Jarkko Hautamäki

University of Helsinki | HY · Centre for Educational Assessment, Section of Special Education

A fundamental dynamic feature of Finnish education is the role of the national curriculum, renewed after 1985 approximately every 10 years. Over this course, it has been becoming less detailed. The latest revision (2014) was associated with an explicit reform to integrate key (transversal) competences in the core curriculum. The central idea of the...

This study responds to the demands of the rapidly changing landscape of education, the 21st century competencies and development of curriculum. Those competences are being interpreted all over the world resulting to differing curricular changes. In the Finnish National Core Curriculum 2016 they are presented as seven transversal competences that gu...

The paper deals with some educational aspects of going to school in Finland concerning students with special educational needs/services. We proceed from empirical observation. Then, the general context is given to interpret the data and extend the observed added value of individualized educational support. The latter, in its turn, requires the iden...

Finland is known for its high-performing educational system, but local assessments have shown that performance has declined during the past decade. We report the results of nationally representative learning to learn assessments in which 15-year-olds took an identical test in the same schools in 2001, 2012 and 2017. The results show that the level...

https://www.helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/atoms/files/oppimaan_oppimisen_arvioinnin_teoreettisia_lahtokohtia.pdf

Tässä luvussa käsitellään kahta asiaa: 1) trendianalyysinä yhdeksäsluokkalaisten osaamisen ja asenteiden (uskomusten) yleistasossa tapahtuneita muutoksia vuodesta 2001 ja 2) täydentävänä poikkileikkausanalyysinä tarkennetaan ja laajennetaan trendianalyysissä käytettyjen asennemuuttujien analyysia akateemisten minäkäsitysten klusterianalyysin kautta...

Published in Psykologia,53 (2-3), 152-165.

PISA-ohjelmaan on lukutaidon, matematiikan ja luonnontieteiden ohella kuulunut vuodesta 2012 lähtien vaihtuvan innovatiivinen sisältöalue.

Artikkelissa kuvataan perusopetuksen tukijärjestelmän muutoksia normiteksteihin, erityisopetuksen tilastointeihin sekä aiempaan tutkimukseen pohjaten. Erityisopetuksellisen tuen määritelmät ja tilastointitavat ovat muuttuneet, mutta yleisenä päätelmänä on tukea saavien määrän suhteellinen lisäys erityisesti peruskoulujärjestelmään siirtymisen myötä...

Tasa-arvo ja oikeudenmukaisuus ovat olleet perusopetuksen kantavia tavoitteita sen syntyajoista asti. Tässä artikkelissa oppimisen ja koulunkäynnin tuen järjestelmää tarkastellaan alueellisten erojen näkökulmasta. Kunnittainen vaihtelu tuen tarjonnassa ei sinänsä tee tukijärjestelmästä hyvää tai huonoa. Osa tukijärjestelmän rakenteista on kuitenkin...

The Finnish educational system was decentralised in the 1980s and the 1990s. The school inspection system was dissolved and the municipalities as organisers of education were given responsibility for monitoring the effectiveness of education and securing that every child has equal possibilities in proceeding through the 9-year basic education consi...

Published in Kasvatus, 47(3), 214-229

Scientists have studied the development of the human mind for decades and have accumulated an impressive number of empirical studies that have provided ample support for the notion that early cognitive performance during infancy and childhood is an important predictor of later cognitive performance during adulthood. As children move from childhood...

In Finland, schools’ effectiveness in fostering the development of transversal skills is evaluated through large-scale learning to learn (LTL) assessments. This article presents how LTL skills—general cognitive competences and learning-related motivational beliefs—develop during primary school and how they predict pupils’ CPS skills at the end of s...

In this study, we explored the network of relations between fluid reasoning, working memory, and the two dimensions of complex problem solving, rule knowledge and rule application. In doing so, we replicated the recent study by Bühner, Kröner, and Ziegler (2008) and the structural relations investigated therein [ Bühner, Kröner, & Ziegler, (2008) ....

The relationships between reasoning and school achievement were studied taking into account the multilevel nature (school- and class-levels) of the data. We gathered data from 51 classes at seven schools in metropolitan and Eastern Finland (N = 769, 395 males, 15-year-old students). To study scientific reasoning, we used a modified version of Scien...

The relationships between reasoning and school achievement were studied taking into account the multilevel nature (school- and class-levels) of the data. We gathered data from 51 classes at seven schools in metropolitan and Eastern Finland (N = 769, 395 males, 15-year-old students). To study scientific reasoning, we used a modified version of Scien...

