Heidi Hyytinen

University of Eastern Finland | UEF · School of Educational Sciences and Psychology

University students’ approaches to learning and generic skills have important consequences for studying and success in higher education. However, person-oriented research, which explores how students with different learning profiles evaluate their learning of individual generic skills, has not been the core interest of previous studies. This study...

While Finland has been considered a model for educational equity, the last decade has brought up concerns about educational segregation. This systematic literature review captures an overview of research on factors contributing to educational segregation and its consequences in Finland. A literature search of studies investigating various aspects o...

Purpose This study aims to assess higher education students’ interest in learning sustainability competencies and their pro-ecological worldviews at a large research-intensive university in Finland to provide a background information for developing a sustainability science course. Design/methodology/approach In total, 797 students participated in...

Master’s thesis writing is a challenging endeavor, requiring students to engage in deeper learning processes and apply several academic competences. This study investigates the associations between students’ approaches to master’s thesis writing, the perceptions of the thesis as a teaching-learning environment, self-efficacy for thesis writing, and...

The transition from university to working life is a challenging phase for graduates. The focus in the present longitudinal study is on employability factors and their association with this transition and with early career success. The participants were 43 graduates who were interviewed at the time of their graduation and filled in a follow-up quest...

This chapter describes a project on the assessment of Finnish undergraduate students’ generic skills. It gives a brief overview of the Finnish higher education system and the policy context that has paved the way for the assessment of generic skills. It describes the aims of the project, and illustrates how it was conducted in Finland. The chapter...

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...

In the present study, students' (n = 881) motives for attending university studies and study-related burnout were investigated in relation to their first-year academic achievement. The results showed that students' motives for attending university and study-related burnout at the outset of studies were connected to each other and to academic achiev...

This qualitative study analyzes first-year university students’ conceptions of their second language (L2) self-concept and self-efficacy for academic writing in English. The data consist of learning journals (N = 74), collected at a Finnish university in an English as a medium of instruction (EMI) context. L2 self-concept descriptions included posi...

The research field on generic skills in higher education has expanded rapidly. In addition, the importance of generic skills has been highlighted both in educational policy discourses and in practice of higher education. The present study reviews theoretical, methodological, and empirical viewpoints on learning generic skills and synthesizes the em...

Critical thinking, a complex set of cognitive skills, and the ability to communicate one’s thoughts are vital in successful studying for new higher education students. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of socioeconomic background and prior academic performance on new students’ critical thinking and writing. The participants were 1006...

This qualitative study investigated the various linguistic, contextual, and experiential equivalence issues embedded in a performance-based instrument aimed at assessing generic skills in higher education. A rigorous translation and adaptation process (American English to Finnish) was conducted on one instrument, namely Collegiate Learning Assessme...

Argumentative writing is the central generic skill in higher education studies. However, students have difficulties in basic argumentation skills. Novice students do not necessarily receive adequate guidance, and their prior education may not have supported the requirements of higher education writing. Position-taking is at the core of argumentatio...

This study is an exploration of bachelor-level law students’ descriptions of legal reasoning in a large multidisciplinary university in Finland. Thirty students participated in this qualitative study. The participants comprised three student groups: first-year students (n = 10), second-year students (n = 10) and third-year students (n = 10). The da...

Our aim was to explore higher education students’ response and self-regulatory processes plus the relationship between these, as evidenced in two types of performance-based critical thinking tasks included in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+) International instrument. The data collection consisted of 20 cognitive laboratories. The data were...

Students in higher education have been shown to have difficulties in developing their critical thinking skills, such as analysis and problem solving, reasoning and argumentation. Open-ended tasks offer opportunities for students to develop their own interpretations of various sources, to critically analyse domain-specific knowledge and utilize that...

The study investigated the level of Bachelor-level students’ generic skills, what factors are connected with the level of generic skills, and to what extent these skills develop during higher education studies. The assessed generic skills included analytic reasoning and evaluation, problem solving, writing effectiveness, and writing mechanics. The...

Critical thinking is a combination of complex cognitive skills. It is important for the successful acquisition of disciplinary skills in higher education and thus, it is a valuable competency for a new student. The complex nature of critical thinking leads to challenges for its assessment even in performance assessments such as CLA + International...

Students in higher education have been shown to have difficulties in developing their critical thinking skills, such as analysis and problem solving, reasoning and argumentation. Open-ended tasks offer opportunities for students to develop their own interpretations of various sources, to critically analyse domain-specific knowledge and utilize that...

