Research in Research Unit for the Sociology of Education

Researchers are increasingly using social media to discover new research opportunities, discuss research with colleagues and the public, and disseminate research information. These online events around scientific articles leave traces that can be tracked and analyzed in order to expose when, where, why, and how research has been discussed among different audiences and how it may have had some type of impact on people, potentially pointing to research that has had more impact on a wider audience beyond academia. Altmetrics proposes to investigate these online traces, with the assumption that  these could ascertain something about new forms of scholarly communication and about the use of social media and other online sources  for research assessment. This research will investigate characteristics of the individuals and the mechanisms generating the  altmetric data and with that, provide better understanding of the use
of altmetrics for research assessment.

Academy of Finland 1.9.2020–31.8.2024

Contact person: Senior Researcher Kim Holmberg

The project is financed by the Prime Minister’s Office (funding for Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities) between 1.2.2019-31.12.2019 and is carried out by the consortium of Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, RUSE (University of Turku) and Finnish Institute for Educational Research, FIRI (University of Jyväskylä) and coordinated by RUSE.

Contact person: Senior Research Fellow Sakari Ahola

An aim of the project is to study how applying and access to higher education have changed as a consequence of the student selection reforms and other policy action related to the aim of speeding up studies and, whether the objectives set out in terms of rapid transition progress of studies have been realized; how and to what extent the objectives have been achieved or not and why and, what can be expected from the results as concerns the effects of the latest and planned reforms. The aim is also to find out how the application system and selection to studies affect the progress of the initial studies and how participation in training courses affects getting a study place, and especially whether the role of training courses to student choices can be reduced.

The project is financed by the Prime Minister’s Office (funding for Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities) between 1.5.2016 and 28.2.2018. The project is carried out by the consortium of RUSE and ETLA (Research Institute of the Finnish Economy) and coordinated by RUSE. The project is led by professor Osmo Kivinen.

Summary of the final report

Contact persons: Senior Research Fellow Sakari Ahola and Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen

Publications

• Ahola, S. & Spoof, J. 2019. Todistusvalinnat ja opintojen nopeuttamispolitiikka - tapaus kauppatiede Tiedepolitiikka 44 (1): 7-22.
• Ahola, S.; Asplund, R. & Vanhala, P. 2018. Opiskelijavalinnat ja korkeakouluopintojen nopeuttaminen. Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 25/2018.128. Project pages link.
• Ahola, S. & Spoof, J. 2018. Mikä olisi paras tapa valita korkeakouluopiskelijat? - opiskelijavalintojen uudistamiseen liittyvän keskustelun jakolinjat. Tiedepolitiikka 43 (3): 7-21.
• Ahola, S.; Asplund, R. & Vanhala, P. 2017. Pääseekö yliopistoon, jos käy valmennuskurssin? – alustavia havaintoja. Tiedepolitiikka 42 (2): 58-61.
• Ahola, S.; Asplund, R. & Vanhala, P. 2016. Valmennuskurssit – välttämätön paha vai jotain muuta? – ketkä osallistuvat valmennuskurssille ja miksi? Tiedepolitiikka 41 (4): 61–67.

As citation-based research evaluation is increasingly criticized (e.g., the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA), some alternative or complementary sources of data about research impact are being investigated under the umbrella term altmetrics. The idea and potential with altmetrics is that the mentions and other indicators of visibility and awareness a research article and other research products receive on the web and in social media could tell something about the impact or influence of that research. By investigating novel online data sources for mentions of research products we are able to obtain a more nuanced understanding of where and how research has had an impact.

The idea with altmetrics is closely related to the Open Science movement, partly because altmetrics are mostly derived from open access research products. On the other hand, while the open science movement still lacks the incentives for individual researchers to adopt some of the ideology of the movement, which in turn hinders the rapid assimilation of it, altmetrics could bring some of the lacking incentives by providing novel indicators for attention, visibility and impact.

This research project will 1) develop methods to investigate the societal impact of Finnish research, and 2) investigate the current state of research in Finland using altmetric research methods and data. Using data from the VIRTA-publication database, the project develops an open online service to measure and demonstrate the online attention Finnish research has received beyond academia. By developing methods and tools to investigate altmetrics in the context of Finnish research this project will result in a refined understanding of the impact of Finnish research and create incentives for researchers to adopt the open science movement.

