Directive Other-Regulation in Collaborative Groups: Implications for Regulation Quality

• In Event: Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Social Processes in Students’ Motivation and Engagement

Abstract

The current study examines variation in other-regulation, conceptualized as efforts by one student to regulate their group’s work. This study extends research which has conceptualized other-regulation as guiding others’ conceptual understanding to include directive other-regulation. We richly describe directive forms and considering the differential impact on regulation quality. Qualitative analyses were conducted based on video-taped observations of three groups of 7th graders working on three collaborative activities during an inquiry unit. Directive other-regulation could be characterized as efforts to maintain control and their own task centrality, which was associated with low quality regulation. When group members do not have opportunities to make regulatory contributions, regulation and task quality suffer since the group cannot benefit from the potential of shared activity.

Authors

• Toni Kempler Rogat, Purdue University

• Karlyn R. Adams-Wiggins, Rutgers University