Syftet med studien var att ta reda på vilken nivå de studerandes generiska färdigheter ligger för studerande med kandidatexamen, vilka faktorer som är relaterade till generiska färdigheternas nivå och i vilken utsträckning generiska färdigheter utvecklas under högskolestudierna. De generiska färdigheter som utvärderades i studien var analytiskt res...

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...

This chapter analyses challenges in exploring the conceptions of knowledge and knowing. It firstly introduces empirical methods that have been applied to investigate individuals’ conceptions of knowledge. After that, the chapter elaborates methodological and theoretical challenges related to this issue based on current research. Finally, conclusion...

Contemporary higher education is committed to enhancing students’ scientific thinking in part by improving their capacity to think critically, a competence that forms a foundation for scientific thinking. We introduce and evaluate the characteristic elements of critical thinking (i.e. cognitive skills, affective dispositions, knowledge), problemati...

As Finnish university admissions are reformed, more information is needed on the relationship between performance in prior education and later academic achievement. Transition to university is a critical period, and low performance in prior education is associated with challenges in later study. In the present study, law students’ (n = 426) perform...

Supporting teacher candidates' learning of coherent and well-ordered content knowledge is one of the most important educational aims in subject teacher education. To reach this aim, teacher educators need suitable tools to enhance the formation of such knowledge. In this article, we present an analytical framework to examine conceptual knowledge, m...

Background Performance assessment development is a three‐phase process of (1) defining the construct of what is to be measured, (2) constructing the test items, task, and scoring criteria, and (3) collecting empirical evidence on extent to which they tap into the intended construct. Aims In the light of the three‐phase process, this pilot study pr...

Self-regulation and self-efficacy beliefs are essential factors for university students’ performance and academic success. Surprisingly, little is known about how these aspects are related to students’ experiences of the teaching-learning environment. This study examines the relationship between self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs, experiences o...

Critical thinking is a key capability for academic experts and for developing one’s expertise from the very beginning of studying at university. Self-efficacy beliefs and approaches to learning are important in this process, although their relationships with critical thinking are not clear. This study explores the relationship between critical thin...

The focus of this study is on Open University students’ entry-level critical thinking skills. The research questions were: how are students’ age, and level and discipline of previous education related to critical thinking skills; is the level and discipline of previous education connected to the accuracy of students’ self-evaluation of their critic...

This article focuses on academics’ conceptions of teaching research ethics and integrity. Seventeen academics from a Finnish research intensive university participated in this qualitative study. The data were collected using a qualitative multi-method approach, including think-aloud and interview data. The material was scrutinized using thematic an...

The present study aimed to identify difficulties in writing at the beginning of educational science programmes in the Finnish Open University by analysing the students’ written argumentation and use of sources at the textual level. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results showed that many students began their education...

In higher education, personal epistemology is today a significant research area. Personal epistemology has been seen as promising particularly because it focuses on one of the general learning aims of many contemporary universities, namely, the development of students’ creative and critical thinking. The article identifies serious conceptual proble...

The central purpose of this doctoral thesis has been to deepen our understanding of the nature of critical thinking by combining theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives. The concept of critical thinking has a central role both in research on the philosophy of education and in empirical research on learning and teaching in higher educ...

This article compares the test results of two different performance-based assessments of critical thinking: a constructed-response task from the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ). These tests ostensibly measure the same critical thinking skills, such as analysing, interpreting and evaluating information...

Artikkelissa analysoidaan filosofisen tutkimuksen keinoin erästä kasvatus- ja koulutustutkimuksen keskeistä tieteenfilosofista ja metodologista haastetta: normatiivisten ja deskriptiivisten tutkimusintressien yhteenkietoutumista kasvatustieteellisessä tutkimuksessa. Argumentoimme, että kasvatustieteellinen tutkimus tarvitsee sekä filosofisista että...

The study utilized a multi-method approach to explore the connection between critical thinking and epistemological beliefs in a specific problem-solving situation. Data drawn from a sample of ten third-year bioscience students were collected using a combination of a cognitive lab and a performance task from the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)....

The aim of this study is to explore by systematic textual analysis the crucial conceptions of constructive alignment and to reconstruct the concept of constructive alignment and examine the relation between conceptual relationships in John Biggs’s texts. In this study, I have also analyzed the presuppositions of the concept of constructive alignmen...