The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture 1.4.2015-30.6.2017.

Results: As part of the project a new open webservice, FImpact, has been created. It presents the top 5 % of Finnish research measured by web attention received in different platforms.

Home page of the project

Contact person: Senior Researcher Kim Holmberg

Universities’ societal interaction and impact should be understood as an integral part of the research conducted in universities and of the teaching based on research. RUSE has developed tools for analyzing productivity of research and other research-based activities of universities.

In the project funded by Ministry of Education and Culture a time series data collected from open access database is utilized in demonstrating how field-specific approach can be operationalized into empirical analysis of impacts of research-based activities. The ways how societal impact, both in regional and international perspective, can be identified and measured is a question of particular interest.

The report shows that the research of seven Finnish universities in the period of 2008-2013 has been ranked among 300 best universities at least in one field. For a university research to be rated in the world top 300 requires first and foremost peer-reviewed publications in renowned indexed journals as well as citations. The project also asks to what extent university research is reflected in the R&D-intensity of its region's economic life.

Contact person: Project Researcher Juha Hedman

Funded by NordForsk , "Education for Tomorrow -programme" 1.1.2013-31.12.2015

Coordinated by Uppsala University, other participants are Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU, Oslo), The Centre for the Study of Professions (CPS) at Oslo University College, University of Copenhagen and University of Turku

There is much evidence suggesting that a special model for higher education has developed in the Nordic countries during the second half of the twentieth century. This model is characterized by largely publicly-owned systems, which are relatively closely regulated by the state, include high levels of public funding and no or low student fees, and have strong influences from egalitarian traditions. In such models, higher education has also been seen as an important pillar in the welfare system, not only through the emphasis on broad and equal access, but also by educating the professionals needed for the development of the welfare state.

During the last three decades higher education systems in the Nordic countries have undergone important changes. The Bologna process has been implemented, although time tables and the degrees of adjustments have varied. The number of students has increased drastically, partially by the establishment of new institutions. Internationalization has become a more integrated part of the national systems and an increased emphasis on efficiency, competition and market orientation has been apparent. In short, the systems appear to have been transformed from cohesive and standardized systems, administered largely within the state, into more diverse and complex national and international higher education landscapes.

Our project investigates what these changes mean for the traditional Nordic model of higher education by focusing on the recruitment of students. We believe that recruitment patterns offer a key to understanding the effects of restructuring in national systems of higher education, as changes in recruitment patterns over time provide us with indicators of changing valorizations of higher education programs, fields and types of study, and institutions. Analyzing recruitment patterns also makes it possible to evaluate the function of higher education in relation to the welfare state, evidencing the role it plays in democratic goals related to equity.

The project will compare recruitment patterns across four countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden; as well as comparing between several disciplines and higher education institutions within each country. Under-utilized and unique statistical resources that exist in the Nordic countries will provide robust data for analyses of the whole population of students in each country, and investigations of structural changes over the last three decades.
 
The NFHE network and project meeting was organzied in Turku 21.–22.11.2013.

 
>> Main results of the project

Contact persons: Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen, Senior Research Fellow Sakari Ahola and Project Reseacher Juha Hedman

Finnish education policy has for decades aimed at guaranteeing equal opportunities for all regardless of gender, social and regional background. Leaning on statistical data research focuses on the transition of successive generations from home, via education system to the labour market. Equality of educational opportunity will be analysed in terms of chances to participate in university studies from varying backgrounds and between genders. Mechanisms of expansion i.e. increasing educational opportunities, effects of widening access and outcomes in the labour market will be scrutinized. To what extent consequences of educational expansion are intended or unintended will be analysed against policy objectives. Research questions are: to what extent inequality of opportunity has decreased; how the expansion of higher education has affected the status of different educational routes and to what extent equality of educational opportunity is connected with equal outcomes in the labour market.

The project was funded by the Academy of Finland for the time 1.9.2011 to 31.8.2015.

