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August 2010 - present
September 2007 - present
Publications
Publications (240)
Teachers’ mindsets play a significant role in supporting and advancing students’ learning trajectories. While considerable research has focused on the impact of teacher mindsets on instructional practices and motivational factors, less attention has been paid to their understanding of neuroplasticity – one of the fundamental concepts behind a growt...
Introduction
This study uses a person-centered approach to explore Finnish lower-secondary school students’ (N = 1106) mindsets across intelligence, giftedness, and creativity. It further investigates the relationship between mindsets profiles, school achievement in various subjects, and gender differences, aiming to address the domain-specificity...
Task-related change in physiological arousal is suggested to reflect active involvement with the task. While studies often examine such task-related changes in arousal as averaged across the entire task, the present study focused on temporal changes in arousal during a task. More specifically, we investigated changes in elementary school students’...
There is a lack of research on students’ conceptions of giftedness and intelligence, despite recognition of their influence on real-life factors such as achievement and motivation. This paper presents a cross-sectional mixed methods study that investigated Finnish students’ (age 6–16 years; N = 1282) implicit conceptions of giftedness and intellige...
This literature review focuses on earlier research on teachers’ mindsets, i.e., teachers’ implicit beliefs about the malleability of basic human qualities such as intelligence. More specifically, the review focuses on what teachers’ mindsets are, how teachers’ mindsets manifest in the teaching, studying, and learning process, how teachers’ mindsets...
This Special Issue on “Identifying and Supporting Giftedness and Talent in Schools” contains 19 articles from differing international contexts: Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Greece, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey, and the USA [...]
This chapter concerns purposeful learning and teaching in the Finnish context. Learning goals are established in the Finnish national curriculum, which identifies the core competences related to twenty-first-century skills. These goals call for committed teachers who can foster purposefulness in their students. We examined and discussed the life go...
In the face of global issues such as climate change, the world needs action competent, transformationally gifted citizens, who are willing to step up and take responsibility for a better future. However, empirical evidence on what supports the development of transformational giftedness is limited. Furthermore, the relationship between academic gift...
It is a global challenge to meet the needs of non-native gifted students in the classroom. This case study investigates how Finland, a country with a high-achieving school system and a growing multicultural student population, serves its non-native gifted students. In interviews at a Finnish teacher training school, non-native gifted students and t...
The aim of this study was to examine the development of the associations between elementary school students’ mindsets and the attentional neural processing of positive and negative feedback in math. For this, we analyzed data collected twice from 100 Finnish elementary school students. During the autumn semesters of their 3rd and 4th grade, the par...
Educational research has shown that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are two important variables that significantly affect their pedagogical practice and decisions. Relying on the premise that knowledge is superior to beliefs in a pure epistemic dimension and rooted in the previous empirical studies, we examined the hypothesis that teachers’ knowled...
According to Kohlberg, a moral teacher is an independent moral agent capable of addressing moral dilemmas based on general principles of justice. In addition to moral reasoning, teachers require competencies in moral sensitivity, moral motivation, and the implementation of morality. In the current period of global transition, moral sensitivity in t...
This study examined Finnish eighth graders’ (N = 1136) educational aspirations and how those can be predicted by mindsets, academic achievement, and gender. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate how two mindset constructs (intelligence and giftedness), domain-specific academic performance (mathematics and reading),...
The purpose of this study was to investigate Finnish (n = 226) and Estonian (n = 347) teachers’ views on the nature of intelligence. The study utilized a survey that included a qualitative, open-ended question about teachers’ definition of intelligence and the quantitative inventory Implicit Theories of Intelligence (ITI). We then employed a conver...
Spirituality is an important domain in the holistic education of gifted students. The definition of transformational giftedness makes it possible to emphasize spiritual domain in student development. Spirituality provides possibilities to reflect on the values and meanings of life that could provide purpose for gifted students in their studies and...
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...
