Anna Parpala

Anna Parpala
University of Helsinki | HY · University Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education

PhD

About

53
Publications
37,651
Reads
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2,091
Citations
Additional affiliations
January 2017 - present
University of Helsinki
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • Docent in University Pedagogy; Associate Professor/ University Lecturer in Quality and Feedback Systems; Director of the HowULearn/UniHow system
March 2003 - December 2016
University of Helsinki
Position
  • Project Manager, Senior Researcher in Learn Research Project

Publications

Publications (53)
Preprint
Full-text available
BACKGROUND Higher education teachers are experiencing numerous pressures in their work, such as increased workload, rising student numbers and declining job resources, making their wellbeing a crucial issue. Prior studies indicate that adopting a learning-focused approach to teaching correlates positively with higher education teachers’ self-effica...
Article
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Introduction This study investigates the relationship between approaches to learning, self-perceived study burnout, and the level of knowledge among veterinary students. Veterinary educational programs are under regular development and would benefit greatly from detailed feedback on students' knowledge, proficiency, influencing factors, and coping...
Article
Purpose Transitions to and within university studies can be associated with heightened distress in students. This study focusses on the less studied transition from a bachelor’s to a master’s degree. During a master’s degree, study requirements and autonomy increase compared to bachelor’s studies. The present study examines how students’ experience...
Article
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International students are at risk of burnout during their studies and face challenges in their writing. This study explores the burnout and self-efficacy profiles of international students and how these profiles differ in writing conceptions. Participants were 162 international students at a research-intensive Finnish university. They completed th...
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The exploration of higher education (HE) teachers’ approaches to teaching has mainly been done using quantitative instruments which have been criticised for being too narrow in examining the dimensions of teaching. Higher education approaches to teaching (HEAT) inventory is a recently developed instrument to capture the dimensions of HE teaching mo...
Article
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Research suggests that the reported increase in student mental health issues such as study burnout might be related to students’ identity problems and their motivations for undertaking higher education. The present study added to this line of research by investigating the associations between identity profiles, motives for attending university and...
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In higher education, a need is felt to redesign curricula to better prepare students for the evolving ‘world of work’. The current exploratory study investigated first-year (N = 414) students’ approaches to learning, well-being and perceptions of their learning environment in the context of an innovative educational concept: design-based education....
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Previous research in teaching contexts other than Higher Education (HE) has shown that teachers struggle with stress, burnout, and intention to leave the profession. There is rather scarce evidence that HE teachers’ wellbeing is affected by their teaching processes. Thus, in this case study, how HE teacher educators’ (N = 83) risk of burnout is rel...
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Writing is challenging for international students, who often possess inadequate writing skills and are required to adapt to the new learning environment. Students’ approaches to learning have been shown to relate to some constructs of writing conceptions. Nevertheless, little research exists on the relationship between such conceptions and approach...
Article
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International students study in new, unfamiliar teaching-learning environments (TLEs) and may thus experience study-related burnout. However, little research exists on the relationship between perceptions of the TLE and such burnout, especially among international students. Nevertheless, one key factor is thought to be students’ approaches to learn...
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The present study aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between metacognitive awareness and approaches to learning in a multidisciplinary context of higher education using a person-oriented approach. The participants in the present study were 462 third year students of humanities, social sciences and theology. The students filled in...
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Many studies have shown that the shift from contact teaching to fully online teaching has had many negative effects on teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the pandemic has also had an effect on leading teaching in higher education institutions, there has not been much empirical research on leaders’ experiences during a pand...
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This article introduces the development of the self-reflection tool HowUTeach for higher education teachers. HowUTeach is a research-based self-assessment tool created primarily for teachers in both science universities and universities of applied sciences. The purpose of HowUTeach is to increase teachers’ awareness of their teaching and thereby en...
Chapter
Student feedback has played an important role in changes and improvements in educational institutions. However, some researchers have argued that student experience should not be used as a measure of educational quality. This chapter critically evaluates the use of the student experience as a basis for teaching criteria and standards. The chapter i...