Contact person: Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen

The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society: New Demands on Higher Education in Europe (REFLEX, 2004-2007) project contained extensive information of studies and labour market experiences of 40 000 higher education graduates from 15 European countries graduated in 1999–2001 and surveyed five years after graduation respectively. It was financed as a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) of the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme. The project involved partners from 15 countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the UK, Belgium-Flanders, Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan and Estonia). project home page

Higher Education and Graduate Employment in Europe (CHEERS, 1998-2000) project data contained respectively information of studies and labour market experiences of 37 000 higher education graduates from 11 European countries and Japan graduated in 1994–95 and surveyed five years after graduation. The project was funded by the European Union’s 4th Framework Programme. project home page

Since 2000s RUSE has been developing an input-output approach by fields (disciplines) for productivity analyses of research and research training. A motivation for the development was a need to know fill the gap left by international university rankings that do not take into account the inputs of universities when ranking universities in the international reputation markets.

In describing first and foremost universities’ pecking order in the international reputation markets rankings may be appropriate for listing the top 50 to 100 best universities, but there for the evaluation of the other 16 000 universities of the world a more appropriate method of analysis would be one that takes into account resources available, like, for instance, our input-output model. Critical evaluation of rankings has led to our developing a rating system suited also for international needs. (Kivinen & Hedman 2004; Kivinen, Hedman & Peltoniemi 2008a; 2008b; 2009, 2010, 2011; Kivinen, Hedman & Kaipainen 2012)

Productivity of research and research training

Productivity of research by fields (disciplines) is analysed relying on two input measures: professorial man-years and other research man-years. The output measures are articles published in Web of Science journals and articles published in hi-impact journals. When analysing productivity of research training, the input measure is professorial man-years and the output measure is earned doctorates resulting from research training.

In the analyses regarding Finland, we lean on the figures that universities have reported to the KOTA database maintained by the Ministry of Education and Culture. As concerns international analyses we use data from the international rankings databases such as QS and HEEACT, national open access databases and input and output data retrieved from ISI-Thomson database.

The project continues the work carried out between 2016-2018. The aim is to produce knowledge about learning and teching in Finnish comperehensive schools focusing on the use of digital technologies, the level of digital learning abilities, the use of new digital learning materials and digital learning environments as well as on the level of digital competencies of both teachers and pupils.The project will assess the situation in 2019 when the national core curriculum for basic education (since autumn 2016) has been in use for a little bit longer time.

The project is carried out by the consortium of Tampere Research Center for Information and Media (TRIM) and RUSE. It is financed by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Publications
Tanhua-Piiroinen, E.; Kaarakainen, S.-S.; Kaarakainen, M.-T. & Viteli, J. 2020. Digiajan peruskoulu II Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön julkaisuja 2020:17. Helsinki. link (in Finnish).

The project aims at seeking information on the state of new learning, digital pedagogics, new learning materials and learning environments and development capabilities in schools organizing basic education. The main objective is to create a foundation for the systematic and large scale utilization of current research results in decision-making and evidence-based policy.

The aim is to study the use and the capability to utilize digital technologies, new learning materials and learning environments. The project also seeks to determine what the current level of digital skills is. The project also assesses the effectiveness of government’s activities in Finnish comprehensive schools.

The aim is to offer evaluation tools for public authorities for monitoring the progress of digitalization also after the project.

The project is financed by the Prime Minister’s Office (funding for Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities) between 1.5.2016 and 31.12.2018 and carried out by the consortium of Tampere Research Center for Information and Media (TRIM) and RUSE.

Contact persons: Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen

DigiKick project 1.4.2016-31.7.2017 offers continuing education courses for teachers in up-to-date themes such as programming, robotics, information security and information skills. More information on Finnish pages.

The project is funded by the Finnish National Board of Education.

RUSE has developed a test for detecting different forms of ICT usage, recording self-evaluations about ICT skills and particulary finding out the actual ICT skills by means of tasks related to the 18 different fields of ICT. The test phase includes both general hardware and software skill tests and more demanding ICT knowhow tests.

During 2014 and 2015 altogether over 3200 adolescents from different educational sectors (including those who are marginalized from formal education) from age 12 to 22 have been tested. In addition to the adolescents, about 800 teachers from different levels of the educational system have been tested during the same period.

ITK2014: Best Paper award to Meri-Tuulia Kaarakainen - "Relations between technology usage habits and ICT skills"

ITK2015: Best Paper award to Marjut Muhonen - "Teachers' ICT skills fostering students' 21st century skills (in)equality

Learning analytics is a promising research field in the education sector. Intelligent learning technology of the future assists learners during their learning process, and offers information about learning for learners, teachers and decision makers. There is a rising trend in the education sector called "Big data", the harnessing of which is a main goal of learning analytics.

