Jari Lavonen

University of Helsinki | HY · Department of Teacher Education

This paper discusses the significance of school curricula in reflecting societal priorities and needs, focusing on the incorporation of computational thinking (CT) in Nordic national curricula. Our point of departure is that the preparedness of future generations for a digitally driven society can be determined by analysing how CT is either explici...

Introduction Students' self-regulation skills and self-efficacy are linked to performance and are considered essential for lifelong learning. Understanding these skills and their development is crucial for educational success and long-term personal growth. Methods In this study, 60 students attending a university-level collaborative design course...

What is the shape of the association between schoolwork-related anxiety (SRA; sometimes referred to as “test anxiety”) and science literacy proficiency (SLP)? Prior results in some areas (e.g., Flanders) have showed an inverse linear relationship between SRA and SLP. Intriguingly, academic anxiety showed an inverse “U-shaped” association with acade...

We examined the association between curriculum standards and biology textbooks from Nigeria and Finland based on the components of scientific literacy (SL), namely scientific knowledge and competences, learning contexts, and attitudes towards science. By means of content and co-occurrence network analysis we systematically determined the degree of...

Traditional educational research has been criticized for the gap between the research and practice communities, meaning that outcomes do not transfer to educational praxis. To meet this challenge, policymakers, funders, and researchers are developing research–practice partnerships (RPPs). The purpose of this research is to study the research–practi...

Digital fluency is a central 21st-century competence. Schools are responsible for ensuring that all students cultivate sophisticated sociodigital competences and mindsets needed for studying and collaborating through and around technology and overcoming digital challenges encountered. Although some schools have successfully integrated digital techn...

Recognizing students’ learning-related emotions and taking them into consideration are important pedagogical tools for teachers. Taking students’ views into account promotes their participation. In this study, instant video blogging (IVB) is used to collect primary school students’ first-hand accounts of their emotions in learning situations. Throu...

Enhancing interest in physics learning has been an important component of education policy and policy implementation for decades. However, in many countries, student interest in physics has not increased. The aim of this study was to predict situational interest using individual interest and the instructional activities students engaged in. Also, t...

Knowledge of scientific inquiry (SI) is considered essential to the development of an individual's Scientific Literacy (SL) and therefore, SI is included in many international science education reform documents. Two previous large scale international studies assessed the SI understandings of students entering middle school and secondary students at...

This chapter analyses the integration of digital tools and project-based learning pedagogy into secondary physics teaching and learning. The teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) model is used as a framework for this analysis. TPACK combines Shulman’s structure of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), content or subject matte...

In this chapter, we analyze and discuss teaching, learning and well-being in Finnish education during the COVID-19 pandemic between Spring 2020 and Fall 2022. First, we analyze the preconditions, such as teachers’ and students’ digital competences and the digital infrastructure necessary to switch to distance teaching and learning. Second, we prese...

Unplugged activities as a low-cost solution to foster computational thinking (CT) skills seem to be a trend in recent years. However, current evidence of the effectiveness of unplugged activities in promoting students’ CT skills has been inconsistent. To understand the potential of unplugged activities on computational thinking skills, a systematic...

The study examines students’ disciplinary learning in physics and interdisciplinary science learning opportunities that students encounter during a collaborative invention project. Thirteen student teams (aged 11 to 12, N = 46) designed and constructed a prototype of a technology invention meant to solve one of the challenges students face in daily...

The goal of science education has shifted from teaching scientific concepts to facilitating students’ active role in making sense of phenomena through engaging in scientific practices (SPs). While engaging in scientific practices, students use and develop core ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift towards online education, stressing the need...

This article reports the results of a study on the domains and origins of information and knowledge that primary pre-service teachers utilised during their professional experiences in teaching schools at the University of Helsinki (UH) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ). The professional experience at both universities focuses on the collabora...

Various current trends in education highlight the importance of pedagogies that address societal and environmental questions while preparing and inspiring students to take action. Meanwhile, how we view the future influences how we act, and how we act influences the future. Research on young people’s images of the future has shown how technology pl...

In this chapter, tension patterns and development opportunities within Finnish teacher education are examined. We have chosen to focus the analysis on the recruitment of student teachers, the relationship between theory and practice and mentorship for newly qualified teachers. Tension patterns and development opportunities appear in all three phase...

