The EDUCA Flagship addresses the challenges of decreasing learning achievement, increasing truancy and dropout rates, and digital technology in education by creating a novel research ecosystem that promotes the cross-pollination of methodological and conceptual approaches spanning educational science, psychology, learning analytics, sociology, and economics.
Read more from EDUCA's website and project description.
GUIDE (Growing Up In Digital Europe: EuroCohort) will be the first Europe-wide comparative birth cohort study of children and young people’s wellbeing. GUIDE will collect data from two cohorts, including a sample of newborn infants as well as a sample of 8-years old children. Both cohorts will be followed until the age of 24 years. The harmonized survey design in different countries enable collecting internationally comparable, nationally representative, longitudinal study of children and young people in Europe. The study can support evidence-based social policies for children, young people, and families’ wellbeing across Europe. GUIDE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon.
Read more from GUIDE's website.
COORDINATE is the current ongoing phase of the GUIDE study. In the COORINATE project a community of researchers and organizations that drive forwards the harmonized instruments and research design to examine children’s wellbeing across European countries and across time. COORDINATE community has implemented pilot studies in five European countries, in Finland, Ireland, France Croatia and Slovenia. COORDINATE Transnational Access Visits (TAV) offers researchers in Europe opportunities to collaborative research visit in participating countries. COORDINATE community also organizes webinars and method workshops to promote capacity to use longitudinal data. The survey design gives children a voice in research that concerns them. For example, young people can participate in designing the GUIDE study through the Young Advisory Board.
Read more about the project from Coordinate's website and TAV's website.
Right to Belong: Tackling Loneliness and Ostracism during Childhood and Adolescence
The Right to Belong consortium is building an evidence base to mitigate loneliness and social exclusion in youth. Funded by the Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland, its interdisciplinarity spans social sciences, psychology, medicine, neuroscience, law, statistics, and information technology, and its partners include Itla and the Finnish National Agency for Education. Our research group focuses on developmental trajectories of loneliness and ostracism and their individual and contextual antecedents and consequences.
More information about the consortium is available on its website.
EduRESCUE (the resilient schools and education system) is a multidisciplinary research and development project that explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools, pupils, parents, teachers and principals. The project seeks solutions to strengthen the resilience of the Finnish education system and improve society's ability to cope with crises in the future. The project also co-creates a roadmap with stakeholders to describe the actions that help build a more resilient education system. EduRESCUE comprises researchers from three universities (Universities of Jyväskylä, Helsinki and Turku), and it is funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Academy of Finland.
Read more from EduRESCUE's website.
Remedis project aims to examine the effects of media literacy and digital skills interventions on various aspects of life, focusing on positive outcomes. Objectives include advancing theoretical understanding of intervention outcomes, refining intervention strategies based on evidence, developing and validating evaluation methods and instruments, and generating evidence-based policy recommendations along with a user-friendly evaluation toolkit.
More information from the website of Remedis.
Family Formation in Flux – Causes, Consequences and Possible Futures (FLUX) is a six-year research project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Research Council of Finland. It is part of the SRC Programme Demographic Changes – Causes, Consequences and Solutions (DEMOGRAPHY), 2021–2027.
The multidisciplinary FLUX consortium seeks evidence-based solutions for influencing and adapting to changes in fertility dynamics that accelerate population ageing. The overarching goal is to improve the social and economic sustainability of Finnish society. FLUX focuses on the changing fertility and family dynamics in Finland and provides insights into the underlying causes of the changes, the effects these changes have on individuals and society, the linkages of the dynamics with social and gender inequalities and psychosocial and economic well-being, how social and family policies at both the state and local government levels can tackle the challenges created by the low-fertility landscape.
Read more on the project webpage.
The European Training Network (ETN) G-VERSITY – Achieving Gender Diversity is an interdisciplinary and intersectoral doctoral training network for early stage researchers. G-VERSITY aims at fostering new kinds of expertise and jobs needed in Europe to help employers overcome the underrepresentation of women, men, and sexual and gender minority Groups (SGMs). The network constitutes a prototype for innovative doctoral training on gender diversity research.
To learn more about the 15 PhD students, their ideas related to the project, the reflections, debates, and discussions, visit our blog.
To get to know more about the 8 leading European research groups and the 7 non-academic partners across Europe that is involved in the project, visit G-Versity's website.
Principal barometer is the first research project that aim to study Finnish principals’ motivation, health and well-being at great length. This longitudinal study focus on recovery, job crafting, servant leadership, engagement and burnout, including physiological measures (i.e. stress and recovery). The project is conducted in collaboration with Australian Catholic University’s Institute for Positive Psychology and Education.
The primary aim of this research project is to study teachers’ work-related well-being in Finland, and its relationship with various work-related demands and resources. The research is conducted by the University of Helsinki in collaboration with the Trade Union of Education in Finland (OAJ). An online questionnaire distributed biannually enables a comprehensive examination of teachers’ well-being across different regional and educational contexts.
