Simone Volet

Teamwork capabilities are essential for 21st century life, with groupwork emerging as a fruitful context to develop these skills. Case studies that explore interpersonal affect dynamics in authentic higher education groupwork settings can highlight collaborative skills development needs. This comparative case-study traced the sociodynamic evolution of two groups of first-year university students to investigate the high collaborative variance outcomes of the two groups, which reported starkly contrasting group dynamics (negative and dysfunctional or positive and collaborative). Mixed-methods (video-recorded observations of five groupwork labs over one semester, and group interviews) provided interpersonal affect data as real-time visible behaviours, and the felt experiences and perceptions of participants. The study traced interpersonal affect dynamics in the natural fluctuation of not just task-focused (on-task), but also explicitly relational (off-task) interactions, which revealed their function in both task participation and group dynamics. Findings illustrate visible interpersonal affect behaviours that manifested and evolved over time as interactive patterns, and group dynamics outcomes. Fine-grained analysis of interactions unveiled interpersonal affect as a collective, evolving process, and the mechanism through which one group started and stayed highly positive and collaborative over the semester. The other group showed a tendency towards splitting to undertake tasks early, leading to low group-level interpersonal attentiveness, and over time, subgroups emerged through interactions both off-task and on-task. The study made visible the pervasive nature of interpersonal affect as enacted through seemingly inconsequential everyday behaviours that supported the relational and task-based needs of groupwork, and those behaviours which impeded collaboration.

Currently, modified biochar has been successfully used in the remediation of soil polluted with heavy metals. However, the effects of the modified biochar on pesticides (such as simazine) are still unclear. Herein, the environmental fate of simazine, such as decomposition, leaching, and adsorption in unamended soil, in the soil amended with unmodified and modified biochar (biochar + FeCl3, biochar + FeOS, biochar + Fe) were evaluated. In addition, an incubation experiment was also performed to observe the influence of modified biochar on the microbial community and diversity in the soil. The results showed that modified biochar significantly decreased the decomposition of simazine in the soil compared to its counterpart. Modified biochar also reduced the concentration of simazine in the leachate. Compared with the control, soil microbial biomass in the soil amended with unmodified biochar, biochar + FeCl3, biochar + Fe, and biochar + FeOS was decreased by 5.3%, 18.8%, 8.7%, and 18.1%, respectively. Furthermore, modified biochar changed the structure of the microbial community. This shows that modified biochar could increase the soil adsorption capacity for simazine and change the amount and microbial community that regulates the fate of simazine in the soil. This study concludes that iron-modified biochar has positive and negative effects on the soil. Therefore, its advantages and side effects should be considered before applying it to the soil.

This study investigated how metacognitive regulation (MR), especially its forms and foci, was manifested in less and more successful outcome groups’ collaborative science learning in diverse learning contexts. Whilst previous research has shown that different forms and foci of MR exist in collaborative learning, their role in groups’ learning outcomes remains unexplored. Drawing conclusions from different studies has been difficult because these have used different conceptualisations and analytic methods. In the present study, the learning processes of less and more successful outcome groups from three diverse collaborative science learning contexts were scrutinised. The contexts differed in academic level, disciplinary subject, and national culture. The same theory-based conceptualisations, coding systems, coders, and analyses were used across contexts. In addition, the tasks studied were designed using the same guiding principles. Transcribed video and audio recordings of the groups’ verbal interactions for two distinct interaction segments from these tasks formed the basis of the analyses. Manifestation of forms and foci of MR were quantitatively and qualitatively illustrated in each context. The main findings show that the manifestation of MR of less and more successful outcome groups demonstrated similarities and differences in the three different learning contexts. This study contributes to a contextualised understanding of MR in collaborative science learning, and highlights the importance of using similar, rigorous analytical tools across diverse contexts.

During collaborative learning, students tend to spontaneously enact different participatory roles that may significantly affect collaborative learning processes. Only few empirical studies to date have investigated groups as systems based on emerging roles and role profiles of the participating students, and how emerging role profile configurations affect achievement. This exploration of students' self-adopted roles investigated the relationship between role profile configurations and achievement. The statistically driven identification of role profiles was based on fine-grained observations of student groups' interactions in two distinct collaborative science-learning settings. While higher achieving groups typically exhibited versatile science-oriented role profile configurations, opinion-based configurations prevailed in lower achieving groups. Although role profiles with a social orientation were rare, a student with a distracting profile can have a significant influence on group work. Consolidated by in-depth case examples, the findings highlight the importance of understanding how collaborating groups' emergent role profiles dynamically interact during collaborative learning and how different role profile configurations relate to achievement.