Complex problem solving (CPS) as an individual skill has gained importance in educational and psychological research, since it requires skills beyond routine reasoning, assessed by computer-based means. However, most of the CPS research has been concerned with the validity of CPS assessments based on students’ responses (i.e., their CPS ability). A...

Published in NMI Bulletin, 25(3), 36-51.

Яркко Хаутамяки - почетный профессор Университета Хельсинки, директор Центра оценки качества образования, почетный профессор факультета психологии МГУ им. М. В. Ломоносова, член Академии педагогических и социальных наук (Россия). Адрес: University of Helsinki, P. O. Box 33, Yliopistonkatu 4, 00014, Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: jarkko.hautamaki@helsin...

This position paper highlights the relevance of domain-general problem solving skills for a comprehensive approach to contemporary education. We argue that education in the 21st century needs to be comprehensive in the sense that it should equip students with domain-general problem solving skills in addition to domain-specific factual knowledge and...

The aim of this study was to analyse the role of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) and language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension) in predicting preschool and kindergarten-aged children’s ability to solve mathematical word problems presented orally. The participants were 116 Finnish-speaking children aged 4–7 years. The results...

The relationship between attention and academic performance has been of interest starting with early studies on academic success and failure. In this study we examine how attention measured in simple and prolonged over-learned response tasks correlates with and contributes to scientific reasoning and school achievement (GPA). To study attention, th...

The role of time on task (TOT) for students’ attainment in a low-stakes assessment of cross-curricular skills was examined using the log data collected in the computer-based assessment (CBA). Two structural equation models were compared: Model 1, in which students’ test scores were explained by grade point average (GPA) together with mastery and de...

Background: Recent decades have been marked by an extensive movement to analyze bias in people’s thinking, especially in gender-related issues. Studies have addressed the question of gender bias in classrooms on different levels—the use of gender in books, learning opportunities determined by students’ gender, or teachers’ gender preferences. Purp...

The Finnish National Board of Education published the framework for evaluating educational outcomes in 1995, of which learning to learn competences and motivation for lifelong learning were key objectives. These were viewed as outcomes that do not fall into the domain of any particular school subject; rather, they were to be seen as common pedagogi...

Education in the twenty-first century must prepare students to meet the challenges of a dynamic and interconnected world. However, assessment of students' skills tends to focus primarily on static tasks. Therefore, it is not known whether knowledge about successful strategies displayed on static tasks can be transferred to interactive and dynamic e...

Educational reform is rarely considered from the point of view of conceptual change. Typically, reform starts at the policy document level by introducing criteria intended to lead to the adoption of new practices. This study offers a case study of how legal national educational reforms can be localized. The case in focus is the recent legislative c...

Since 1996, educational effectiveness has been understood in Finland to include not only subject specific knowledge and skills but also the more general competences which are not the exclusive domain of any single subject but develop through good teaching along a student’s educational career. Many of these, including the object of the present asses...

2007 hat in Finnland eine umfassende Bildungsreform eingesetzt, um ein dreistufiges Förderkonzept in die allgemeine Schule zu integrieren. Der Beitrag skizziert diesen Reformprozess aus einer evalutiven Perspektive, die zugleich integraler Bestandteil der Bildungsreform ist. Zunächst werden der bildungspolitische Kontext und die Phasen der Reform e...

L2 refers to the cognitive and affective-dispositional factors central to the application of existing skills to novel tasks at work. On the other hand, L2 refers to potential new educational practices in education, which would increase the appeal of education and learning to all pupils. L2 is to be seen to comprise and adhere to several theoretical...

Kyttälä, M., Aunio, P. & Hautamäki, J. (2010). Working memory resources in young children with mathematical difficulties. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 1–15. Working memory (WM) (Baddeley, 1986, 1997) is argued to be one of the most important cognitive resources underlying mathematical competence (Geary, 2004). Research has established cl...

The aim of this study was to explore the early numeracy of low‐performing young children. The mean age of the children was six years and four months. The 511 participants belonged to three groups: multi‐language children, children with special educational needs and children with average performance. The results showed that there were significant gr...

The notion of general cognitive ability (or ‘intelligence’) is explored and why the time might now be ripe for educators to re-consider the power offered by a general intellectual capacity which is itself amenable to educational influence. We review existing knowledge concerning general intelligence, including the cohabitation of general and specia...

