Abstract. The present study investigated the sequential interplay between cognitive and emotional/motivational challenges and regulation in collaborative learning groups of two profiles, high and low performing groups. The 77 participants were students of higher education institution, who collaboratively worked on a computer-based simulation in groups of three. The video data of approximately 34 hours was coded on a fine-grained level. Sequential analysis was applied by means of process mining methodology. The results show that in both groups cognitive regulation (i.e., planning, monitoring, and controlling) has a strong sequential relationship with emotional/motivational regulation than cognitive challenges. Unlike low performing groups (LPGs), high performing groups (HPGs) triggered a strong sequential relationship between cognitive regulation and emotional/motivational regulation to tackle cognitive challenges. Moreover, the results reveal that both groups initiated a regulatory process of monitoring. However, for LPGs monitoring manifested more sequences of emotional/motivational challenges which deterred them to run a regulatory process of controlling. Whereas HPGs were active enough to not only monitor but also control their learning by applying different strategies to progress in the task. Regarding statistical analysis, no difference was observed between HPGs and LPGs in terms of duration and frequency of each coding category. In addition, the process models of both groups also demonstrate that one regulatory process (i.e., cognitive) could have more and stronger sequential relationship with other regulatory processes (i.e., emotion/motivation) than cognitive and emotional/motivational challenges. The current study establishes theoretical grounding to advance understanding about the sequential relationship between challenges and regulation in low and high performing collaborative groups. On the practical implication’s front, it also provides empirical insights to develop pedagogical methodologies and designed tailored support to help collaborative groups deal with challenges by initiating regulatory processes to proceed in learning task
