Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen

I work as Professor of learning and instruction at the Faculty of Education and Culture. I lead the Research Group for Education, Assessment and Learning (REAL), which operates at the universities of Tampere, Helsinki and Jyväskylä. My background is in educational psychology and special education. Since the beginning of 2000s, I have worked on large-scale international, national and local educational assessments. My research has focussed on the development of thinking skills and learning to learn competences as well as on educational support. More information about my research activities can be found on my research group’s website.

Besides research, my duties consist of teaching our Faculty’s Master and Doctoral students. My courses cover themes related to assessment, transversal competences and quantitative research methods. I teach the same contents in our Faculty’s international Master programme too. I also have responsibilities related to the administration and development of our Faculty. 

My areas of expertise:

• educational assessment
• development of thinking and learning to learn
• the effects of class-, school- and system-level factors on learning
• educational support
• statistical modelling.