Development of learner autonomy in student-centred learning environments in engineering

Engineering graduates are required not only to have strong communication, problem-solving and teamwork skills but also the ability to face and adapt to new situations [1]. Hence, there is an evident need for developing life-long learning skills and particularly in fostering self-regulation of learning in engineering programmes. Project-Based Learning (PjBL) is a teaching pedagogy that supports the development of intellectual skills and autonomy through self-regulation.
Individual self-regulation of learning has been studied over the years in a range of education situations [7,14]. As teamwork becomes commonplace in education, the need to study team regulation has become apparent and models that include social and cognitive processes during teamwork have emerged [2]. However, new empirical evidence is still required to develop models of shared regulation in groups.
This study builds on the body of empirical evidence about shared regulation focusing on Project-Based Learning environments. It investigates how teams of engineering students actually develop shared team regulation and how this is related to individuals’ self-regulation. The study uses data from students’ project meetings during a one-semester long project as part of a Chemical Process design course.
As the emphasis of the study is in describing and analysing how shared regulation takes place within a group context, focusing the attention on verbal and non-verbal mechanisms as indicators of shared regulation displayed by the students; naturalistic data of teams of students are gathered while carrying out PjBL meetings (~5) via video recording (~10 hours). Transcripts of conversations/actions are coded in the first instance to describe what takes place and then to support the analysis. These data enable the identification of elements of regulatory behaviour as displayed through language.