How do students regulate social-emotional reactions in collaborative learning? An empirical study of students enrolled onto a Foundation programme at a Business School.

Abstract

Abstract

The social-emotional context to collaborative learning is recognised within Higher Education. As educators, we should reflect on how well do we understand its influence on students' learning? The discourse on collaborative learning draws from the theorisation of group work and the models of co-regulated and socially-shared regulated learning. These models of group regulation not only build on theories of self-regulated learning but link to the literature on academic emotions and social-emotional reactions. However, the corpus of published research is focussed on undergraduate students, and this therefore represents a gap in our understanding in relation to those who are enrolled onto pre-undergraduate study as in the case of Foundation programmes. This paper reports on a mixed methods study that investigated how Foundation programme students in a Business School managed their emotions in collaborative group work. The findings point to differences in gender and ability as possible factors for further research. In doing so, this paper makes an original contribution to the discourse on collaborative learning and addresses a gap in the literature in relation to Foundation programme students and their emotions. In addition, this paper also offers a conceptual framework within which to theorise further about the nature of the collaborative learning journey.

Keywords: Collaborative learning; Co-regulation of learning; Socially-shared regulated learning; Social-emotional reaction; Socio-emotional culture.