University student's agency enhanced by encouraging and interactive pedagogy
– Agency makes learning meaningful and intentional also in changing situations. On a longer perspective, the point is how the agency constructed in education is transferred to solving the big challenges and problems of working life, Jääskelä adds. She is the principal researcher in a multidisciplinary research team, which has published articles on this theme.
There are differences in university students’ agency profiles; some seem to lag behind. The differences were largely associated with the extent to which the students felt that their learning environment was safe and supported by the teacher or how much peer support and chances for participation with a low threshold they felt to have in the study units.
– Promotion of agency during education calls for more attention with regard to teachers’ pedagogical training, curriculum work as well as teaching and guidance practices. Indeed, it would be essential to recognise the multidimensionality of agency as well as identify the advancing and hindering factors thereof, Jääskelä states.
Measures to engage students from a study unit’s goal-setting up to assessment have been found to strengthen goal-oriented action. According to the research findings, student-centred teaching practices are associated with stronger than average agency within a study unit or course.
The multidisciplinary research team at the University of Jyväskylä has developed methods drawing on learning analytics to support the assessment and scientific study of agency. These methods can yield both student- and group-specific information about student agency. The resulting information can then be used for the purposes of student reflection and guidance. The collaborative research has involved researchers from the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, from the Faculty of Education and Psychology, and from the Faculty of Information Technology.
– We have succeeded in combining the long tradition of educational agency research with the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to create a comprehensible view on the learning situation. Agency analytics tells the current state as experienced by a student and outlines holistically the quality of teaching, describes Professor Tommi Kärkkäinen from the Faculty of Information Technology.
The following articles describe agency, its methodological development, and empirical results.
Research articles
Jääskelä, P., Poikkeus, A.-M., Häkkinen, P., Vasalampi, K., Rasku-Puttonen, H., & Tolvanen, A. (2020, in publishing process). Student agency profiles in relation to student-centred teaching practices in higher education. International Journal of Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101604
Jääskelä, P., Heilala, V., Kärkkäinen, T., & Häkkinen, P. (2020, first online). Student agency analytics: Learning analytics as a tool for analyzing student agency in higher education. Behaviour & Information Technology. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1725130
Jääskelä, P., Poikkeus, A.-M., Vasalampi, K., Valleala, U. M., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2017). Assessing agency of university students: validation of the AUS Scale. Studies in Higher Education, 42 (11), 2061-2079. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1130693
A self-archiving copy in the JYX publication archive: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201710264070
Further information
Senior Researcher Päivikki Jääskelä, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, tel. +358 40 805 3333, paivikki.jaaskela@jyu.fi. Research articles can be inquired by email from Päivikki Jääskelä.
Professor Tommi Kärkkäinen, Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, tel. +358 40 805 4896, tommi.karkkainen@jyu.fi
