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More socio-emotional regulation, more effective? Exploring social regulation of learning in collaborative argumentation among the high and low performing groups

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Abstract

Collaborative argumentation (CA) is a prolific but challenging form of collaborative learning that requires group members to engage in a quantity of regulation to sustain the group’s productive functioning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between the high- and low- performing CA groups in terms of (a) challenges and triggered social regulation during CA, and (b) sequential patterns of social regulation used by those groups. From that, this research aimed to reveal what may promote or constrain CA from the perspective of social regulation. The target groups were selected from a larger sample of 14 groups based on the groups’ argument diagram scores after they participated in a 90-min CA activity. Videos and interview data were collected and analyzed to reveal the encountered challenges and social regulation in the activity. Several findings were obtained. First, the low-performing groups encountered far more challenges and the biggest difference between the high- and low-performing groups was the socio-emotional challenges. Second, more challenges were regulated in low-performing groups, with more cognitive and socio-emotional challenges being regulated and less motivational challenges being handled. For cognitive challenges, the effective strategies to deal with the deadlock in reaching an agreement were identified among high-performing groups. For socio-emotional challenges, although more have been regulated in low-performing groups, the tense atmosphere made social regulation less successful. For motivational challenges, low-performing groups paid little attention to other members’ participation. Third, the high- and low- performing groups demonstrated different sequential patterns, such as more transitions related to socio-emotional regulation and evaluation in high- performing groups. Pedagogical implications and the need to support students to cope with socio-emotional challenges are discussed in the last.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the first author.

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Funding

This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No: 62277006) and the International Joint Research Project of Faculty of Education of Beijing Normal University (Grant No: ICER201903).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xiaoran Li, Yanyan Li, Wanqing Hu, Keru Li & Lei Gao

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  1. Xiaoran Li
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  2. Yanyan Li
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Contributions

LXR led the research project, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. LYY supervised the research and revised the manuscript. HWQ and LKR conducted the data collection and analysis. GL supported the instructional process. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yanyan Li.

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The research involved human participants and followed the procedures of the Education Faculty’s Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained for all participants.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 8

Table 8 The assessment criteria for the argument diagram
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Appendix 2

Table 9

Table 9 The coding scheme for socio-emotional regulation
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Appendix 3

Table 10

Table 10 The coding scheme for metacognitive regulation
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Appendix 4

Interview questions

  1. 1.

    Are you satisfied with the collaboration? why?

  2. 2.

    How do you feel about the quality of the group argument diagram? Why?

  3. 3.

    Have you learned something new or changed your standpoints on the fast diet through collaborative argumentation? How?

  4. 4.

    What challenges or difficulties did your group encounter in the collaborative argumentation?

  5. 5.

    Do you think other members of the group were aware of these challenges or difficulties?

  6. 6.

    What strategies your group have been taken to deal with the challenges or difficulties? Do you think it worked? If it didn’t work, why?

  7. 7.

    What challenges or difficulties your group haven’t taken strategies to deal with? Why?

Appendix 5

Table 11

Table 11 The adjusted residuals table (Z-scores) of the HP and LP groups
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Li, X., Li, Y., Hu, W. et al. More socio-emotional regulation, more effective? Exploring social regulation of learning in collaborative argumentation among the high and low performing groups. Metacognition Learning 18, 261–293 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-022-09329-4

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