The International Handbook of Physics Education Research: Teaching Physics covers the topics of educational technologies, learning environments, teacher education, and assessment in relation to physics education. As the field of physics education research grows, it is increasingly difficult for newcomers to gain an appreciation of the major finding...

The quantity and quality of talented individuals in STEM (science/S, technology/T, engineering/E and mathematics/M) fields contribute to a nation’s overall competitiveness. Taiwan and many countries around the world are vigorously promoting the training of STEM professionals and the enhancement of STEM literacy for all as one of the key education o...

STEM education is an approach that has affected all countries of the world in recent years. Undoubtedly, one of the countries exposed to this effect is Finland. In this chapter, the status and trends of STEM education in Finland will be discussed. In this context, the chapter consists of some main titles and subtitles. The status and trends of STEM...

Lately, new materialism has been proposed as a theoretical framework to better understand material-dialogic relationships in learning, and concurrently network analysis has emerged as a method in science education research. This paper explores how to include materiality in network analysis and reports the development of a method to construct networ...

Information and communications technology (ICT) is now widely used in education. However, the effect of ICT on the development of students’ scientific higher-order thinking skills (S-HOTS) is a controversial issue in science education research. This has attracted significant attention from researchers worldwide in the field of educational technolog...

This study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between emotions and development of scientific understanding by examining (1) how students perform in scientific sensemaking in the context of a three-cycle predict-observe-explain (POE) activity, (2) what kind of trajectories of situational epistemic emotions students show when making...

This qualitative study examined factors that gifted Finnish upper secondary school physics students ( N = 24) identified as helping or hindering their talent development in physics. In-depth interviews captured students’ descriptions of critical incidents regarding their physics talent development at home, school, and in leisure time. The results s...

Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, miten luonnontieteen oppitunneilla esiintyvät opetuksen ja opiskelun työtavat ovat yhteydessä opiskelijoiden kokemaan tilannekohtaiseen sitoutumiseen. Tilannekohtaisella sitoutumisella viitataan optimaalisen oppimisen hetkiin, joissa opiskelijoiden kokema kiinnostus, taito ja haaste ovat yhtä aikaa korkealla tasolla. Tut...

Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) is important for teaching science during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper investigates the TPACK of Finnish and Thai primary school teachers in the context of teaching science through blended learning (BL) during the COVID-19. 11 teachers from Finland and Thailand were interviewed. The interview...

Three studies on the relationship between curiosity and interest were reported. The first study was a meta-analysis that examined the Pearson correlations between scales assessing curiosity and interest. Based on 24 studies (31 effect sizes), we found that the curiosity scales correlated with the interest scales at a moderate level (r = .53), but t...

Climate change and its mitigation represent a major global challenge, alongside biodiversity loss, global pandemics, and shortages of fresh water and food. It has the power to shape the environment and future; however, policymakers seek to prevent undesirable changes through environmental and education policies. Hinesjeffrey et al. (2013) consider...

Epistemic emotions (surprise, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion, anxiety, frustration and boredom) have an object focus on knowledge or knowledge construction and are thus hypothesized to affect learning outcomes. In the context of upper secondary school science, the present study clarifies this relation by examining the students’ pre- and posttest p...

Scientific literacy (SL) has been recognized as the main goal of science curricula documents around the world; however, comparative international curriculum research is limited, especially with Western and African countries. To fill this gap, this study aimed to compare the coverage of SL competencies with the components of knowledge, attitudes, an...

Emotions can either support or hinder learning. For a teacher, it is important to recognise students’ learning-related emotions to adjust support for learning and motivation appropriately. In this chapter, we employ video blogging in examining how Finnish fifth graders experienced thermal camera activities in a primary science lesson and what types...

Crafting Engaging Science Environments is a high school chemistry and physics project-based learning intervention that meets Next Generation Science Standards performance expectations. It was administered to a diverse group of over 4,000 students in a randomized control trial in California and Michigan. Results show that treatment students, on aver...

Science education research has long focused on scientific higher-order thinking (S-HOT) and observed that students’ HOT plays an important role in the science learning process. However, the existing research has tended to overlook the comprehensive nature of scientific higher-order thinking (S-HOT) and stopped short of defining its unique features....

This quantitative study examined self-perceptions of multiple intelligences among gifted physics-oriented Finnish upper-secondary students (N = 164). The specific focus was on gender differences in the self-evaluated intelligence profiles. The data were gathered via an online questionnaire based on Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. The hi...