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This study compares university students’ approaches to learning and experiences with the teaching–learning environment in general and during online studying as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines students’ learning profiles and how students with different learning profiles experienced the teaching–learning environment during COVID-19 as...
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This paper examines disciplinary differences in the combinations of approaches to learning (i.e., learning profiles) among students, and how those combinations are related to academic achievement. In addition, the study focuses on how different learning profiles are related to students’ self-efficacy beliefs in different disciplines. Data consist o...
Article
Writing an academic thesis is an important and complex task and the thesis grade should reflect students’ academic competences. The present study aims, firstly, at exploring how Bachelor’s and Master’s students self-evaluate their academic competences and approaches to learning and whether their evaluations differ from each other. In addition, the...
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Unlike the studies of freshmen entrants, the learning experiences of community college transfer (CCT) students in the receiving university is a topic that has only started to gain attention in recent decades. Little is known about the differences between CCT and freshmen entrants with regard to their study workload stress and its relationship with...
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Quantitative research into the nature of academic emotions has thus far been dominated by factor analyses of questionnaire data. Recently, psychometric network analysis has arisen as an alternative method of conceptualizing the composition of psychological phenomena such as emotions: while factor models view emotions as underlying causes of affects...
Chapter
Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies
Article
The purpose of this study was to examine university students' learning profiles and their relationship to study-related burnout as well as study progression and study achievement. The participants in the study were 339 first-year university students. Four clusters were found: Students applying a deep approach; Organised students; Students applying...
Article
Students are expected to develop academic competences during their studies. However, research regarding the relation between academic competences and student learning is scarce. The present mixed-methods study aims to investigate the complex interrelations between academic competences and approaches to learning using both quantitative and qualitati...
Article
A successful transition from university to working life requires that graduates are able to employ their education and academic competences in real working-life contexts. Our previous research showed that graduates varied in how they were able to reflect on their competences at the time of graduation. The present longitudinal mixed-method study fol...
Article
The study explored the extent to which university students' approaches to learning (SAL) are related to their perceptions of the teaching-learning environment (TLE), both at the group level (between-student variation) and at the individual level (within-student variation). Moreover, the study explored how a general tendency to perceive the TLE in a...
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This study aims, firstly, to examine the nature of the surface approach to learning in today’s university context, and secondly, to explore the factors that explain variations in the use of this approach. The 61 participants were studying in six Bachelor programmes representing various disciplines. These students scored above average on a surface a...
Article
This paper explores the value of a research-based student inventory from the quality assurance point of view in two culturally different European higher education institutions for veterinary education. Perceived heavy workload is a well-known problem in veterinary studies and is a challenge to the quality of learning. First- and third-year students...
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The relationship between study success and the nature of 550 first-year law students’ study processes was investigated using a modified version of the Approaches to Learning and Studying Inventory. The students were classified into four study profiles according to their approaches to learning, indicating the nature of their study processes. In addi...
Preprint
Research into the nature of academic emotions has thus far been dominated by factor analyses of self-report questionnaire data. Recently, network analysis has arisen as an alternative method of conceptualizing the nature and composition of psychological phenomena such as emotions. In this contribution we assess the structure and functioning of a Fi...
Article
Time and effort management skills have proved to be very important in studying, as they provide a foundation for both study success and engagement in university studies across the world. The paper focuses on how these skills develop during university studies in veterinary medicine, and examines possible changes in relation to students' experiences...
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Full-text available
University students often work during their studies, and working is considered to be one reason for high dropout rates or slow progress in studies. Moreover, the nature of students’ work experience varies greatly. The study aimed to explore how working while studying is related to study success, and took approaches to learning and the nature of the...
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ABSTRACT While focus on quality in Danish higher education has been growing in recent years, limited attention has been devoted to developing and thoroughly validating instruments that allow collecting data about university students’ perceptions of the teaching-learning environment. Based on data from a large sample of Danish university students, a...
Article
