Simone Volet

• PhD
• Professor at Murdoch University

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...

Group cohesion is an affect-laden construct, with a large body of research indicating its importance for success of teams. Surprisingly, it has received scant attention in collaborative learning contexts, and little is known about its development as dynamically emergent in the spontaneous, interdependent actions of actors during groupwork. This pap...

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 outco...

This study explored how productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) is associated with the level of cognitive activity and collective group outcome in collaborative learning across multiple contexts. Traditionally, PDE has been studied in a single collaborative learning environment, without analysis of how these environments fulfill the supporting con...

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...

Socially shared metacognitive regulation (SSMR) has substantially expanded our understanding of metacognitive regulation in collaborative learning environments, as documented in intensifying research over the past 15 years. Designing new, innovative collaborative learning environments in science fields is thriving, but more empirically grounded evi...

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 a...

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...

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...

Prior research on the significance of roles in collaborative learning has explored their impact when they are pre-assigned to group members. In this article, it is argued that focusing on assigned roles downplays the spontaneous, emergent, and interactional nature of roles in small task groups and that this focus has limited the development of gene...

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 u...

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 usin...

The aim of the study was to explore the types and sources of positive emotions experienced by first year university students studying to become primary school teachers, during collaborative science learning. Fun science activities, designed to enhance students’ motivation for science, provided the context for examining the relationship between grou...

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...

Teachers can play a key role in stimulating children's interest in science, yet the literature suggests limited opportunities for such development at primary level. This study investigated how preservice primary teacher students with diverse attitudes towards learning science engage in collaborative science activities and how diverse attitudes infl...

This study examined affect during high school students' face-to-face collaborative inquiry learning in science, supported by the web-based software Virtual Baltic Sea Explorer. Self-reported affective states during the inquiry process in peer groups were related to evaluations of a group's collaboration and performance in three phases of interdisci...

This study explored teacher beliefs and emotion expression via six semi-structured interviews with teachers, and discussed the findings in relation to the Self-Determination Theory, which addresses teacher support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The findings showed that teacher beliefs about their roles as educators, carers, and provider...

This chapter aims to seek insight into engagement in context, conceived through Productive Disciplinary Engagement (PDE), which can be perceived as a condition for sustained disciplinary and interdisciplinary interest and motivation. Despite ongoing trends in the design and implementation of enriched learning environments that are expected to boost...

For more than four decades, studies of higher education have espoused the significance of fostering intercultural interactions between international and domestic students, yet numerous studies have provided widespread evidence of limited interactions between these cohorts and limited development of long-lasting relationships, such as friendship. Af...

Primary teachers, despite their critical role in fostering student interest in science, lack confidence and have negative attitudes towards teaching science, with this trend starting during initial teacher education. Though research on attitudes towards teaching science is well established, less is known about attitudes towards learning science. In...

Despite China’s recent remarkable performance in high-quality research, the number of students going abroad to pursue doctoral degrees in STEM fields has been rising rapidly. This study investigates the motivations of Chinese international doctoral students (CIDS) in STEM fields for undertaking a PhD abroad, and the external factors influencing thi...

This study explored the characteristics of individual contributions to student-led productive collaborative learning as it takes place in real time. Two independent analytical methods grounded in different research traditions, metacognitive regulation and role analysis, were used independently and jointly to identify patterns of individual particip...

For more than four decades, issues pertaining to the development of intercultural relationships between international and domestic students in university settings have received scholarly attention. However, there appears to be lack of research exploring the extent to, and the manner in which the individual and environmental dimensions interact with...

Research on teachers’ emotion display and the quality of the teacher-student relationship in higher education is increasingly significant in the context of rapidly developing internationalization in higher education, with scholars (and students) moving across countries for research and teaching. However, there is little theoretically grounded empir...

Australian universities are sites of growing cultural diversity, with large numbers of international students joining domestic students, many of whom come from migrant backgrounds. The literature indicates that the opportunities this creates for cross-cultural mixing and intercultural learning are often not embraced. This paper reports results of a...

Research on teachers’ emotion display and the quality of the teacher-student relationship in higher education is increasingly significant in the context of rapidly developing internationalization in higher education, with scholars (and students) moving across countries for research and teaching. However, there is little theoretically grounded empir...