Finland’s educational prowess, though tempered by recent international assessments, has remained intact. This report focused on lessons that could be learned regarding secondary-level science education from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, science-focused assessment. That PISA iteration included not only science literac...

Soome põhikooli ülemise astme riiklikus õppekavas käsitletakse loodusaineid eraldi õppeainetena. Õppekava keskendub hoiakute kujundamisele, mis toetavad teaduslike teadmiste kasutamist erisugustes uurimuslikes olukordades ja kontekstides. Õppekava kohaselt on loodusainete õpetamise eesmärk anda õpilastele loodusteaduslik pädevus, mis võimaldab neil...

Science subjects are introduced as separate subjects in the Finnish national lower-secondary level science curriculum. The curriculum concentrates on attitudes, which support the use of scientific knowledge in different science inquiry situations and contexts. The competence aims, introduced in the curriculum, emphasise the use of scientific knowle...

This study examines how classroom activities, student gender and student personal interest in science studies and careers predict situational interest in physics learning. Teaching modules were designed based on the secondary physics curricula in Finland (Helsinki) and Chile (Santiago and Viña del Mar) emphasising students engagement in scientific...

This article reports the outcomes of research on student teachers' situational engagement during their third-year teaching practice in university-affiliated teaching schools (teacher training schools) at the universities of Helsinki, Finland and Johannesburg, South Africa. We have explored situations that possibly engage the student teachers during...

The implementation of a teacher education strategy in a decentralised Finnish education system is analysed. Altogether, 31 pilot projects, involving teacher educators from all universities, were funded to support the implementation of the strategy and professional learning of autonomous teacher educators in the context of the strategy. In this mixe...

This study investigates how different instructional activities relate to epistemic emotions in science classes. Study data were collected during the implementation of a project-based learning unit in five Finnish upper secondary school classes using experience sampling, video observations and stimulated recall. From the videos, the excerpts prior t...

The study focuses on examining elementary pupils’ (N = 42, 11–13 years old) reflections on collaborative design processes, team collaboration and their co-inventions. Digital and traditional fabrication technologies were used in a 2-year co-invention project containing approximately 16 sessions during year 1 and 11 sessions in year 2. Between the t...

In this chapter, the teaching and learning in Finnish compulsory education during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring and autumn terms of 2020 will be analyzed and discussed. First, preconditions, such as teacher and student digi-competences and digi-infrastructure for switching to distance teaching and learning, will be analyzed. Second, the organ...

Situational engagement is a key element in promoting students’ maintained interest and focused attention in learning. Most research on students engagement has been variable-centered, and only few studies have examined situational patterns of student engagement. The present study used person-oriented approach (e.g., latent profile analysis with Mplu...

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, research teams in the United States and Finland were collaborating on a study to improve adolescent academic engagement in chemistry and physics and the impact remote teaching on academic, social, and emotional learning. The ongoing “Crafting Engaging Science Environments” (CESE) intervention afforded a rare data...

Research on the advantages and disadvantages of project-based learning (PBL) among gifted pupils studying physics is scarce. This mixed-methods study investigates engagement, experiences, and learning outcomes among gifted Finnish upper-secondary-level students learning physics through PBL. A six-lesson PBL module on basic Newtonian mechanics was d...

Understandings of the nature of scientific inquiry (NO) is included in science education reform documents around theworld. However, little is known about what students have learnedabout NOSI during their pre-college school years. The purpose of this large-scale follow-up international project (i.e. 32 countries and regions, spanning six continents...

The project ‘Schools Educating for Sustainability: Proposals for and from in- service teacher education’ aims to contribute to teacher education for sustainability (EduS) in different European countries, to reach the EU level goals for a more sustainable society (European Commission, 2019). The project’s goal is to develop new initiatives addressin...

Recent research and reform efforts in science education have consistently stressed the importance of coherent science instruction, in which learning opportunities are connected and contextualized by meaningful phenomena, focus on a small set of core ideas over time, and generate a need-to-know about new ideas through a set of connected lessons. Yet...

We present teacher–researcher partnership (TRP) as a way of fostering teachers’ professional learning. Teachers’ participation as research group members is an essential aspect of the partnership. Teachers and researchers share the same goal, which is to improve their understanding of and enhance students’ engagement in science. Project-based learni...