Digital learning material for health education is implemented in the ReadIT learning software in co-operation with the Family Federation of Finland. The learning material includes four lessons about relationships and sexual health, and it is designed for adolescents aged 13 to 19. It is suitable for use in secondary or upper secondary schools. The material will be put in use during the spring of 2015.

The purpose of this digital learning material is to keep track about the learners' learning process. The software gathers log data from the learners' actions, and it will be used for research purposes. The aim is to develop methods for personalizing learning systems and to strengthen the evidence-based development of the education sector.

AVATAR 2020 - towards the school of the future is a cooperation project with RUSE, Brahea Centre for Training and Development, Finland Futures Research Centre, Asiantuntijaosuuskunta Turun Norssi -services, Åbo Akademi, Finpeda and IlonaIT. The project offers academic continuing professional education for teachers and other educational actors. The aim is to support teachers' pedagogical competence in utilising information and communications technology.

RUSEs project on digitalized learning and pedagogics is a separate part of the large project of the Finnish National Board of Education concentrating on digital cloud services in education. The final report of the project is published only in Finnish (see the Finnish pages).

In its RoSA-lab, RUSE is developing a web-based intelligent learning system that allows students to improve their learning skills. The system, called ReadIT, attempts to integrate the most promising learning strategies as an automatic part of learners' learning process. ReadIT adapts to students' activities and directs them toward practices that enhance learning by differentiating learning material to every student's current level. The intention is that the low-performing learners can improve their skills, while at the same time the skilled learners get more demanding challenges that meet their needs.

For research purposes (learning analytics), ReadIT collects the log file information from students' behaviour (time use, transitions, used strategies, and help-use activities), exercise answers from the preview and test phase, and pupils' notes. It also allows the adding of different questionnaires into the program.

The project is financed by the Prime Minister’s Office (funding for Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities) between 1.2.2019-31.12.2019 and is carried out by the consortium of Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, RUSE (University of Turku) and Finnish Institute for Educational Research, FIRI (University of Jyväskylä) and coordinated by RUSE.

Contact person: Senior Research Fellow Sakari Ahola

Continuous fast-paced technological developments and the digitalization of work pose challenges to everyone with outdated skills in information and communication technology (ICT). Finland has fallen behind its competitors in certain fields of ICT and there is lack of skilled workers in our country. According to the PIAAC research results nearly half of the Finnish adults, who had only basic education degree and 41 per cent of those who had only vocational school degree had inadequate skills to use information technology for problem solving. The challenges are that those who have insufficient ICT skills do not always recognize it themselves and that the staff training is unequally divided to the employees. According to a Finnish adult education research higher employees' opportunities to participate in training are almost three-fold compared to the lower-level workers.

The aim of the project is to develop the basic digital skills of low-level employees. For this purpose, we will develop and test a tutor-model with the project partners, in which employees from different companies are trained as tutors, who then direct fellow workers with insufficient ICT skills. The purpose is to implement the model as a part of companies’ daily activities. Furthermore, the project produces research findings about the employees' ICT skills, solution practices of existing problems, and the changes brought by digitalization. The model can be taken into use by any company or education organization.

The project is coordinated by the Research Unit for the Sociology of Education (RUSE) and the project partner is Workers’ Educational Association WEA of Finland. In addition, different employers' associations and labour organizations support the project.

The project is funded by the European Social Fund 1.10.2017-31.3.2010.

Contact person: Loretta Saikkonen

Global trends, notably technological change and offshoring, are reshaping occupational structures. The competence-related consequences of occupational restructuring are politically highly relevant, but not well understood. Our research will unveil the consequences for school choices, educational qualifications and ICT skill requirement of young people. It will explore the changes needed in support of skill acquisition and renewal inside and outside working life: in general adult education, in active labour market policies, as well as in institutional arrangements like vocational rehabilitation. However, it is not enough to produce empirical evidence on how occupational restructuring challenges present and future skill requirements in working life. We also intend to communicate our findings to key stakeholders to ensure that the actors in charge of reshaping Finnish working life are provided with accessible and accurate evidence, including concrete solutions, for decision-making.