The present study explores teacher emotions, in particular how they are predicted by students’ behaviour and the interpersonal aspect of the teacher-student relationship (TSR). One hundred thirty-two secondary teachers participated in a quantitative study relying on self-report questionnaire data. Based on the model of teacher emotions by Frenzel (...

This chapter examines the conceptualisation of work activity that forms the foundation of Francophone perspectives on training and work and reviews empirical work grounded in these perspectives. It commences by identifying and discussing three fundamental assumptions about the nature of work activity and workplaces as legitimate sites of learning a...

Background Musculoskeletal disorders and diseases are leading causes of pain, physical disability, and doctor visits throughout the world. Health professionals must be trained to assess, treat through rehabilitation and monitor patients with these disorders. Yet, due to overcrowded curricula, some health education programs struggle to accommodate m...

A comparative case study examined two teams for instances of Productive Disciplinary Engagement (PDE) as they completed a complex, virtual process development project. Discourse from team meetings was analyzed to interpret how engagement unfolds, specifically classifying engagement in two dimensions: School vs. Engineering World, and task co-produc...

The value of collaborative concept mapping in assisting students to develop an understanding of complex concepts across a broad range of basic and applied science subjects is well documented. Less is known about students' learning processes that occur during the construction of a concept map, especially in the context of clinical cases in veterinar...

This study examined local students’ subjective accounts of their positive intercultural interactions on a university campus. A multidimensional framework was adopted to explore the complexity of intercultural interactions. Key dimensions of positive intercultural interactions were identified and used to analyse the data, including agency, cultural...

Background Health professionals in athletic training, chiropractic, osteopathy, and physiotherapy fields, require high-level knowledge and skills in their assessment and management of patients. This is important when communicating with patients and applying a range of manual procedures. Prior to embarking on professional practice, it is imperative...

This paper addresses the nature and significance of productive engagement in cognitive activity and metacognitive regulation in collaborative learning tasks that involve complex scientific knowledge. A situative framework, combining the constructs of social regulation and content processing, provided the theoretical basis for the development of a c...

This article reviews the extant research on the relationship between students and teachers in higher education across three main areas: the quality of this relationship, its consequences and its antecedents. The weaknesses and gaps in prior research are highlighted and the importance of addressing the multi-dimensional and context-bound nature of t...

This paper examines how distinct trajectories of change in students’ general views of group work over the duration of one single group assignment could be explained by multidimensional aspects of their experience and the overall instructional context. Science (336) and Education (377) students involved in a semester-long group assignment completed...

Pre-service teachers’ beliefs about classroom motivation, and how these beliefs may be developed during initial teacher preparation, is a relatively new aspect of enquiry in the fields of motivation and teacher education. An empirical study, grounded in a social constructivist perspective, was designed to examine the impact of providing pre-service...

This research examines the understandings and experiences of mono-cultural, mono-lingual local students in relation to intercultural interactions within small group learning activities at university. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital are employed to illuminate a number of barriers to intercultural interaction. Using qualitative anal...

Productive engagement in meaningful activity is essential for learning and becoming in practice. However, learning systems that support such engagement are complex and usually studied in single contexts making findings difficult to transfer. We detail research among four universities who study these systems in different contexts. We illustrate how...

This study employs positioning theory to explore the experiences of adjunct foreign English language teachers (AFELT) in the Japanese university sector. The research is located in the broad internationalisation discourse and considers AFELT positions as ‘foreign’ teachers at a time when the Japanese university sector is aiming to increase internati...

This article tracks the emergence, maintenance, and evolution of a positive intercultural relationship between a multilingual international student from Vietnam and a monolingual local Australian student in their first year at university. The literature overwhelmingly suggests that in institutions where English is the language of instruction, monol...

This paper examines the intercultural interaction experiences of local, first-year students (n = 25) in their first few weeks at university. The focus on local students complements existing intercultural interaction literature, which has tended to concentrate on the experience of the ‘cultural other’ student. Employing qualitative analysis, the stu...

The use of student-led collaborative learning activities at university level has increased dramatically in recent decades. However, whether such activities foster engagement in self-regulated, deep-learning practices remains contentious, with evidence that desirable learning outcomes are often not achieved. A metacognitive intervention was designed...

Students’ learning goals demonstrate much stronger variety than traditional goal orientation models for classroom learning assume, especially when the educational context allows so. In this empirical study we will investigate the richness of students’ goal orientation in a collaborative learning context. We do so with the help of a goal setting fra...