Understandings of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI), as opposed to engaging students in inquiry learning experiences, are included in science education reform documents around the world. However, little is known about what students have learned about NOSI during their pre-college school years. The purpose of this large-scale follow-up interna...

CITIE 2020, enfocado en Educación Digital Post COVID-19, debido al contexto de la La pandemia se ha desarrollado de forma virtual. CITIE promueve espacios de diálogo y reflexión entre profesores, gestores e investigadores relacionados con la educación. Esta edición de CITIE ha permitido la socialización de las tendencias e innovaciones que se están...

While expectancy-value-cost theory predicts that students' task values play an important part in academic engagement, these associations have rarely been tested in science education and are even less studied in authentic classroom situations. The present study examined to what extent momentary task-values, expectations and costs are associated with...

The relationships and differences between curiosity and interest have received considerable attention and discussions. Yet, most of the discussions so far draw from little direct empirical evidence. In this set of three studies, the relationship between curiosity and interest were examined. The first study was a meta-analysis that examined the Pear...

This chapter analyzes how learning twenty-first century competences has been implemented in the Finnish educational context through the enactment of national and local level curricula and the design of a teacher education development program in a decentralized education system, in which teachers, schools, municipalities, and universities have high...

Nuevas herramientas tecnológicas, servicios basados en tecnología y soporte se están introduciendo en nuestra vida diaria más rápido que nunca. Entre estos avances tecnológicos, la tecnología robótica ha aumentado dramáticamente en los últimos años, así como su inclusión en la educación. El propósito del trabajo es ofrecer una revisión compresiva s...

The idea of competency, which is widely disseminated through science curricula in various countries, has great potential for the professionalisation of science teachers. Moreover, teachers need competencies for introducing these competencies and for supporting students to develop them. In this chapter, we explore a characterisation of scientific co...

The notion of ‘competence’, very much cited in the current international science education research literature and policy documents, brings new opportunities and, at the same time, challenges.

This study seeks to understand how different scientific practices in high school science classrooms are associated with student situational engagement. In this study, situational engagement is conceptualized as the balance between skills, interest, and challenge when the reported experiences are all high. In this study, data on situational engageme...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Congress on Education and Technology in Sciences, CISETC 2019, held in Arequipa, Peru, in December 2019. The 12 full papers presented in the volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 96 submissions. The papers are focused on the two main topics: pedagogical practice...

Previous research has shown that dialogic teacher talk not only supports students’ understanding but also raises their interest. However, there is little, if any, research on the connection between dialogic talk and student interest in classroom situations. To investigate this connection, we collected video observations and experience sampling data...

Learning competencies for the twenty-first century has been an internationalized slogan in education reforms that has been framed into policy documents by various supranational organizations and thereafter adopted in national-level curricula by several nations. First, by comparing eight frameworks for the describing of competencies from both nation...

Una característica interesante de la política educativa finlandesa es el diseño colaborativo de estrategias nacionales y locales, programas de desarrollo y planes de estudio. La planificación de estrategias, programas y planes de estudio generalmente comienza con el reconocimiento de los desafíos y necesidades a nivel de aula, escuela y municipio....

The aim of this research was to examine if a set of three science and technology workshops would promote first-grade pupils’ science-related competence beliefs. The first workshop dealt with electric circuits and related handicraft tasks. The second workshop involved programming with Lego Mindstorms robots. The third workshop was related to compute...

A key goal of initial teacher education in all countries is to educate quality teachers through a quality post-secondary programme and then support them in their careers through professional learning. However, there are different definitions and interpretations of a quality teacher or a quality teacher education programme. Several terms are used to...

According to modern expectancy-value theory, students’ motivation in school subjects begins to vary at the very beginning of their school careers, showing a task-specific pattern of motivation. However, there is no clear evidence in the literature on how students’ value beliefs are formed and interact with each other in early elementary schools. Us...

Supporting students’ active participation in maker-centered project-based learning (PBL) can be challenging in inclusive classes. The aim of this study was to support students’ active participation in cooperative team via teacher-directed reflective discussions during an inclusive, maker-centered PBL unit. The study was conducted during the student...

This research compared how the scientific literacy-related goals of the current Chinese and Finnish national science curricula at primary school level are actualised using a revised Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scientific literacy framework in the content analysis of the curricula. The content of the curricula focuses princ...