AbstractBackgroundSocially shared regulation is a vital factor that affects students' collaborative programming performance. However, students' weak group metacognitive skills or inability to adopt shared regulation mechanisms lead to unsatisfactory collaborative programming learning.ObjectivesThis study proposes an approach to support socially shared regulation in collaborative programming learning in order to enhance students' programming achievements and group metacognition.MethodsA quasi‐experimental study was conducted in a junior high school over a 10‐week period to investigate the impact of the proposed approach on programming achievements, group metacognition, and cognitive load. Forty eighth‐grade students participated in the study, with the experimental group learning via the proposed approach, while the control group used the conventional collaborative programming learning approach.Results and ConclusionsThe analysis included data from 38 participants. The experimental results showed that the programming achievements and group metacognition of the experimental group were significantly better than those of the control group. Additionally, the proposed approach did not increase the cognitive load of the students.ImplicationsThis study has important implications for teachers, learners, and researchers in collaborative programming and social regulation. Our proposed collaborative programming learning approach enhances learners' social regulation and performance, providing teachers with an effective tool for improving collaborative programming learning. This study also extends the field of socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL), demonstrating its potential to improve the effectiveness of collaborative programming learning and highlighting the need for future research to explore the mechanisms of SSRL in this context.