This article addresses the issue of teacher educators’ emotion display when teaching and interacting with students. Little is known about this phenomenon in higher education generally, and teacher education specifically. An empirical study was conducted to address this gap by investigating teacher educators’ views on appropriate and inappropriate e...

This article presents the findings of an empirical study that examined the learning value of a novel group assessment activity aimed at promoting first-year students’ development of basic self-directed learning skills required for university study. A content quiz group learning assignment was designed to enhance students’ capacity to ask appropriat...

Research on transfer of training has a long history, with thousands of empirical studies since the 1950s investigating whether, and under which conditions, knowledge and skills acquired during training are subsequently used in the work environment (see reviews by Baldwin and Ford, 1988, Blume et al., 2010 and Burke and Hutchins, 2007). The generati...

This article addresses the issue of university teachers' emotions generated through teaching and interacting with students. While research on school teachers' emotions is on the increase, interest in the significance of university teachers' emotions is still limited. In light of the growing attention given to the quality of university teaching arou...

This research investigated Education for Sustainability (EfS) at an independent Montessori primary school, located in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. A longitudinal case study involving analysis of data from a 20-year period was conducted to determine the effectiveness of EfS. Historical information about EfS at the school from 19...

Self-regulated learning (SRL) research has conventionally relied on measures, which treat SRL as an aptitude. To study self-regulation and motivation in learning contexts as an ongoing adaptive process, situation-specific methods are needed in addition to static measures. This article presents an ?Adaptive Instrument for Regulation of Emotions? aim...

This article examines the extent to which group heterogeneity and homogeneity in personal goals for a collaborative learning activity influences individuals' appraisals of that activity. This research addresses the lack of empirical work on the significance of personal content goals in collaborative learning contexts. A framework that takes into ac...

This article considers the orientations to diversity on campus, socially and in professional practice, of community development students at an Australian university. After outlining the curriculum foci of community development courses at Australian universities, it explores the ambivalences in students' generally positive orientations to diversity,...

Anecdotal evidence points to variations in individual students' evolving confidence in clinical and patient communication skills during a clinical internship. A better understanding of the specific aspects of internships that contribute to increasing or decreasing confidence is needed to best support students during the clinical component of their...

Approximately 57% of students in the United States work while attending college. For most of these students (81%), this is more than 20 hours a week. There has been shown to be a negative relationship between hours worked and academic achievement in studies in the United States as well as the United Kingdom and Australia. There is, however, no rese...

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the literature on individuals in cultural transitions in higher education, namely, international students in culturally unfamiliar contexts; teachers of international students and culturally more diverse classrooms; and local students in increasingly culturally diverse classes. All these individuals are...

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the literature on individuals in cultural transitions in higher education, namely, international students in culturally unfamiliar contexts; teachers of international students and culturally more diverse classrooms; and local students in increasingly culturally diverse classes. All these individuals are...

Australian veterinary classrooms are increasingly diverse and their growing internal diversity is a result of migration and large numbers of international students. Graduates interact with other students and increasingly with clients whose attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors differ from their own. An understanding and respect for these differ...

The paucity of intercultural interactions among students from culturally diverse backgrounds at university and off campus is widely documented in the literature. A review of this empirical work, however, reveals narrow conceptualisations of the construct of intercultural interactions. Intercultural interactions are seldom conceptualised as part of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review critically the published research investigating how guided practice into the profession contributes to increased professional confidence in health care students, with a view to identifying its impact on the development of professional confidence. Design/methodology/approach A literature search was per...

This article examines the significant contribution of culture in recent motivation research. A brief overview of major developments in cross-cultural psychology is presented as the background. Key motivational constructs that attracted substantial research from a cultural perspective are selected to illustrate the richness and diversity of theorizi...

This article examines the significance of context in university students' development of (meta)cognitions related to a specific group assignment. For this purpose context was conceptualised at two levels: class (Business, Science) and small groups within class (culturally diverse, non-diverse). Diverging trends in (meta)cognitions emerged at class...

Situative and sociocognitive analyses were combined to examine engagement in high-level collaborative learning and its relationship with individuals’ cognitions. Video footage of 53 science university students’ (nine groups) collaborative learning interactions as they worked through a case-based project was analysed in combination with students’ ap...