This chapter is motivated by the effort to improve teaching and learning in gifted education for the twenty-first century, which sets new expectations for competencies to be learned, such as ethical sensitivity and creativity. Ethical sensitivity is identified as a necessary skill for gifted students to identify and solve ethical dilemmas in caring...
Parental engagement is a central aspect of children’s holistic education, i.e., schooling-related and nonschooling-related learning. Parents’ role in supporting such integrative learning is increasingly necessary to develop students’ social, emotional, and intellectual skills. Nonetheless, it remains unclear which parental practices support holisti...
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...
Giftedness in the Finnish educational culture is seen as taboo, and it is easier to talk about talent development. We need to widen the concept in the ways that would address both excellence and ethics. The definition of transformational giftedness includes a beyond-the-self orientation and implies that the purpose of giftedness is to help to make...
This article presents a study of five teachers at a Finnish elementary school who implemented and evaluated growth mindset pedagogy (GMP). The teachers received GMP training and conducted student interventions in their classrooms. We analyzed the impact of GMP on the teacher’s pedagogical thinking and practices and found significant differences bet...
The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ ethical sensitivity in Finland (N = 255) and Estonia (N = 412). The survey included the quantitative Ethical Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire and a qualitative open-ended question about successful teaching. In order to capture its essential characteristics, ethical sensitivity was examined using...
Neuroscientific research regarding mindsets is so far scarce, especially among children. Moreover, even though research indicates the importance of domain specificity of mindsets, this has not yet been investigated in neuroscientific studies regarding implicit beliefs. The purpose of this study was to examine general intelligence and math ability m...
This special issue on “Contemporary Teacher Education: A Global Perspective” contains eleven articles focused on varied current topics in teacher education all over the world [...]
The current educational reforms in Finland and Portugal require a holistic engagement of parents with learning, bringing parents and teachers together as partners. This qualitative study, which interviewed Finnish (N = 10) and Portuguese (N = 9) parents, aimed to explore parents’ views on the role of teachers in supporting parent–teacher partnershi...
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...
The Finnish National curriculum obligates teachers to give parents encouraging feedback about their children’s learning and development, the aim being to build a constructive relationship between homes and schools and to encourage close collaboration among all parties. Teachers in Finland nowadays use digital platforms that allow effective online c...
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore parental engagement in the home learning environment, and parents’ implicit beliefs about learning underlying such engagement. Nineteen parents of school children between 7 and 12 years old were interviewed in two different cultural contexts, Finland (N = 10) and Portugal (N = 9). The interviews...
The purpose of this study was to find out what current challenges successful principals in Estonia and Finland identify in developing their schools. The strategies used in dealing with these challenges were also analyzed within the framework of “growth-mindset pedagogy” as an educational approach to school leadership. The principals were interviewe...
This article discusses the challenges of educating teachers in Finland. As a goal in teacher education for the 21st century we propose the purposeful teacher, referring to a teacher who has a long-term moral commitment to serve students, the school community and society. Our data collected from student (N = 912) and practising (N = 77) teachers yie...
In this chapter Finnish conceptions of giftedness and talent are presented. The Finnish conceptions are explored in the context of an educational system in which a strongly rooted egalitarian ethos and individualistic values are concurrently present. The teachers’ and students’ conceptions related to giftedness and intelligence and conceptions in t...
Given that little is known how peer feedback reflects adolescents’ academic well-being in different cultures, this study investigates, by means of multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM), the influence of peer feedback on the mindset and academic motivation of Chinese (N = 992) and Finnish (N = 870) students in the fourth to the ninth sch...
Five student teachers’ professional identities, formed during their Islamic teacher education program, were examined. Narrative methodology revealed the formation of an ambiguous epistemic orientation to teaching during their education’s first three years. The pedagogical and socio-cultural context of teacher education program and a lack of previou...
Given that little is known about the correlations between teachers’ mindset and their pedagogical strategies, in this article, we explore Chinese and Finnish teachers’ mindsets and their pedagogical strategies from the perspective of praise and adaptive teaching. This study was conducted in two Chinese schools (N = 50) and one Finnish school (N = 7...
