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Monitoring how learning progresses is a prerequisite for individual students to self-regulate their learning and for a group of students to regulate their collaborative learning. This dissertation investigates how students become aware of their progress during collaborative learning through metacognitive monitoring and social interaction. It examines how students monitor their learning together, how individual monitoring interplays with group-level regulation of learning, and how metacognitive monitoring is reflected in the interpersonal physiology of the students. The study used data from multiple levels (physiological, psychological, and social) of collaborative groups. Three datasets were collected. The first data collection occurred in a high school students’ health education course, the second in university students’ business simulation tasks, and the third in a secondary school students’ advanced physics course. The primary data source was the videos of these contexts, which were complemented with physiological data (electrodermal activity), performance measures (log data, quiz scores, course exam), and self-reports. The results are reported in three empirical articles. The results suggest that groups perform better when students participate equally in social interactions to monitor their task progress. Further, students who are less accurate in their monitoring seem to benefit more from group-level regulation for their learning than more accurate students. Increased physiological arousal and physiological synchrony relate especially to social interactions, signaling that the task is not progressing toward the group’s goal. The findings highlight that the pivotal role of metacognitive monitoring is reflected in social interactions and physiology. Theoretically, the dissertation supports the view that multiple systemic levels are involved in the self-regulatory processes of collaborative learning. Methodologically, the study illustrates the potential a, Tiivistelmä Oman oppimisen tarkkailu on edellytys sekä yksilön itsesäätelylle että ryhmän yhteisöllisen oppimisen säätelylle. Tämä väitöstutkimus tarkastelee, kuinka oppijat tulevat metakognitiivisen tarkkailun ja sosiaalisen vuorovaikutuksen kautta tietoiseksi yhteisöllisen oppimisensa etenemisestä. Tavoitteena on selvittää, miten oppijat tarkkailevat oppimistaan yhdessä, miten yksilön tarkkailu yhteisvaikuttaa ryhmätason oppimisen säätelyn kanssa ja miten metakognitiivinen tarkkailu heijastuu oppijoiden fysiologiaan. Tutkimus perustuu kolmeen osatutkimukseen, joista ensimmäisen ainesto kerättiin lukiolaisten terveystiedon kurssilta, toinen yliopisto-opiskelijoiden yrityssimulaatiotehtävästä ja kolmas yläkoululaisten syventävältä fysiikan kurssilta. Tutkimuksessa hyödynnettiin aineistoa yhteisöllisen oppimisen usealta tasolta (fysiologinen, psykologinen ja sosiaalinen). Ensisijainen aineisto olivat videot, joita täydennettiin fysiologisilla mittauksilla (elektrodermaalinen aktiivisuus), suoriutumismittauksilla (simulaation lokitiedot, tietotestit, kurssikoe) ja itsearvioilla. Tulokset on raportoitu kolmessa empiirisessä artikkelissa. Tulosten perusteella ryhmät menestyvät keskimäärin paremmin yhteisöllisessä oppimisessa, kun ryhmänjäsenet osallistuvat tasapuolisesti tehtävän edistymisen tarkkailuun. Lisäksi oppilaat, joiden oman oppimisen tarkkailu on epätarkkaa, vaikuttaisivat hyötyvän enemmän ryhmätason säätelystä kuin tarkkailultaan tarkemmat oppilaat. Lisääntynyt fysiologinen aktivaatio ja synkronia ryhmän jäsenten kesken liittyvät erityisesti vuorovaikutukseen, jossa opiskelijat tarkkailevat, ettei tehtävä etene kohti ryhmän tavoitetta. Metakognitiivisen tarkkailun keskeinen rooli yhteisöllisen oppimisen säätelylle vaikuttaa heijastuvan sosiaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa ja fysiologiassa. Teoreettisesti väitöskirja tukee näkemystä siitä, että yhteisöllisen oppimisen säätelyprosesseissa on mukana useita systeemisiä tasoja. Metodologisesti tutkimus havainnollistaa

Self-regulated learning theory acknowledges the importance of an individual’s metacognitive monitoring and group-level regulation for learning achievement in collaborative learning. However, very few studies have empirically investigated the interplay of these factors. This study aimed to investigate how groups’ metacognitive interactions, group-level regulation, and individuals’ metacognitive monitoring accuracy together predict students’ learning achievement. Thirty groups of secondary school students (n = 94) attended a five-week physics course involving four 90-min lessons. Each lesson included a collaborative learning session in which the students solved physics problems in groups of three. After each session, the students filled out a quiz that evaluated their learning of the core concepts related to each lesson. The students’ collaborative learning was video-recorded using 360-degree cameras. First, the groups’ metacognitive interaction, co-regulation (CoRL), and socially shared regulation (SSRL) during collaborative learning were coded from the video data. Second, the students’ metacognitive monitoring accuracy was determined in relation to quizzes presented at the end of each collaborative session. Each student’s learning achievement was assessed at the end of the course with an individual written exam. Bayesian multilevel models were used to analyze the nested data. The results showed that the frequency of metacognitive interaction was positively related to learning achievement. However, the relation between CoRL and learning achievement was moderated by monitoring accuracy and metacognitive interaction. The relation between CoRL and achievement was positive when coupled with a high frequency of metacognitive interactions but negative under a low frequency of metacognitive interactions. In addition, in line with theory, the students with lower monitoring accuracy achieved higher learning when CoRL was frequent in a group. Due to the low occurrence