This study examined the influence of nationality, age and gender on Chinese (N = 130) and Finnish (N = 203) pre‐schoolers' number sense. Two highly correlated aspects of number sense were extracted: one reflecting the children's ability to organise and compare quantities (i.e. relational skills), and another pertaining to their ability to operate w...

This article concerns psychometric aspects of the Finnish Early Numeracy Test, which has been translated from the original Dutch Early Numeracy Test. The advantage of the test is that young children's numerical skills can be assessed systematically, which was not possible previously in Finland. A norm study was conducted in which the test was admin...

This study investigated the possibility of enhancing the level of preschoolers’ number sense by introducing two intervention programmes, Let’s think! and Young children with special educational needs count, too! .Forty‐five preschoolers, mean age 66.4 months, were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group rece...

This study examines young children's number sense in subjects from Finland (n=254), Hong Kong (n=246), and Singapore (n=130). Chinese, English and Finnish versions of the Early Numeracy Test (ENT; Van Luit et al., 1994) were used. Two highly correlated aspects of number sense were measured, one reflecting children's abilities to organize and compar...

The present study investigated the relationship between visuospatial working memory (VSWM) capacity, mental rotation, general intelligence and early numeracy in preschoolers. Age-appropriate cognitive tasks benefiting cover stories were developed. The early numeracy test (ENT) was used to assess mathematical preskills. The total score was split to...

As a part of an extensive project for the evaluation of the Finnish comprehensive school, a recently developed reading comprehension measure; a hierarchy-rating test, and a more conventional multiple-choice task were used to assess reading comprehension skills in population-based samples of 2,891 sixth-graders (12–13 years old) and 1,953 (15–16 yea...

Examined the structural validity of the multiple-choice items of the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (STAT) regarding the existence and separability of the 3 aspects (creative, analytical, and practical) of intelligence in 3 content modalities, by using the techniques of confirmatory factor analysis on a combined sample of 3,278 school students...

The Finnish version of the Portage Assessment Scale was used with 114 aspartylglucosaminuria (AGU) persons aged between 1 and 56 years. Ninety-three persons with AGU were also given psychological tests, mainly SB (Finnish), WISC-R and WPPSI, but also Merrill-Palmer, Bayley, Leiter and WAIS tests. The data also include for the reliability assessment...

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan tieteen menetelmistä ja sovelluksista kertovan tiedon välittämistä. Tällainen tieto on tarpeellinen koko väestölle, eikä tehtävää voida ratkaista kertomalla vain yksittäisistä tiedoista. Tämä vaativa tavoite ulottuu myös tiedeopetukseen, jota annetaan koulu ikäiselle väestölle. Tiedekeskukset ovat koulun ulkopuolisia tied...

Artikkelissa nähdään tieteellinen järkeily ajatteluksi, joka kykenee jäsentämään ajattelun kohteen useiden erilaisten asioiden kantajana. Artikkelissa tarkastellaan menetelmiä, joilla tieteellistä järkeilyä ja sen edellytyksiä on mitattu sekä näiden kokeiden tuloksia. Ajattelun opettaminen nähdään aikuiskasvatuksessa välttämättömäksi.

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan ammatillista erityisopetusta lähtien siitä, että ammatillisen toiminnan erittelyn tulee olla myös erityisryhmien opetuksen perusta. Tämän pohjalta kritikoidaan konkreettisuuden ylikonkretisoivia tulkintoja, jotka jättävät puolitiehen ammatillisten kokonaisuuksien etsinnän ammatillisen erityisopetuksen opetussuunnitelmalli...

Den nyare socialisationsteoretiska debatten har bl.a. aktualiserat frågan om Marx' metod i specialvetenskaper. I artikeln behandlas den dialektiska eller historiskt-logiska metodens problem i psykologin utgäende frän dels L.S. Vygotsky och den kulturhistoriska skolan, dels K. Holzkamp och den kritiska psykologin.

Cross-validated 3 Piagetian tests from the set of science reasoning tasks by evaluating their construct validity and assessed the distribution of Piagetian stages of logical thinking among different age groups. The relationship between logical thinking and social status, sex, reasoning and verbal and spatial abilities, and school achievement were a...

Report Prepared for SITRA, Helsinki, October 2010 2 The welfare state is in transition. It is widely acknowledged that schooling in the broadest sense—the acquisition of the capacity to learn to learn in primary and secondary school; the application and development of that capacity throughout all the phases of an ever longer work life—is increasing...