Engineering Education Research

Our research on curricular and instructional innovations in higher education focuses on promoting active learning through various pedagogical approaches, such as problem-based, project-based, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and challenge-based learning. Our studies center on pedagogical innovations, particularly in technical schools, examine both teaching and learning, exploring how educators design, plan, and assess, and how students engage in transformative learning through interactions with peers, educators, and external stakeholders. 

Advancing sustainability in our societies calls for novel holistic approaches in education. Our research focuses on what are the key competencies in sustainability education, and how engineering students develop the competencies and agency needed to address different pillars of sustainability challenges in their future practice.

For teachers, we explore ways to support teaching and learning that foster system thinking, future- and solution- oriented perspectives, and interdisciplinary collaboration—key competencies for engineers working toward a more sustainable world. Our mixed-method research focuses on students, teachers, and supervisors at Aalto University as well as institutions across Nordic countries.

Doctoral education is undergoing a significant development - we call it a renaissance. The increasing number of supervisees with diverse backgrounds and career plans, together with increasingly complex and wicked environmental problems call for new kind of doctoral education and supervision, especially regarding developing researcher independence, fostering collaborative and inclusive culture and wellbeing, and supporting diverse career trajectories.  

We study the processes, perceptions and experiences of both supervisors and supervisees with mixed-methods approaches, utilizing, e.g., journey mapping, interviews, snapshots, reflective essays, and longitudinal data. Additionally, we build knowledge with the participants in our doctoral supervision pedagogical training, focusing on supervision as a profession and its active, research-based, development, and holistic wellbeing. This knowledge is utilized in our doctoral supervision and doctoral students’ training, and in more holistic programme development.