Well-functioning communication is crucial in all work communities. A respectful and trusty partnership between parents and teachers in schools is essential not only for pupils but also for the well-being of the whole organization. Communication is at the heart of such a partnership. Although most parent-teacher communication nowadays takes place on...
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...
Abstract. This study investigates how a growth mindset is actualised in one first-grade teacher’s classroom. Mindset refers to implicit beliefs that individuals hold about basic human qualities. A person with a growth mindset sees these qualities as malleable and subject to development, whereas a person with a fixed mindset sees these qualities as...
Parents’ and teachers’ well-functioning communication supports their partnership and also benefits pupils’ well-being. Today, communication largely takes place using electronic tools. In the current study, Finnish parents’ ( N = 1123) and teachers’ ( N = 118) opinions on digital communication in urban and rural areas were studied by applying a new...
Inspired by previous research indicating implicit beliefs about the malleability of human qualities, namely mindset, to affect learning outcomes, this article compares how Chinese and Finnish students’ mindsets and attributions for success reflect their cultural values and predict their academic achievement. The study was conducted in one Chinese (...
Over the past two decades, gratitude as a scientific topic has
been growing in interest. Little is known about its importance in
educational environments and classroom interactions. The present
article offers an account of a qualitative study that identifies gratitude as
a moral value and uses stimulated recall methodology to explore the
exper...
This study investigates how moral virtues create purpose for ethical leadership. Four exemplary principals, two from Estonia and two from Finland, were interviewed to study their perceptions of critical incidents in their work and how moral virtues are manifest in their reflections. The results of qualitative content analysis showed that the critic...
This article examines moral conflicts identified by students (N = 302) and teachers (N = 20) in the context of Iranian schools. The data were gathered in 2016 fromtwo lower secondary schools in Tehran, one for girls and one for boys. The content analysis of students’ essays and teachers’ interviews reveal that moral conflicts in Iranian secondary s...
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...
The present study investigates the nature of Iranian student teachers’ reflections and their professional development in the context of teacher education practicums. The participants were student teachers (N = 41) enrolled in teacher education colleges at Farhangian University in Tehran, Iran. A total of 620 reflective writing excerpts were coded u...
This study examined Finnish elementary school teachers’ (N = 212) attitudes toward the gifted and their education. On a general level, teachers’ attitudes toward gifted education were slightly positive. Teachers saw that gifted students have social value and that they need special services. The results of teachers’ attitudes toward specific gifted...
This mixed methods study introduces the concept of purpose in the social pedagogical education of Finnish social services students ( N = 151). The aim of this study is to specify the purpose profiles of the students and to investigate how students with different profiles define the intended outcome of having a purpose in life and why they want to h...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinds of field education experiences that social services students (N = 113) regard as meaningful. The theoretical structure was based on a ”purpose of life” framework (Damon, Menon & Bronk 2003). Pursuing a helping profession is identified as a life purpose whenit is a personally meaningful long-ter...
In this article we take up the two-fold task of creating a framework for a growth mindset pedagogy on the basis of our previous studies and exploring the critical points of this pedagogy in the classroom of a mixed-mindset teacher. The data include classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews. The results show how a teacher who is social...
The present study investigates the qualitative level of Iranian student teachers' reflections in the context of teacher education practicum applying guided reflective narrative method. The guided reflective narrative method includes questions and prompts in a structured form that student teachers can use them to writing their narratives about their...
Incorporation of aims for learning 21st century competencies in subject-specific curricula and education has been an important issue worldwide. This study explored the integration of aims for learning such competencies into the National Primary Science Curricula in China and Finland. Both Curricula showed an emphasis on aims related to science educ...
This study explores the teaching of common values in Europe, in particular democracy and tolerance - if and how they are addressed by EU Member States' official curricula for students in secondary education. The role of civil society and non-governmental organisations is also considered. Country chapters set out the situation in 12 EU Member States...