Many factors influence students’ progress in higher education. However, the students’ own voices are seldom heard. Using a qualitative approach, the study explored students’ own experiences of the factors that have influenced their studying. Research has indicated that students’ experiences are often related to their approaches to learning. Therefo...
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The study explored factors explaining changes in a deep approach to learning. The data consisted of interviews with 12 students from four Bachelor-level courses representing different disciplines. We analysed and compared descriptions of students whose deep approach either increased, decreased or remained relatively unchanged during their courses....
Article
Drawing on research on both engagement in learning and approaches to learning, we examine the associations between international students’ approaches to learning, factors in the teaching/learning environment and self-assessed academic outcomes. A total of 307 students responded to our survey. Their experience of the purposefulness of their course a...
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The aim of the study is to explore how students' experiences of enhancing and impeding factors and approaches to learning are related to students' study progress. A total of 93 students from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities participated in the study by answering a Learn-questionnaire regarding their experiences of the enhancing and impeding facto...
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The aim of the present study is to explore changes both in approaches to learning as well as in students’ experiences of the teaching-learning environment and how these changes are related to each other during their Bachelor studies by using a longitudinal data set. The aim is further to explore how students’ approaches to learning and their percep...
Article
Since the late 1970s numerous studies have explored students’ approaches to learning (referred to as the ‘SAL’ tradition). These studies have provided valuable evidence of students’ study strategies and intentions at the university. Since extensive research already exists on students’ approaches to learning, there is a need to move forward and anal...
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Recent qualitative studies about students’ conceptions of learning have been scarce. The present study explores university students’ conceptions of learning in biosciences. The analysis was conducted by applying a phenomenographic approach. Five different categories of descriptions of conceptions of learning were found: (1) Reproducing knowledge, (...
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Assessment has an important role in affecting students’ learning, but qualitative studies regarding this relationship are rather scarce. In addition, course grades do not necessarily reflect the quality of learning outcomes. The aim is to qualitatively examine why high and low achieving students in the same course study differently according to the...
Article
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The study examined the use of the modified Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ) in the Finnish context by focusing on its factor structures and comparing them with those for British data. A total of 2,509 Finnish and 2,710 British students completed the questionnaire. The comparison of the factor structures were conducted using...
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The University of Helsinki, along with the other European universities, is facing challenges for enhancing the quality of teaching and developing quality assurance systems with comparable criteria. To tackle these aims the university started to develop a student feedback system with a solid theoretical feedback and valuable practical implications....
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This paper explores students’ conceptions of good teaching in three different disciplines. Moreover, the aim is to explore the relation between these conceptions and students’ approaches to learning by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 695 students from the Faculties of Behavioural Sciences, Law and Veterinary Medicine part...
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The examination of academic progression has become an essential tool for measuring the effectiveness of educational systems. Research concerning the relationship between student learning and how they progress in their studies, however remains scarce. The aim of this study is two-fold: Firstly, the study aims to analyse first-year bioscience student...
Article
The relationships among veterinary students' approaches to learning, perceptions of the teaching-learning environment, and study success were evaluated in a demanding, discipline-based curriculum. The aim was to elicit elements for improving student counseling. As part of a large multidisciplinary survey, 36 third-year students (74% response rate)...
Article
There is evidence of disciplinary variation in students' approaches to learning. Furthermore, previous research has shown that students' approaches are related to their perceptions of the learning environment. The overall objective of the study was to analyse combinations of approaches to learning among undergraduates in different disciplines. More...
Article
This article explores teachers in the units of high quality education in Finland. It focuses on three questions. First, What are conceptions of good teaching of teachers teaching in the quality units? Second, What do they consider important in their teaching? And third, What is the relation between teachers’ conceptions and the criteria used in the...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this dissertation was to adapt a questionnaire for assessing students’ approaches to learning and their experiences of the teaching-learning environment. The aim was to explore the validity of the modified Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ) by examining how the instruments measure the underlying dimensions of stude...

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