The aim of the research is to find out what consequences climate change and the coronavirus situation have on the development of young people. Positive impacts could be e.g. empowerment and social cohesion, while negative impacts could be e.g. stress and anxiety. The study takes into account, among other things, the effects of friends, digital networks, parents, teachers and communities. The research may provide society with means to facilitate the needs of young people and to assess what kinds of support services young people will need in the future.
Learning of the competencies of effective climate change mitigation and adaptation in the education system (ClimComp) is a research project funded by the Academy of Science Finland 2021-2024. Aim of the project is to study what are the competencies needed in the society to efficiently mitigate and adapt to climate change and how these competencies are learned and taught throughout the education system. Climate expertise is urgently needed in all sectors of the society. The project proposes that in active collaboration with the state-of-art research, education system as well as society, optimal learning moments are created and climate competencies are learned. In collaboration with atmospheric scientists, climate modellers, educational scientists and psychologists, project studies optimal learning moments in project-based learning, research-practice partnership as well as online learning environments among youth. As a result, researchers propose systemic changes to the education system to better teach and learn the climate competencies and develop new tools for youth to learn climate change competencies.
More information from the blog of University of Helsinki.
FinEdu project started in 2003 and the original aim was to study students’ educational transitions and choices along with factors that associates them. Longitudinal data have been collected several times in two age cohorts (N=1200) during 21st century. Participants were 15-17 years old when the study started and now they are over 30 years old. The study have follow participants from adolescence to adulthood and during the years we've investigated transitions to working life and further higher education focusing on subjective wellbeing, engagement and burnout, motivation and goals, identity and values.
For more information visit FinEdu website.
This project aims to examine the explicit and implicit ways in which schools, teachers, and peers influence the mindsets of primary school students. It will combine analyses of large-scale survey data with new data collected through classroom observations and social network surveys. The findings will equip educators with concrete strategies to effectively implement growth mindset in their practices.
Project activities and outputs can be found on the webpage.
The University of Helsinki is participating in the two-year preschool pilot implemented by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The pilot will run from August 2021 until the end of May 2024, involving an estimated total of 10,000 children born in either 2016 or 2017. The Finnish National Agency for Education has developed the curriculum guidelines for the two-year preschool education pilot. The two-year preschool education pilot is part of the Ministry of Education and Culture's "Right to Learn" development program.
The objectives of the two-year preschool education pilot are: 1) Strengthening educational equality, 2) Improving the quality and effectiveness of preschool education, 3) Investigating the continuity between early childhood education and care and early primary education, 4) Examining families' service choices, 5) Gathering information on the effects of two-year preschool education on children's development, learning conditions, social skills, and the formation of a healthy self-esteem.
For more information, see trial introduction, pilot description and interim report.
The main aim of this project is to examine how young people act in social media environments both as influencers and targets of influence, focusing on both the good and bad effects –bright and dark sides- of their agency. We will study how the agency in social media is related to adolescents’ (aged 13—19) identities, world-views, emotions, well-being, as well as to feelings of safety and security at personal and national level. To read more about Agents visit Agents' website and project's information page in Unviersity of Jyväskylä's website.
The aim of this project is to help Finnish companies utilize the latest AI research and know-how in order to keep companies and Finland at the forefront of AI knowledge and innovation in developing education and services. In addition, ethical issues related to artificial intelligence need to be addressed. The AI in Learning project develops artificial intelligence applications to increase the expertise of Finnish companies operating in different industries and creates new AI-based operating models for corporate product and service development.
More information from the blog of University of Helsinki and Flamma.
The Youth Skills–project (ySKILLS) is an international and interdisciplinary project that examines risks and opportunities related to children’s and adolescents’ ICT uses and their digital skills to understand how to purposefully use ICTs towards greater cognitive, physical, psychological and social wellbeing. ySkills tries to enhance and maximise long-term positive impact of the ICT environment on multiple aspects of wellbeing for all children by stimulating resilience through the enhancement of digital skills. To find more info visit ySkills website.
In Bridging the Gaps –project focus on adolescents’ use of technology in and outside of school, learning, motivation, and wellbeing. Longitudinal study including intensive data collected with experience sampling method and physiological measures. In addition, we collected data from teachers (N=150) about their motivation, engagement and burnout. Bridging the Gaps in close relation to Growing Mind –project. To find more info about Bridging the Gaps, visit Bridging the Gaps' website or for more information about Growing Mind visit website of Growing Mind.
Aim of the project is to study students learning and motivation using Project Based Learning in science education. Momentary experiences measured via smart phone (experience sampling method) about students’ emotions and wellbeing in high school science class. The project is conducted in collaboration with Michigan State University. For more information visit Pire's website.
In relation to PIRE, a Science technology longitudinal study examines the development of students’ science motivation in elementary school, grades 1 to 6, emphasizing students’ motivation, use of science technologies, and interventions. Longitudinal data have been collected from first to fifth grade students in Helsinki area.