwork(G,H,I,J) collaboration(K,L,M) and external constraints(N). This thematic distribution demonstrates that the challenges within each category share some qualitative characteristics. However, each challenge scenario describes a socio-emotionally different situation that is independent of the other scenarios)
3. Regulation of emotions (self(i), shared(we). Other(I))
4. Goal attainment and reflection on group work
Results
Quantitative
1. Association of collaborative task(1,2,3) with thematic category (5) for socio emotional challenge i.e. challenge associated with task - KRO BUT tasks always done in the same order therefore effects may be due to time spent working together rather than the type of collaborative task. Over the three tasks ( time) teamwork and collaboration become more challenging and personal priorities and work and communication less so.
2. Reports of regulation type varied between tasks and groups. Reports about self regulation varied within groups – p472 ‘ an indicator of intrinsic group dynamics’
P473 ‘To sum up, students reported experiencing a variety of socio-emotional challenges in collaborative learning situations. There was a shift from more personal priorities challenges to collaborative type challenges when the task became less structured. Regardless of the task or type of challenge, the students engages in self and shared regulation processes. The level of congruent reports of shared –regulation by group members was different. Differences that are elaborated in the qualitative analysis.
Qualitative – individual measures using personal goals(themes), socio-emotional (themes), control of social challenge, ratings of category, goal achievement and function of group in achieving goal
2 project groups chosen for detailed comparisons p473 ‘ in order to demonstrate how groups’ intrinsic dynamics vary, and how the congruence or dissimilarity in reports of shared-regulation can be explained’ Group G range of reported oshared regulation was small, whereas in B it was substantial.
Group G Task 3 (note the task could be considered to be more challenging than task 2 (see B group) but then students have group worked together for longer)
Shared learning as the personal goal
2 students reported that emotion came from challenges in collaboration and two from challenges in teamwork
2 students reported slightly more individual regulation , socially shared regulation similar for all. P474 ‘ suggesting that group members had a shared understanding oh how they interacted as a group’
all 4 students were satisfied that their personal goals had been achieved and all 4 recognised the part that the group had played in this achievement.
Group B Task 2
2 students had a personal goal well being ( avoid being stressed) whereas the other two had a social goal (have a good time and enjoy the experience)
For socio emotional challenge 2 students reported personal priorities, 1 communication and another teamwork.
2 students reported relatively high levels of shared regulation - p475 ‘members of this group did not seem to share an understanding of the shared-regulation’
All reported that they achieved personal goals but differed on their interpretation of the role played by the group.
Conclusion
P476 ‘ Most group members believe they do something together to overcome socio-emotional challenges’
‘The concept of socially shared regulation requires further eloboration and empirical evidence. The concept of socially shared regulation ( Volet et al, 200() emphasizes the use of common strategies and tactics by group members’
Socio-emotional challenge scenarios and their distribution to the different challenge types
Personal priorities
A. Our goals for the project were different
B. We had different priorities
Work and communication
C. We seemed to have incompatible styles of
working
D. We seemed to have different styles of interacting
E. One/some people had problems with other students' accents and/or level of language proficiency
and thought it was difficult to work with them
Teamwork
R People in our group did not connect very well
with one another
G. One/some people were not fully committed
to the group project
H. People had very different standards of work
I. Group members were not equal
J. Some people were easily distracted
Collaboration
K. Our ideas about what we should
do were not the same
L We differed in our understanding of the content/task
M. Our conceptions of how to organize the work varied
External constraints
N. We had different personal life circumstances
or family/study and work commitments
Examples of self, other and shared self-regulation related to challenges C and L
| Type of regulation | Challenge CChallenge L | |
| self | I tried to accept the situation, realizing that some people had different styles of working | I tried to accept the situation, realizing that some people had a different perspective or understandings of the content |
| other | I told the others we needed to accept different styles of working | I told the others we needed to accept that there can be different ways to understand and interpret the content or the task |
| shared | We accepted that different members had different styles of working | We accepted that different members had different perspectives or understanding of the content or the task |