In recent years, veterinary education has received an increased amount of attention directed at the value and application of collaborative case-based learning. The benefit of instilling deep learning practices in undergraduate veterinary students has also emerged as a powerful tool in encouraging continued professional education. However, research...

This paper examines the developing beliefs about classroom motivation of eight preservice teachers during teacher education. The framework conceptualises the contexts in which preservice teachers participate and the filtering effect of prior beliefs. Qualitative analyses of multiple data sources reveal two distinct trajectories in the development o...

This article presents two consecutive studies aimed at disentangling the significance of study contexts on students’ attitudes towards learning and interacting in culturally diverse groups. Context was operationalised as two distinct study programmes with contrasting organisational and instructional characteristics and diverse/nondiverse groups emb...

The sustainability of many Japanese institutions of higher education is dependent on the injection of large numbers of foreigners. This requires addressing the intercultural dimensions of internationalisation. In this article, the authors contrast the literature on internationalisation in Japan (kokusaika) with the Anglo-European discourse on inter...

In this article we propose that in order to advance our understanding of motivation in collaborative learning we should move beyond the cognitive-situative epistemological divide and combine individual and social processes. Our claim is that although recent research has recognized the importance of social aspects in emerging and sustained motivatio...

This article outlines the rationale for an integrative perspective of self- and social regulation in learning contexts. The role of regulatory mechanisms in self- and social regulation models is examined, leading to the view that in real time collaborative learning, individuals and social entities should be conceptualized as self-regulating and cor...

One important objective of chiropractic education is to foster student professional confidence and competence in patient communication and clinical skills. Therefore, the aim of this article is to review the extant literature on this topic, stressing the significance of building students' confidence for effective practice and the need for more rese...

The value of collaborative, case-based, and problem-based learning has received increased attention in recent years. Several studies have documented veterinary staff and students' generally positive feedback on group learning activities, but one largely unaddressed question is how students actually learn from each other. This study examined how sec...

Self-directed and social forms of learning are fundamentally different from traditional didactic educational settings from which students are selected for veterinary, medical and other professional degree courses. It is therefore expected that a mismatch may emerge between students’ conceptions of effective learning and expectations inherent to the...

This article examines the nature and process of collaborative learning in student-led group activities at university. A situative framework combining the constructs of social regulation and content processing was developed to identify instances of productive high-level co-regulation. Data involves video footage of groups of science students working...

This article, arising from a study located in a Japanese education setting, analyses the socio-emotional challenges experienced by host (Japanese) and international (Australian) students as they interact in the same international education environment over a period of time. Students' multiple interpretations of critical incidents created by the res...

International campuses provide social forums to enhance students’ intercultural competence, skills and confidence. Yet, despite multiple opportunities for social contact, the most typical pattern is one of minimal interaction between students from different cultural backgrounds. This study examined students’ attitudes towards culturally mixed group...

Around 70% of Australian students have reported working more than 12 hours a week. Recent large scale research in the UK suggests that there is a negative relationship between hours worked and academic achievement. There is, however, no research to the authors' knowledge as to how the number of working hours affect student learning in groups, and w...

Over the last few years, the higher education and the vocational education and training sectors have increased the number of online learning courses available for professionals. Yet, research on e-learning opportunities for professionals has not developed at the same pace. This paper describes the results of a systematic search for research based,...

Abstract Undergraduate students majoring ,in Marketing ,are required to engage ,in group ,projects throughout their study. The main educational rationale behind requiring students to work,on group projects as an,integral part of their study in marketing,is that the experience,of group projects is a good preparation for working,in teams and managing...

This paper addresses the issue of sustained motivation over time, in relation to real-life activities requiring complex skills in multiple contexts of participation. It reports an empirical study that explores how high achieving athletes and musicians appraise salient aspects of person and context as affordances and constraints, and how these appra...

This paper examines the mediating role of students' goals in group work at university. Research on cooperative and collaborative learning has provided empirical support for the cognitive, motivational and social benefits of group work but the antecedents of motivation and ongoing management of emerging motivational and socio-emotional issues have r...

Undergraduate students majoring in Marketing are required to engage in group projects throughout their study. The main educational rationale behind requiring students to work on group projects as an integral part of their study in marketing is that the experience of group projects is a good preparation for working in teams and managing work teams i...