The effect of project-based collaborative learning on self-regulated learning development of medical students

The study of designing learning contexts where learners can train and develop their self-regulated learning ability has recently been attracting attentions. This study investigated the effects of the project-based collaborative learning context on self-regulated learning development of medical students in one medical school. In this learning context, the students worked in a mixed group composed of the students with different levels of self-regulated learning ability (high, medium and low). It also explored the relationship among co-regulation that occurred during collaboration, their pre and post self-regulated learning abilities as well. The development of self-regulated learning ability and the relationship were investigated according to the level of their pre self-regulated learning ability as well. For this, 50 second-year medical students who enrolled in the ‘scientific thinking and medical research’ course participated in this study. Ten mixed groups were composed, each group with 5 students, one from the high level, two from the medium level, and two from the low level based on the results of the self-regulated learning questionnaire implemented at the beginning of the course. In the class, the students in a mixed group conducted authentic research for ten weeks. After finishing their research, they filled out the same self-regulated learning questionnaire and co-regulation questionnaire online. According to the results, this collaborative learning context is effective to develop students’ self-regulated learning ability. In addition, the learners with lower self-regulated learning ability showed a similar level of co-regulated activities to the learners with higher self-regulated learning ability and this co-regulated activities had the correlation with the development of self-regulated learning ability. Such connection was particularly strong for the students with the medium level of pre self-regulated learning ability. These results can provide important implications for instructional design for development of learners’ self-regulated learning ability.