Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Co-Regulation: A Theoretical Review

During the last two decades, interpersonal regulation in natural and digital learning environments has gained importance. Ever since the first conceptual and methodological precisions regarding collaborative learning were made, educational psychology has focused its interest on analyzing collective regulation of motivation, cognition, and behavior. Despite the fact that the body of research on co-regulation has grown, emerging epistemological frameworks evidence a lack of conceptual and theoretical clarity. In response to this situation, the authors propose a conceptual approach in order to address interpersonal regulation in four aspects: first, they describe three learning theories which have been used to study co-regulation. Second, the authors recommend a conceptual delimitation of terms regarding the learning theories on social regulation. Third, they highlight diffuse boundaries between theoretical approaches and terms used in the literature on co-regulation. Finally, the authors suggest some challenges the researchers in this field face.