Effects of Selective and Mixed Student Grouping on Learning, Motivation, and School Pathways (MixEd)

MixEd is investigating the effects of pupil selection and class formation on the development of learning and motivation, as well as on pupils’ educational pathways. The project consists of three work packages, the first of which involves conducting a systematic literature review of research across various disciplines. The second will collect longitudinal student data to track the effects of class formation on the development of learning and motivation. The data will also be linked to regional data from the YKR register to examine the relationship between pupil selection and segregation across regions and schools, and to the joint selection register to analyse pupils’ educational pathways. The third work package uses intensive data to examine the mechanisms through which class formation is reflected in learning. This work package focuses on the role of the teacher and the interaction between teacher and pupil, as well as on peer relationships and the peer effects on learning in various classroom settings.

In practice, pupil selection is generally implemented through emphasized teaching, in which pupils are typically grouped into selective classes (e.g. music classes). The subject has been studied to some extent in Finland, but municipalities have different practices when it comes to organising emphasized teaching. The follow-up and intensive data for this study will be collected from upper secondary schools in the City of Tampere, where limited research exists on the subject. Pupils starting Year 7 in the autumn will be followed until the end of compulsory education using three assessments. The implementation of the longitudinal data collection will be done in co-operation with University of Tampere's Research Centre for Education, Assessment and Learning (REAL). The longitudinal data will be linked with nationally representative register data after the final data collection. The register linkage will be done to enrich the dataset as well as allow for further follow up on students' educational paths. Intensive data will be collected in some of the schools in 2028, and participating schools will be provided with more detailed information closer to the time of data collection.

MixEd will also collect a smaller longitudinal dataset of willing private schools in Helsinki. This data collection will follow up on a subset of students, who participated in the TAR-project in the spring of 2026.

The principal investigator of this project is Assistant Professor Satu Koivuhovi. For additional information about the project, contact project researcher Juho Kuutti. For updates on the project, follow our Instagram page.

The privacy notice of the study is attached below (only in Finnish for the moment).