Erkko Sointu

• PhD (Education)
• Professor at University of Eastern Finland

The role of technology in special education is of great significance, yet few studies have targeted pre-service special education teachers as users of educational technology. The aim was to explore such teachers’ technology perceptions: (a) purposes of and reasons for applying technologies in education; (b) factors they see affecting the use of tec...

Blended learning and flipped classrooms are becoming more common in higher education institutions, but changes in pedagogy may require wider changes within an organisation. The aim of this study is to explore the elements of support and resources during teachers’ participation in an educational development project; the factors affecting development...

The study investigated the development of sources of self‐efficacy in self‐regulation in 9–12 year old ( N = 317, primary school) students during one school year. We used latent growth curve modeling to determine (1) how the different sources of self‐efficacy for self‐regulation (i.e., mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, ph...

Learning analytics has been a topic of great interest to researchers and practitioners over the past decade. The challenge, however, is translating rich data into practice. Moreover, learning analytics in inclusive elementary school settings has been little studied. This article discusses using learning analytics in elementary school STEAM educatio...

Viewpoints into learning analytics and self-regulated learning have been attracting increasing attention in the educational technology research field; pedagogical perspectives, however, have not been given equal consideration. The aim of this chapter is to present the key issues and findings of a research and development project (OAHOT) that sought...

Higher education continually seeks new approaches to support students with various learning needs. At present, Finland attempts to provide such support through accessibility and reasonable accommodation efforts, but students with learning disabilities may still encounter many barriers in their studies. One approach suggested to meet the needs of a...

Learning analytics provides a novel means to examine various aspects of students’ learning and to support them in their individual endeavors. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of learning analytics to provide insights into non-traditional, vocational practical nurse students’ (N = 132) motivational profiles for choosing their s...

The roots of LA research lay in the traditions of educational data mining, where complex statisticalmethods and algorithms are used to make massive amounts of student data comprehensible and usefulfor learning support. By virtue of these traditions, LA research can also be seen as having strong rootsin the field of computer science, while the role...

68 Sointu et al. Pre-service teacher training is research intensive in Finland. Additionally, teaching as a profession is highly valued among young people. However, quantitative methods courses are challenging for teacher students from many reasons. Particularly , this is due to previous negative experiences and emotions (among other things). Thus,...

This research continues the tradition of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) studies aimed at better understanding the development of pre-service teachers’ TPACK. The aim of the study is to show what are the areas of TPACK that pre-service teachers perceived as important and relevant for them, from a teacher training course. This co...

Understanding how student teacher professional agency (STPA) develops during teacher education is crucial for educators and curriculum developers interested in strengthening it. To explore this process comprehensively, environmental factors (i.e., curriculum coherence between theory and practice and the learning environment) and individual factors...

Students’ self-perceptions are a foundation for educational and psychosocial development. In order to investigate self-perceptions, we need to recognise the preconceptions (e.g. doubts and confidence) students hold about themselves. In this study, we examined 10–16-year-old students’ (N=599) self–perceptions from the viewpoints of the sources of se...

Research methods, including those of a quantitative nature, are an important part of preservice teacher training in Finland. However, quantitative research methods are considered challenging, often feared, and even hated among preservice teachers. This may be due to previous negative experiences and emotions associated with their use, which also in...

Research studies are an important part of educational sciences curricula in Finland. However, these studies are challenging to conduct, given the teacher-led activities, lack of social presence, engagement, collaborative working with and time management of students, and large-entity writing process management comprising this environment. Here, our...

The importance of self-regulated learning (SRL) has become increasingly apparent. Further, technology-enhanced learning provides novel ways to support this while different technologies have changed the learning environments. The aim of this study was to investigate the perspectives of 5th–6th grade pupils on learning analytics and self-regulated le...

Currently there is a need for studying learning strategies within Massive Open Online Courses | (MOOCs), especially in the context of in-service teachers. This study aims to bridge this gap and try to understand how in-service teachers approach and regulate their learning in MOOCs. In particular, it examines the strategies used by the in-service te...

The aim of this study is to understand elementary school pupils' experiences and perspectives of learning analytics (LA) and self-regulated learning after two phenomenon-based learning modules in a blended learning environment. For this, specifically designed modules were built into a learning management system following the principles and key phas...

Preservice teacher training is research intensive in Finland. Additionally, teaching as profession is highly valued among young people. However, quantitative methods courses are challenging for teacher students from many reasons. Particularly, this is due to previous negative experiences and emotions (among other things). Thus, new approaches for t...

Flipped classrooms have become widely adopted in educational settings (e.g., in higher education) worldwide. However, there is a need for more precise understanding of the ingredients for student satisfaction in a flipped setting. The aim of this paper was to investigate university students’ experiences of the factors that create a successful flipp...

