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Temporal Change in Middle School Students’ Academic and Social Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Unit: The Role of Social Regulation and Socioemotional Challenges

Masonheimer, August Twopearls
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744103430395671

Abstract Details

2025, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Educational Studies.
The overarching goal of this project was to understand how social regulatory processes may serve as a mechanism to help adolescents navigate socioemotional challenges and sustain their academic and social engagement within a collaborative learning unit. Grounded within a social cognitive framework, social regulatory processes consisting of students’ use of self-regulated learning (SRL) and socially shared regulated learning (SSRL) strategies were examined as mechanisms that may support unit-long temporal patterns of student engagement. This research was further conducted within a summer enrichment program, an understudied context in social regulation and engagement research. Four research questions were utilized to guide the present research concerning 1) temporal patterns of engagement, their associations with 2) socioemotional challenges and 3) social regulation strategies, and 4) whether social regulation strategies moderate the relationship between socioemotional challenges and engagement. Participants included 72 middle school students in a five-week voluntary summer enrichment program. Students were enrolled in a project-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) unit. Following an event-contingent design, students completed a self-report survey after each of the four STEM project benchmarks within the unit. These surveys assessed five key constructs: academic engagement, social engagement, socioemotional challenges, SRL strategies, and SSRL strategies. Results indicated that academic engagement followed a negative linear pattern, slightly decreasing throughout the STEM unit, while social engagement remained relatively stable over time. SRL strategies positively predicted academic engagement both in the growth model and at specific time points, though were not associated with changes in academic engagement over time. Similarly, social engagement was positively predicted by SSRL strategies and marginally predicted by SRL strategies, but neither mode of social regulation was linked to its temporal pattern. Socioemotional challenges showed no significant associations with either dimension of engagement, nor temporal patterns of engagement. A marginal moderation effect was observed between SSRL strategies and socioemotional challenges during the first STEM project benchmark, though no other evidence of moderation was observed. Overall, findings highlight the importance of examining engagement and social regulation as distinct yet interconnected processes in collaborative learning. The differing temporal patterns of academic and social engagement indicate that these processes were distinct representations of students’ experiences throughout the unit. Furthermore, the unique association between these patterns and distinct social regulation strategies (i.e., SRL and SSRL), suggest that both individual and group-level regulatory strategies contribute to students’ academic and social engagement in distinct ways. While socioemotional challenges showed minimal direct effects on engagement, the marginal moderation effect of SSRL strategies at one STEM project benchmark suggests potential situational influences that warrant further exploration. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of engagement and regulation in collaborative learning, particularly in non-traditional settings such as summer enrichment programs.
Christopher Wolters (Committee Chair)
Tzu-Jung Lin (Committee Member)
Jerome D'Agostino (Committee Member)
Eric Anderman (Committee Member)
202 p.
Education; Educational Psychology
Self-regulated learning; socially shared regulated learning; socioemotional challenges; student engagement; collaborative learning

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Masonheimer, A. T. (2025). Temporal Change in Middle School Students’ Academic and Social Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Unit: The Role of Social Regulation and Socioemotional Challenges [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744103430395671

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Masonheimer, August. Temporal Change in Middle School Students’ Academic and Social Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Unit: The Role of Social Regulation and Socioemotional Challenges. 2025. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744103430395671.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Masonheimer, August. "Temporal Change in Middle School Students’ Academic and Social Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Unit: The Role of Social Regulation and Socioemotional Challenges." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2025. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744103430395671

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1744103430395671
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© 2025, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Temporal Change in Middle School Students’ Academic and Social Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Unit: The Role of Social Regulation and Socioemotional Challenges by August Twopearls Masonheimer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12