Traditional pedagogical practices and structures of education have been criticised for not producing the kind of expertise needed in the changing world of work (e.g. Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Bereiter, 2002; Kivinen & Silvennoinen, 2002; Mandl et al., 1996). As a response to these concerns, different forms of work-based learning have been adopted as an integral part of higher education (e.g. Boud & Solomon, 2001; Foster & Stephenson, 1998; Tynjälä, Välimaa & Sarja, in press). This situation has posed many pedagogical challenges for educators. One of these is the question of how to guide the learning processes in a context where the task of the student is to integrate work and learning. The purpose of the present study is to examine work-based learning from this point of view.Characteristic of work-based learning is the fact that it involves three partners: the student, the teacher, and the people of the working life organisation. These three partners also share the responsibility of regulating the work-based learning processes. The aim of this study is to examine the nature of this three-way regulating process in work-based project studies in higher education. The emphasis is on the role of the teachers, who we call tutors, and of the work place instructors who we call mentors of work-based learning. The relationship between student self- regulation and tutoring and mentoring will also be analysed. More specifically, the following research questions are addressed: 1) what kind of roles or tasks can be find in the guidance of work-based learning? and 2) what kinds of patterns of guidance can be identified?Material for the study was gathered from project-based learning courses organised in two higher education institutes, in a university and in a vocational higher education institute. The university course was part of studies in information systems design. During the course student groups carried out an authentic project assignment for a client. Each group had a teacher tutor and a mentor from the client organisation. Project studies organised in the vocational higher education institute were related to studies in a health and social care degree programme, and more specifically, to a large project the aim of which was to enhance health and work capacity of people working in different organisations. In this case, project studies could be taken as a part of several courses such as multiprofessional teamwork, project skills or work and health. Guidance was provided only from a tutor from the educational institute.The data included learning logs written by the students, questionnaires, and interviews with the students, tutors and mentors. The data has been analysed using the grounded theory approach and by the phenomenographic method.The findings of the study indicate that the roles of tutors varied from initiating and motivating students to guidance in their construction of domain knowledge, and further to organising the work, to supporting reflection and to actual team leadership. Four different patterns of guidance could be identified on the basis of the regulative roles of tutors, mentors and students. The patterns were called as follows: 1) collaborative guidance, 2) faded mentor-directed scaffolding, 3) conflict risk interaction, and 4) faded tutor-directed scaffolding.