The broad theme of yesterday’s Helsinki SEN seminar was educational interventions. We were lucky to have Professor Dieter Baeyens from KU Leuven, Belgium as our guest.
Our seminar started with Professor Dieter Baeyens introducing his impressive research on teacher-student interaction and executive functioning. First, he gave an overview of research on the association between different domains of teacher-student interaction and executive function components. Then, he introduced some already conducted and future interventions to improve teacher-student interactions to promote executive functioning. The presentation facilitated interesting discussions around measurement, variability of intervention effectiveness, and digital tools in educational contexts.
Then, Postdoctoral researcher Piia Ruutu introduced change laboratory interventions. She started by an overview of the cultural-historical activity theory, forming the theoretical basis for her research. Then she presented some examples of how change laboratory interventions can be conducted in for instance educational settings. Change laboratory interventions aim to produce solutions with the participants to issues that the participants raise and see as important. After the presentation, we had a broad discussion on cultural-historical activity theory, its adaptations and implementation, and the sustainability of change laboratory interventions in educational systems.
Next up, Doctoral researcher Katri Pardon, presented her new data on supporting young children's social relationships. She started by having the audience think of something nice that someone has said to them. Then she went on to introduce previous research on positive psychology interventions. Then she presented her research on how positive feedback may influence 5- to 7-year-old children’s choices in everyday situations. Her intervention focused especially on the dimensions of kindness and compassion. We discussed about the duration of different interventions and measuring kindness and compassion in everyday situations.
Last, Doctoral researcher Terhi Vessonen, gave an example of a systematic review and meta-analysis to understand (mathematical word problem-solving) intervention effectiveness. She started by introducing the methodological advantages of systematic reviews and meta-analyses and some previous meta-analyses around word problem-solving. Then she introduced the word problem-solving intervention meta-analysis focused on elementary school-aged children’s learning. After the presentation, discussion arose around evaluating the quality of research, representativeness of intervention research around the globe, and meta-analysis as a research method.
Overall, our seminar managed to bring together different approaches, methods, and topics around which educational interventions may be implemented. It spurred rich conversation and novel ideas on how intervention research could be advanced. A nice result for a day spent together with colleagues!