What did you study?
I studied how groups encounter cognitive, socioemotional, and motivational challenges and how they regulate their learning together. The data consisted of video-recorded simulation-based group tasks in which pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and higher education students worked in small groups. I was especially interested in when challenges and regulation occur during collaboration and what kinds of interactional pathways emerge between them.
What were the results of your study or what is its main finding?
The main finding is that successful collaborative learning does not depend only on how much groups regulate their work, but on when and how regulation takes place. High-performing groups planned, monitored their progress, and adapted their strategies more flexibly than low-performing groups. Their participation was also more balanced, with several group members contributing to shared progress. The findings show that regulation is a temporal, recurring, and shared process: groups do not only react to problems, but can also anticipate them.
How can the results be applied? What new insights did the research contribute to the topic?
The results can be applied in teacher education and in the design of collaborative learning environments. Group work should not be treated as something that automatically succeeds. Students need support in shared planning, monitoring progress, balancing participation, and adapting strategies. The research contributes new knowledge about how groups can be supported at the right time during different phases of collaboration, for example in simulations and other demanding learning tasks.
Public defence details
Faisal Channa’s doctoral dissertation “Temporal and Sequential Dynamics of Socially Shared Regulation in Collaborative Learning among Pre- and In-Service Teachers” will be examined on Friday, 12 June 2026 at 12:00 in the University of Jyväskylä, Seminarium building, S212 Old Festival Hall.
Opponent: Associate Professor Leo Siiman, University of Tartu, Estonia
Custos: Associate Professor Piia Näykki, University of Jyväskylä
Language of the public defence: English
