Educational Sciences and Mathematics
Mälardalen Interaction and Didactics (MIND)
MIND (Mälardalen INteraction and Didactics) research group investigates discursive and interactional practices embedded in teaching and learning activities. Our research aims to enhance the quality of teaching and teacher education by sustaining collaboration between Mälardalen University and its partner schools in the region. The close collaboration is based on conducting research in classrooms and beyond where both teacher candidates and tutors become a part of the research.
Contact
We investigate pedagogical interactions and practices by focusing on audio, audio-visual, and digital data with a micro-analytic perspective (e.g. using discursive methodologies like multimodal Conversation Analysis) and with a broader, ethnographic understanding.
Our research focuses on:
- analyses of video-recorded classroom interactions as well as interactions in other mediated learning settings
- analyses of reflection and feedback sessions that come from critical reflections and training sessions
- analyses of annotated interaction data and video-tagged observations
- analysis of emerging written and spoken databases and corpora
Interdisciplinary activities aimed at research and teaching staff:
- conversation Analysis data sessions
- data sessions with various forms of classroom interaction analyses
- software training for micro-analysis and audio-visual data management
- research methodology training
- various forms of dissemination events for postgraduate students, researchers, mentors, and teachers
- video Enhanced Observation tag-set development sessions with teachers
Ongoing research projects
AI Write aims to revolutionise the landscape of academic writing in English (as L1 and L2) through the development of innovative teaching approaches and supporting materials that leverage AI tools.
Project manager at MDU: Olcay Sert
Main financing: EU
In recent decades, promising frameworks of critical features of high-quality teacher professional development (PD) programs have been proposed. However, recent studies have shown it to be remarkably difficult to affect instructional practices, even when the offered PD is designed in relation to such frameworks.
Project manager at MDU: Jannika Lindvall
Main financing: Swedish Research Council
Recent meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials have found statistically significant effects of teachers’ professional development (PD) on teaching and student achievement. However, because these estimates are mainly based on small-scale trials conducted in favourable settings, it is important to investigate PD effects in settings that are representative of teachers at large and examine how such effects are influenced by PD characteristics and contextual factors. This project aims to investigate the causal effects of PD on teaching and student achievement, including how PD effects are influenced by factors such as the content, duration, and intensity of PD, as well as teacher and school characteristics.
Project manager at MDU: Nils Kirsten
Main financing: Vetenskapsrådet
This project studies how telepresence robots can be used to support participation in classroom education at a distance.
Project manager at MDU: Olcay Sert
Main financing: Academy of Finland