The project is funded from the Skilled employees – Successful labour market programme of the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland during 1.4.2016-31.8.2019. SRC funds high-quality research that has great societal impact. The research consortia funded by the SRC should seek to find concrete solutions to grand challenges that require multidisciplinary approaches. An important element of such research is active and ongoing collaboration between those who produce new knowledge and those who use it.

The project consortium includes:

• The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, ETLA, Rita Asplund (consortium PI)
• The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, ETLA, Antti Kauhanen
• Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, RUSE, Osmo Kivinen
• Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, FIOH, Eira Viikari-Juntura

Project homepages

 Contact persons: Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen

The aim of this project is to develop new knowledge into the relationships between adult learning and national systems of education and training and organisation of work. It is as international comparative projects that shed light on the impacts of adult learning across sectors, branches of industry and countries. Central to the project is the study of different forms of learning; formal, non-formal and informal learning, and one important question is how motivational factors for training and drivers linked to the national institutional frameworks interact and affect the differences in training rates and skills levels between four North-European welfare states. Further, the project aims at contributing to an explanation of seemingly puzzling findings at the national level concerning adult skills, participation in adult learning and the rate of innovation output in firms/organisations.PIAAC data, especially from Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, will constitute the main source of data. It will be supplemented with other comparative data, such as Community Innovation Surveys (CIS), as well as qualitative data. The study involves participation from international scholars. The project includes four subprojects: skills levels and skills acquisition; participation in adult learning; training, skills and innovation, and learning processes in enterprises.

The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway (UTDANNING 2020-programme) for the period of 2.1.2014-1.3.2017. It is coordinated by Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU, Oslo). Partners include University of Stavanger, ROA from Maastricht University, Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences of University of California, Los Angeles, and RUSE from the University of Turku.

Contact person: Professor Emeritus Osmo Kivinen

The focus on this project are the young people who haven't got a second-grade school place or who have dropped out from there. This project will produce training material to improve their ICT knowledge and skills. The aim is to provide support especially for those young people whose ICT skills are in such condition that they form a barrier to education or employment. In the background, there is a concern, found both in domestic studies as well as in international comparisons, that young Finns' ICT skills are rather one-sided and the gender gap is largest in the OECD. Also a fifth of young people will be left without a second-grade degree, or pause it.

The project aims to create an "open to all and easy to enable" ICT skills training packages for different skill levels. The aim is to strengthen young people's ICT skills base, particularly that of underrepresented groups such as immigrants and people with learning difficulties. A long term aim is to strengthen lifelong learning skills, in particular ability to participate in and benefit from the digitalized society.

Partners in the project coordinated by RUSE include:Turku Vocational Institute; The Raisio Regional Education and Training Consortium, Raseko; a private company WinNova which is a multi-disciplinary institute of vocational education, and a local association, Kaarinan nuoret Pajamestarit which s a workshop-organisation that trains young people and adults for work-life, studies and for coping in everyday life.

The project is funded by the European Social Fund during 1.1.2015-31.12.2016.

#ICTknowhow project home page

Project description available only in the Finnish pages.

Contact persons: Senior Research Fellow erikoistutkija Sakari Ahola and project researcher Loretta Saikkonen

NOTKE project has aimed at preventing youth marginalization and exclusion from society through stabilized cooperation and networking across municipality boundaries. The target group of the project has been 15 to 19 year old basic education leavers. The cities of Lieto, Kaarina and Turku  took part in the regional experiment realized in the project. One of the central aims of the project has been to successfully involve the third sector in to the preventive work against youth marginalization. As a concrete result of the project, regional models of cooperation were created in which the municipalities, organizations and businesses together organize activities which promote the working life competencies of the youth and strengthen the community. One of the tasks in the project has been to find out the functionality of a multi provider model in preventing youth marginalization. Digital, innovative and working life based tools were tested for planning, organizing and guiding the work. For example a real-time documentation tool aims at systematizing the data collection (participation and organized activities) needed to target the youth at risk. The project was realized during the years 2010-2013 and it was co-funded by the European Social Fund and the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Southwest Finland.

• Prevention of youth marginalization
  RUSE has always been actively involved in research and development projects concerning youth marginalisation in Finland, especially in the regional area of South West Finland. The main goal of the focus area is to produce information and understanding of the mechanisms of youth marginalization and of the connections between life paths and the educational paths of the youth which can promote young person's possibilities to education and improve their life chances.