Supporting teaching and learning with different technologies has a long and broad history. The theories of learning have changed in recent decades, and new technologies have been invented that provide possibilities for supporting learning processes based on different learning theories. Recently, this field has been studied using bibliometric method...

Universities are facing new challenges that pose various demands for developing learning environments. These challenges are related to different pedagogical approaches, the use of information and communications technology (ICT), the diversification of student populations , and new expectations related to working life. This study focused on universi...

Teacher Education should support student teachers’ sustainable and continuous professional development to enable them to cope with work challenges throughout their careers. For that purpose, authors state that fostering student teacher professional agency (STPA) can be a powerful way to support such challenging aims. We adopt the ecological perspe...

Ensuring the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to students qualified for services under the disability category of emotional disturbance (ED) has been both challenging and controversial. Examining this population in light of the five characteristics listed in the federal definition may provide useful insights to address needs...

Research-based discussions about 21st-century skills are currently needed; 21st-century skills refer to skills that today's students are expected to possess for successful future careers. The ways students perceive these skills or what kind of dispositions they have in this regard are significant. This paper provides an overview of the development...

Tervetuloa tutustumaan työelämäpedagogiikan moninaisuuteen! Tämä kirja on toteutettu opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön tukeman Työelämäpedagogiikka korkeakoulutuksessa (Työpeda) -hankkeen lopputuotoksena. Tarkoituksena on jakaa hankkeessa pilotoituja toimintatapoja, välineitä ja malleja kaikkien korkeakoulujen käyttöön. Työelämäpedagogiikka on määrit...

In this chapter we investigate, how university students' working life skills can be developed through Flipped Classroom approach.

TPACK – Työkaluja digimaratonille. Kasvatus-lehden katsausartikkeli.

The present study is an extension of studies that measure pre-service teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) confidence. It provides new perspectives on pre-service teachers’ TPACK by shifting the focus to concrete concerns and strengths indicated by pre-service teachers. The target group consists of a cohort of first-year pr...

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In this presentation, we report the results on our longitudinal study where students were followed for three years during bachelor level teacher education studies. The aim was to find out on how the students’ 21st century skills are developing, such as strategical learning, collaboration dispositions as well as use of ICT in education and attitudes...

Background: Human morphology is a critical component of dental and medical graduate training. Innovations in basic science teaching methods are needed to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students in a medical and dental histology course would have better grades if they used...

Child assessment practices have undergone, and are continuing to undergo, significant changes. Among the most prominent changes is the movement toward measuring child well-being, in general, and emotional and behavioral strengths, in particular. The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS) is a strength-based instrument which is widely used in...

Pre-service teachers confidence, their readiness to use ICT in education have been studied using various theoretical frameworks such as Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) by Mishra and Koehler (2006), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by Aijzen (1991), Technology acceptance model (TAM) by Davis (1989) and several others. Quantitat...

New ways of teaching and learning in higher education are required to meet the needs of the 21st century work life and society. One possible way to change pedagogy is the Flipped Classroom (FC) pedagogical approach. Particularly from the teaching perspective, pedagogy should be able to teach 21st century skills in addition to the content. Students’...

This study focuses on pre-service teachers’ experiences with the strategies used in teacher education to support their readiness to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for teaching and learning. The study is grounded in the SQD model by Tondeur et al. (2012). The SQD model defines six core strategies for supporting pre-service teache...

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) is important in today’s higher education. ICT has a central role in the skill set students are expected to master during their studies. The fast development of technology poses both possibilities and challenges for teachers. This paper is part of a larger project aimed at implementing the fl...

In this article, we present a study focusing on the learning experiences of business students in an organizational and marketing communication course. The pedagogical approaches of a flipped classroom, collaborative inquiry, and communication in the disciplines guided the planning of the course. A mixed-methods approach was used. The key findings i...

This study aims at investigating the profiles of teacher educators in order to explore their ability to prepare preservice teachers for technology integration in education. Specifically, the current study examines whether teacher educators can be grouped on the basis of their attitudes toward ICT (in education), their ICT self‐efficacy to design IC...

Lay Description What is already known about this topic: There are several studies focusing on pre‐service teachers' self‐perceived technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) areas There are differences amongst pre‐service teachers based on their confidence with different TPACK areas There is a lack of longitudinal studies focusing on chang...

Background Finnish permanent residents are covered by social security insurance administered by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. The procedure of insurance is initiated with medical certificate written by the treating doctor. Thus, the doctor must have certificate writing skills accompanied with the knowledge of the content and goals fo...

In this article, we consider the benefits and challenges of enacting creativity in the K-12 context and examine educational policy with regard to twenty-first century learning and technology. Creativity is widely considered to be a key construct for twenty-first century education. In this article, we review the literature on creativity relevant to...