This exploratory mixed methods case study examines the life goals of Finnish social services students (N = 151) and whether they justify their goals with self- or other-focused reasoning. Purpose is understood as reflecting the students’ life goals that benefit not only oneself but also others. On the basis of this study, close relationships, pursu...
Implicit theories concerning the malleability of human qualities are known to have a powerful impact on motivation and learning, but their role in moral education is an under-researched topic. In this qualitative case study, we examined the impact of implicit theories on four Finnish teachers' practices of teaching morally and in teaching morality....
This chapter studies how in Iranian schools the power of resistance is evident in female students' moral dilemmas. The Islamic Revolution of Iran was a turning point in Iranian educational system in which the role of religion and the desire for Islamization of all aspects of the society was emphasized. The data was gathered from one girl and one bo...
This article examines how school children and adolescents ( N=607 ) perceive the nature of talent development. More particularly it is investigated whether students perceive intelligence and giftedness as developing or as inherent and how students’ perspectives on talent development are related to their learning outcomes. Participants were students...
In this response, I emphasize the importance of teacher education for making changes in identifying the gifted. As a European scholar and teacher educator, I reflect on Dr. Sternberg’s ideas. Educating for a growth mindset in learning is crucial for the development of creativity and risk taking. Teachers also need a clear goal for gifted education...
This article examines Iranian secondary students’ (N = 336) life purposes. Economic and hedonistic life goals were the most valued. Relationships in terms of having a family and children were also appreciated. In the students’ views, religiousness was associated with social goals such as helping others in need and volunteering in the community. Gen...
Inclusion, defined as nondiscriminatory education for all, involves embracing gifted students whose special needs should be considered in curriculum planning and in the teaching methods used. However, inclusion has often been connected with disability and special needs education. It has been claimed that inclusion neglects the needs of the gifted....
In this article, we argue that education is a moral activity and that teaching has a strong moral core. Teachers need a sense of purpose in their work to make their teaching purposeful for themselves and for their students. In this article, we present goals and methods intended to promote purposeful teaching in different educational contexts. We us...
Empirical research on mindset has indicated that mindset can predict numerous individual achievement, including academic, cognitive, motivational, affective and even socioeconomic, through mediation of social-cognitive approaches. The purpose of this paper is to compile and synthesize articles published from 1998 to 2017 on the relationship between...
This qualitative case study examines teachers’ implicit meaning systems built around their core beliefs on the malleability of human qualities. Previous research has demonstrated the influence of students’ implicit theories on motivation and achievement and has presented successful interventions for students. However, research on teachers’ implicit...
This study identifies the nature of the purposes that Finnish student teachers of different subjects (N = 372) have for teaching and how these perceptions could inform teacher education. Earlier studies have shown that both American and Finnish students have found the role of their teachers to be very important in teaching and learning purpose. Fin...
This paper examines Finnish (n = 464) and Iranian (n = 556) teachers’ views on their competence to teach purpose. ‘Purpose’ is defined as a stable intention to accomplish something that is both meaningful to the self and of consequence beyond the self over time. The study revealed that all Iranian teachers evaluated their competence for teaching pu...
This article presents two independent studies of Finnish teachers' conceptions of giftedness and considers whether it is a malleable or fixed quality. The first qualitative study examined elementary school teachers' (N = 212) conceptions via inductiveoriented content analysis, whereas the second study measured teachers' (elementary n = 184, seconda...
This chapter examines the history of teacher education in five nations – South Africa, Singapore, Chile, Finland, and United States – representing different continents, histories, political structures, cultures, levels of wealth, and economies. The nations were selected, in fact, because of this variability; Table 2.1 shows how widely they differ o...
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning teacher knowledge in teacher education from the Finnish perspective. The article focuses on Finnish secondary school student teachers' reflection on the educational purposefulness of their teaching at the beginning of their pedagogical studies. The empirical data include stud...