Interpersonal affect in face-to-face small groupwork, though pervasive in university and work environments, is rarely examined as the fine-grained sequential interactions in which it manifests. This review synthesized 21 recent studies in tertiary collaborative learning and organizational research that have used observation methods to investigate affect in face-to-face small groupwork. The analysis focused on examining the extent to which observational studies captured affect as social (interactive) and dynamic (temporally unfolding). Findings showed that observational methods elicit information about affect dynamics in groupwork that is unique and complementary to other methods. Key affect constructs, behavioral operationalizations, and analytical tools used to capture affect are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore affect in small groups learning together face-to-face in a virtual learning environment. The specific aims of the study were to establish how affect within groups (valence, intensity) related to the quality of group outcome (high, average, low), and to capture individual differences within the groups by using a multimethod approach. Participants were six groups of three high school students (N = 18) who achieved distinct outcome levels. Students’ self-reports of their affect and observed affect (researcher-coded selected segments from videos) were used to examine affect during three phases of interdisciplinary science inquiry, namely, planning the experiment, experimenting in the virtual laboratory, and concluding and preparing a joint group presentation. The overall results showed that positive affect was prevalent in both self-reports and researcher-coded observations across all phases. However, while self-reports displayed a strong dominance of positive affect, there was more variation in observed affect. Furthermore, the intensity of affect was higher in self-reports than in observations, for both positive and negative affect. Nonetheless, no effect of affect on group outcome was found. Finally, while within-group consistency in affect was evident in the extreme groups (high, low performance), it was more ambivalent in the groups that achieved an average performance. The results are discussed in light of the literature, and directions for future research on affect in collaborative learning are proposed.

This study examined the nature of effort towards challenge in stories recommended for young children in Indonesian schools. One hundred and nine stories with challenge information, recommended by the Indonesian government for Years 1 and 2 were analyzed, using a combination of content and structural analyses. When exploring the characters’ efforts towards challenge, the findings revealed that the most prominent type of effort depicted in the stories was exerted by characters other than the protagonist (other-initiated effort). Furthermore, while all stories with this type of effort had a successful outcome, self-initiated individual effort (exerted by the main character) was the most prevalent type of effort in stories with an unsuccessful outcome. These findings can be interpreted in more than one way. From the perspective of the achievement motivation literature, the responses to challenges depicted in the stories do not seem to promote a proactive approach towards difficulties. From the perspective of prevalent local values, however, the examples of effort presented in the stories may represent societal expectations concerning the acceptance of life events (in Indonesian: nrimo) and the promotion of caring values towards individuals in need. By integrating findings of the extant literature on achievement motivation with a contextually sensitive approach to the interpretation of the stories’ content, this study raises important questions for future research in this area.

This qualitative study scrutinised the experiences of intercultural relationship development between international and domestic students at two Japanese private universities, which have contrastive degrees of commitment to internationalisation in regard to stated vision, curriculum, international student enrolment and languages of instruction. Kudo et al.’s (Higher Education, 77(3), 473–489, 2019) three-stage ecological and person-in-context conceptual framework was adopted to gain insight into the roles of institutional internationalisation and personal agency in intercultural relationship development. A thematic analysis of interview data from 32 students (14 domestics, 18 internationals) revealed that institutional internationalisation may play a relatively small role in promoting intercultural relationship development compared to students’ agency. A detailed examination of the associations between three forms of agency (i.e. situated, cosmopolitan and creative) and three relational stages (i.e. interactivity, reciprocity and unity) led to the identification of cosmopolitan agency as a meaningful hallmark of intercultural relationship development. These findings call for future research aimed at identifying the environmental and individual conditions that are most conducive to the cultivation of cosmopolitan agency in both international and domestic students.

This paper investigates associations between pre-service primary teachers’ attitudinal profiles towards science learning (n = 108) and their learning outcomes in an introductory science unit. It expands on previous work on this cohort that used person-centred analyses (cluster analysis) to identify attitudinal profiles at the start and end of the unit (i.e. Optimal, Promising, Vulnerable, and Uncommitted). In the present study, profile transitions from start to end were calculated to determine transition patterns (i.e. Stays Favourable, Stays Unfavourable, Migrates to Favourable, and Migrates toUnfavourable). Subsequently, one-way multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to test differences in learning outcomes by initial attitudinal profile and transition patterns. Total assignment mark and final exam mark were used as indicators of achievement of unit learning outcomes, while number of quizzes completed was used as an indicator of student commitment to unit assessment. The results indicate that pre-service primary teachers who started the unit with Optimal and Promising profiles achieved better outcomes and engaged more with unit assessment than those who started with Uncommitted or Vulnerable profiles. In terms of transition patterns, starting and staying in a Favourable profile (Optimal and Promising) led to the most successful outcomes, while the opposite was the case for students who started and stayed in the least favourable profiles (Vulnerable and Uncommitted). These findings suggest the importance of the early identification of students whose attitudes towards learning science may show vulnerability or lack of commitment so targeted interventions and suitable adaptations to curriculum and classroom environment can be put in place.

This study explored teachers’ autonomy-supportive and controlling behaviors through video-taped observation in the classroom. Four lessons by two teachers from a secondary school in Finland were videotaped and analyzed using a rigorous coding protocol. It was found that teachers employed both autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching during the same lesson, and even combined them in the same instructional sequence. This finding suggests the complexity of the use of autonomy support and control in the classroom, as well as their context-dependent aspects. The novel finding from this study was that teachers showed error tolerance and creativity to support students’ autonomy. Showing error tolerance and teaching creatively have not been investigated from the perspective of autonomy support in previous research. Furthermore, this study suggested that indirect control and its negative effects on students’ learning and well-being should arouse more concern in future research. Implications for teaching practice concerning supporting students’ autonomy have been provided.