This study aims to investigate profiles of teacher educators in order to explore their support to prepare student teachers for technology integration in education. Specifically, the current study examines whether teacher educators can be grouped on the basis of 1) their ICT-related characteristics (e.g., ICT attitudes or ICT self-efficacy), 2) thei...

This research focuses on students’ perceptions of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) use in higher education. This research focuses on students’ perceptions of their teachers’ knowledge and attitudes as ICT-skilled teachers and how actively different ICT applications are used. The target group of this quantitative study consists of 72...

This paper focuses on first-year pre-service teachers’ readiness to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education. Readiness to use ICT in education is studied as part of 21st century skills, where the role of ICT is emphasised. This study re-visits parts of three previously published articles providing a wider perspective on the...

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into differences between pre-service teachers based on the areas of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) and the areas of theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in the context of using information and communication technology in education. The target group consisted of 267 first-year pre-servic...

Afterschool interventions in STEM are linked to learning gains during the school day. These opportunities engage and excite students about STEM concepts since they observe a more hands-on, project-oriented approach. Often these opportunities for afterschool interventions are infrequent in nature and leave gaps for students in their maturation and u...

This study focuses on Finnish pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their twenty-first century skills, especially their learning strategies, collaboration and teamwork, as well as knowledge and attitudes related to ICT in education. The target group consist of 263 first-year pre-service teachers from three universities. The results outline how pre-s...

Twenty-first century skills have attracted significant attention in recent years. Student of today and the future are expected to have the skills necessary for collaborating, problem solving, creative and innovative thinking, and the ability to take advantage of information and communication technology (ICT) applications. Teachers must be familiar...

In schools, screening is an effective method to identify students at-risk for emotional and behavioural disorders. Several intervention programmes such as Positive Behaviour Interventions and Supports, Response to Intervention, and Multi-tiered Systems of Supports call for the use of psychometrically sound screening instruments. This study investig...

Different studies are developed to explore how we prepare future teachers for educational ICT-use in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Specifically, we explored the support pre-service teachers receive in their TTI (the strategies included in the SQD-model) and the influence of these strategies on future teachers’ competencies to use IC...

Positive student–teacher relationships are related to students’ academic achievement and behavioural and emotional adjustment. How a student’s behavioural and emotional strengths are associated with these relationships and how the relationships influence students’ academic performance remains unknown. We examined this framework using a cross-lagged...

Future skills, so-called 21st century skills, emphasise collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and especially ICT skills (Voogt & Roblin, 2012). Teachers have to be able to use various pedagogical approaches and ICT in order to support the development of their students' 21st century skills (Voogt & Roblin, 2012). These skills...

In previous research, the Finnish version of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-2 has demonstrated adequate internal consistency, factor structure and convergent validity. The purpose of the present study was to examine the long-term test-retest reliability of the Finnish BERS-2. Youth, parent and teacher BERS-2 ratings were collected once a...

Educational professionals need assessments that yield psychometrically sound scores to assess students’ behavioral and emotional functioning in order to guide data-driven decision-making processes. Rating scales have been found to be effective and economical, and often multiple informant perspectives can be obtained. The agreement between multiple...

This research focuses on how experiences of learning with ICT in pedagogically meaningful ways can affect pre-service teachers’ intentions to use ICT for teaching and learning. The research is based on the framework of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). It is a quasi-experimental design study with pre- and post-testing. The effects that a 12-we...

This study investigated the cross-informant agreement among student self-report, teacher report, and parent report on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire translated into Finnish (SDQ-Fin) and estimated mean convergent and divergent correlations with a sample of fifth-grade Finnish students (N = 588) and the cross-informant agreement among...

When rating scales are used in different countries, thorough investigation of the psychometric properties is needed. We examined the internal structure of the Finnish translated Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-2 (BERS-2) using Rasch and confirmatory factor analysis approaches with a sample of youth, parents, and teachers. The results suggeste...

In previous research the Finnish version of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-2 (Epstein, 2004) has demonstrated adequate internal consistency and reliability. The purpose of the present study was to examine the convergent validity of the Finnish BERS-2 by comparing it with the Finnish version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire...

Multiple informants such as teachers, students, and parents are commonly used as sources of information when assessing students' behaviors and emotions. However, there are few studies about cross informant agreement of strength-based assessment. The purpose of this study was to extend the international research on the Behavioral and Emotional Ratin...

Information from multiple sources is recommended when assessing students’ emotions and behaviors. Relatively few studies about cross informant agreement of behavioral and emotional strengths exist, especially for students with special education needs. The purpose of this study was to extend the cross informant agreement research of the Behavioral a...