Are we together or not? The temporal interplay of monitoring, physiological arousal and physiological synchrony during a collaborative exam
Open accessAbstract
The coordination of cognitive and non-cognitive interactive processes contributes to successful collaboration in groups, but it is hard to evidence in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Monitoring is a metacognitive process that can be an indicator of a student’s ability to recognize success or failure in collaboration. This study focuses on how monitoring occurs in CSCL during a collaborative exam situation by examining how individual student contributions to monitoring processes are related to physiological synchrony and physiological arousal in groups. The participants were organized in four groups of three members each, and they wore sensors that measured their physiological activity. The data consist of video recordings from collaborative exam sessions lasting 90 minutes and physiological data captured from each student with Empatica 4.0 sensors. The video data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis to identify monitoring events. Students’ physiological arousal was determined through peak detection, and physiological concordance was used as an index for the students’ physiological synchrony. The individual and group level analysis investigated arousal and physiological synchrony in concordance with monitoring during the collaborative exam. The results showed that, in each group, each student contributed to joint monitoring. In addition, the monitoring activities exhibited a significant correlation with the arousal, indicating that monitoring events are reflected in physiological arousal. Physiological synchrony occurred within two groups, which experienced difficulties during the collaborative exam, whereas the two groups who had no physiological synchrony did not experience difficulties. It is concluded that physiological synchrony may be a new indicator for recognizing meaningful events in CSCL
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The link between task difficulty and physiological synchrony is in line with Malmberg et al.'s study, where synchrony in EDA was observed only in teams that experienced difficulties during the task.
“The link between task difficulty and physiological synchrony is in line with Malmberg and colleagues' study (Malmberg et al. 2019), where, in groups of four participants engaged in a collaborative exam, synchrony in EDA was observed only in teams that experienced difficulties during the task.”
From Interpersonal Physiological Synchrony During Dyadic Joint Action Is Increased by Task Novelty and Reduced by Social Anxiety (2025) · cites this paper as Malmberg et al. 2019
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“The problem, however, is that despite metacognitive monitoring being successfully scripted and supported in CSCL, such scripts are not equally effective for all students (Järvelä et al. 2013).”
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Boukarras, S., Placidi, V., Rossano, F., Era, V., Aglioti, S. M., & Candidi, M. (2025) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/psyp.70031 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
“The link between task difficulty and physiological synchrony is in line with Malmberg and colleagues' study (Malmberg et al. 2019), where, in groups of four participants engaged in a collaborative exam, synchrony in EDA was observed only in teams that experienced difficulties during the task.”
- Authors
- Malmberg, J., Haataja, E., Seppänen, T., & Järvelä, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Oulu (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Malmberg, Jonna
- Venue
- International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
- Published
- 2019-11-23
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 467-490
- ISSN
- 1556-1607 (ISSN-L)
- 1556-1615
- OpenAlex
- W2990238970
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 7.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Academy of Finland (308809)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Adaptive Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Online Learning and Analytics
- Keywords
- metacognitive monitoring, physiological arousal, physiological synchrony, computer-supported collaborative learning, group collaboration, group dynamics
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