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a cyclical process in which team members go back and forth between various cognitive and affective phases as they interact with the problem state and each other. An increasing amount of research has been conducted to explore how sequential relationships between the CPS phases affect team performance outcomes. However, detecting CPS phases mainly relies on labor-intensive methods, such as video coding of all team interactions during the problem-solving process. Furthermore, it is challenging to understand the level of sharedness or togetherness among the team members when they go through a specific CPS phase. Consequently, this study aimed to investigate shared physiological arousal events (SPAE) in CPS. We developed and implemented a new method for detecting SPAEs during CPS by utilizing skin conductance response data. Our findings showed that SPAE can be a promising method for detecting the cognitive and socio-emotional CPS phases that are demonstrated as increasing physiological arousal among the team members. Process-mining analysis of the SPAEs revealed different sequential pathways among the successful and less successful teams both in terms of the CPS phases and the problem variables they address during SPAEs. The current study contributes to the timely agenda of CPS and collaborative learning fields in developing multimodal methods to unearth complex team interaction processes during collaboration.

Being aware of the progress towards one’s goals is considered one of the main characteristics of the self-regulation process. This is also the case for collaborative problem solving, which invites group members to metacognitively monitor the progress with their goals and externalize it in social interactions while solving a problem. Monitoring challenges can activate group members to control the situation together, which can be seen as adjustments on different systemic levels (physiological, psychological, and interpersonal) of a collaborative group. This study examines how the pivotal role of monitoring for collaborative problem solving is reflected in interactions, performance, and interpersonal physiology. The study has foci in two central characteristics of monitoring interactions that facilitate groups’ regulation in reaching their goals. First is valence of monitoring, indicating whether the group members think they are progressing towards their goal or not. Second is equality of participation in monitoring interactions between group members. Participants of the study were volunteering higher education students (N = 57), randomly assigned to groups of three members whose collaborative task was to learn to run a business simulation. The collaborative task was video recorded, and the physiological arousal of each participant was recorded from their electrodermal activity. The results of the study suggest that both the valence and equality of participation are identifiable in monitoring interactions and they both positively predict groups’ performance in the task. Equality of participation to monitoring was not related to the interpersonal physiology. However, valence of monitoring was related to interpersonal physiology in terms of physiological synchrony and arousal. The findings support the view that characteristics of monitoring interactions make a difference to task performance in collaborative problem solving and that interpersonal physiology relat

This study investigated the interplay of temporal changes in self-regulated learning processes (i.e., behavioral, cognitive, motivational and emotional) and their relationship with academic achievement in computer-supported collaborative learning. The study employed electrodermal activity and self-report data to capture the dynamicity of self-regulated learning processes during 15 sessions of collaborative learning activities. Our findings revealed that the changes in motivational regulation was related to academic achievement. However, academic achievement was not related to behavioral regulation, cognitive regulation or emotional regulation. Physiological synchrony among the collaborating students was found to be related only to cognitive regulation. The results also showed that the concordance of self-report data among the collaborating students was related to higher physiological synchrony among them in the behavioral, cognitive, and motivational dimensions of self-regulated learning. The findings reflect the complexity of the relationships between self-regulated learning constructs and demonstrates the potential value of physiological measures in self-regulated learning research.

Although research on collaborative learning suggests that monitoring plays an important role in successful regulation of the collaborative learning process, little is known about how students attend to it together. This study explores monitoring in collaborative learning. Specifically, it studies how students in a group monitor their cognitive, affective and behavioral processes during their collaboration, as well as how observed monitoring co-occurs with their physiological synchrony during the collaborative learning session. Data was collected from 48 Finnish highschool students who were learning about nutrition in groups of three. The session was videotaped and coded in terms of monitoring of cognition, behavior and affect. Students’ arousal was measured as electrodermal activity with wearable sensors and used to calculate physiological synchrony between the students. Three case groups, with priority on the quality of the data, were chosen for detailed analysis. The results indicate that the main targets of monitoring for these case groups were cognition and behavior, while monitoring of affect occurred the least. Most of the student pairs inside the groups showed significant amounts of physiological synchrony. High values of physiological synchrony occurred when monitoring was frequent. Time series analysis showed a weak positive connection between monitoring and physiological synchrony for two groups out of three. These results indicate that physiological synchrony could potentially shine a light on the joint regulation processes of collaborative learning groups.