On 13 May 2026, the Eudaimonia Institute at the University of Oulu hosted the Eudaimonia Spearhead kick-off event at Tellus Backstage. The RESHAPE team participated in the event and introduced to research teams from different disciplinary fields how the project examines the changes that may take place in human agency, collaborative interaction, and educational practice when generative AI becomes part of group-based collaborative learning. The project presentation was titled “Reshaping agencies in AI-mediated group collaboration,” reflecting RESHAPE’s research focus on higher education contexts and collaborative problem-solving. 

Introducing RESHAPE’s Research Framework and Research Examples

The event brought together principal investigators and team members from several Eudaimonia Spearhead projects. Through short project presentations, Q&A sessions, and shared discussion, the participating teams had the opportunity to learn about each other’s research themes and explore possibilities for future interdisciplinary collaboration and academic exchange. For RESHAPE, the event also offered an important opportunity to connect questions of AI and learning sciences with broader issues in the human and social sciences. 

In the project presentation, the RESHAPE team introduced the project’s overall framework and phased research plan. The project develops along three interconnected directions: analyzing interactional processes in AI-mediated group collaboration, tracing students’ capability development and AI literacy in AI-mediated collaboration, and exploring grounded ethics of AI use in higher education. This design reflects the project’s understanding of agency: agency is not a static capacity of an individual learner, but a process that is continuously generated, negotiated, and reshaped through interactions among students, AI, peers, tasks, and institutional environments. 

The presentation also outlined the first stage of RESHAPE’s research. The project will collect multichannel interaction data in small-group collaborative settings in Finland and the Netherlands, including video recordings and AI use logs. These data will be used to analyze how students consult conversational agents in scenario-based tasks, engage in group discussion, co-create problem solutions, and reflect on the role of AI in the collaborative process. By capturing these real interactional processes, RESHAPE aims to better understand which forms of interaction in AI-mediated collaboration can support deeper discussion rather than lead to quick closure in problem-solving. 

As a doctoral researcher funded by the project, Danyu Yang also presented her doctoral research plan, “When Generative AI Enters the Group: Interactional Dynamics of AI-Mediated Collaborative Problem-Solving in Higher Education.” Her research focuses on micro-level interactional processes in AI-mediated collaborative problem-solving, examining how students introduce, respond to, and develop GenAI outputs, and how these key interactional moments shape the direction and quality of group collaboration. 

Connecting RESHAPE with Eudaimonia’s Interdisciplinary Network

This kick-off event connected RESHAPE with Eudaimonia’s wider interdisciplinary research network. The participating projects covered themes such as education, language learning, digital interaction, cognition, youth well-being, environmental resilience, communication, and societal change. These perspectives provide new points of connection for RESHAPE to examine agency in the age of AI from a broader human and social sciences perspective. Moving forward, RESHAPE will continue to participate in interdisciplinary exchange promoted by the Eudaimonia Institute and further develop discussions on AI, collaborative learning, and human agency at the levels of theory, research design, and educational practice.