Research group
PEPiNord
PEPiNord is part of the international research network Pedagogy, Education and Praxis (PEP), and represents the Norwegian branch of this network (NOR-PEP). The research group's thematic focus is on the core concepts of pedagogy, education and practice.
The international network is a cross-institutional collaborative research programme that unites researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The researchers investigate the traditions and conditions of pedagogy, education and practice, and how they are understood, developed and maintained in different national contexts and educational environments.
The theory of practice architectures is a central tenet of the international PEP network, which has been developed over time, from 2006 until the present day.
The primary objective of the research group is to make a contribution to practice-based research within the focus areas of PEP. The theory of practice architectures offers a comprehensive perspective that encompasses the intricate nuances of a practice, its occurrences, and the factors that influence and constrain it.
The research group is closely affiliated with the Ph.D. in professional science at Nord University, both in terms of the fellows who are members of the group and more generally in relation to the focus areas of language, actions and relations.
The group's members work on various ongoing projects that shine a spotlight on various themes within PEP. All members publish and actively communicate at national and international level. We are happy to invite PhD students and other faculty members to be part of the research group.
Ola Buan Øien, head of research group
Jessica Aspfors
Anne Marit Valle
Kathrin Olsen
Natallia Bahdanovich Hanssen
Ingrid Elden
Elise Sivertsen Arnsby
Anna Katharina Jacobsson
John Eivind Storvik
Hilde Kjelsrud
Trine Soleng Nedregård
Solveig Salthammer Kolaas
Tove Anita Fiskum
Veronica Isaksen
Anne Weidemann Skagseth
Anna Elisabeth Kristoffersen
Markus Leithe-Lajord
Gunhild von Porat Erichsen
Other active research projects
NFR 103 million NOK.
Natallia B Hanssen; Kathrin Olsen
Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice (SpedAims). SpedAims' ambition is to improve learning, well-being and motivation for children with special needs through high-quality special educational research.
Project Group:
Associate Professor Hilde Kjelsrud
Professor Anne Marit Valle
Associate Professor Elisabeth Suzen
Associate Professor Katrine GrinerudThere is an urgent need for professional drivers in both Norway and internationally, with an estimated annual requirement of at least 2,500 new drivers in freight transport towards 2030. To meet this demand, while also ensuring traffic safety (the Vision Zero initiative), Nord University has established a new two year programme for driving teachers for heavy vehicles.
While there is some research on driving teacher education for passenger cars (Category B), there is currently a knowledge gap when it comes to professional development and pedagogical practice specifically for heavy vehicle. This project is therefore crucial for understanding how we can best educate competent teachers who will shape the next generation of professional drivers in a sector marked by technological development and challenging Arctic driving conditions.
The project examines how driving teacher students, who have extensive backgrounds as professional drivers, experience their own teaching and learning processes. In particular, we focus on:
- How the students draw on their previous work experience in their learning.
- How they construct their new professional identity as teachers.
- How they learn from each other (peer learning) and develop their role as supervisors.
We employ a qualitative research design to gain close insight into the students’ everyday experiences. Data collection includes video recordings of group processes, individual and group interviews, as well as observations of practice.
Central to the project’s theoretical framework is the theory of practice architectures. This theory makes it possible to analyse the teacher role as more than a set of individual skills. We investigate how practices are shaped by three types of “architectures”:
- Cultural discursive arrangements: How they talk about and understand the profession.
- Material economic arrangements: The physical environment, technology, and resources available.
- Social political arrangements: The relationships between people and the organisational rules governing heavy vehicle teacher education.
By using this framework, we can identify what hinders or promotes effective learning and professional development in the unique intersection between technical heavy vehicle competence and pedagogical practice.
Project leader:
Petri Salo (Åbo Akademi University)Project members:
Jessica Aspfors, Ola Buan Øien, Ingrid Elden and Anna Katharina Jacobsson (Nord University)
Gunilla Eklund and Irina Ivashenko Amdal (UiA)
Ola Henricsson (University of Gothenburg)
Katriina Maaranen (University of Helsinki)Project Overview
This project began in 2023 at Åbo Akademi University and has grown into a collaboration between teacher education departments across several Nordic countries. Our focus is on pre-service class teachers in the final stage of their studies (4th/5th year) and how they understand and conceptualize their future role as teachers.
Methodology
Using the empathy-based story method (Wallin et al., 2019), pre-service teachers from six universities in Finland, Norway, and Sweden (2 universities in each country) were invited to respond to the following scenario:
It is spring 2026/2027. You work full-time as a classroom teacher. You feel (in)secure in your job and (do not) feel successful in your teaching. Describe briefly what has happened and what you have done. Write a story about what led to this situation—or use bullet points.
The stories reflect students’ experiences and their understanding of the conditions, approaches, and contextual factors that shape teaching success (Teräs et al., 2024; Wallin et al., 2019).
Data and Outcomes
In total, 387 empathy-based stories have so far been collected from the six universities. These narratives will form the basis of several research articles exploring pre-service teachers’ perspectives on their future profession.
Researcher: Gunhild von Porat Erichsen
Affiliation: Nord universitetThis research project explores professional learning among university teachers through a course in university pedagogy at Nord University.
The project consists of three interconnected studies examining participants’ experiences with multimodal flipped learning, group coaching, and mentoring arrangements, which are analytically integrated through a comprehensive synthesising framework. Grounded in practice theory, with particular emphasis on the theory of practice architectures, the project investigates how professional learning is shaped through the interplay of sayings, doings, and relatings within institutional contexts.
The aim is to develop practice-near knowledge about pedagogical structures and collaborative arrangements that support reflection, transformative learning, and the development of teaching practice in higher education.
The research group is coordinating a symposium for the NERA conference 2025 in Helsinki on the theme Pedagogy of Hope: Gratitude, Diversity and Sustainability in Education.
The research group is involved in collaboration related to professional learning together with Charles Sturt University (CSU), Australia. The collaboration will result in an anthology: Supporting, sustaining, and nurturing educators: professional learning in the contemporary world (Springer).
The research group is also collaborating with researchers from Finland, Sweden and Norway within a Nordic network on student teachers’ conceptions of success and failures in their future profession.
PhD Projects
Research fellow:
Trine Soleng NedregårdThe project explores how teacher leaders can act as agents of change in school-based professional development, by investigating what supports or holds back these teachers in strengthening collective professional learning at their school. It uses a municipal program in Norway as a case, where selected teachers take on leadership responsibilities alongside teaching. The research uses a qualitative case study design, combining several data collection methods, such as document analysis, participant observation, and focus groups.
Main supervisor:
Jessica Aspfors (Nord universitet)Co-supervisor:
Frauke Meyer (University of Auckland)Supporting research groups:
PEPiNord
Læring i interaksjon på ulike læringsarenaer
Completed PhD Projects
Hilde Kjelsrud
Summary
The purpose of this article-based thesis is to explore the learning activity of pedagogical observation in driving teacher education and to further develop and clarify the theoretical and practical foundation for pedagogical observation as a learning activity.
The thesis consists of a comprehensive summary (kappa) and three associated scientific articles, and focuses on the driving teacher students' collaboration on driving lessons in the field of practice. This thesis illuminates and discusses what characterises pedagogical observation as a learning activity in driving teacher education, using the following three research questions: How do students perceive pedagogical observation? What do they learn from this form of activity and which conditions are important for their learning outcomes? How do the driving teacher students use pedagogical observation in their teaching practice?
Based on these questions, pedagogical observation is discussed in the light of the theory of practice architectures. The dissertation relies on a sociocultural view of learning and uses previous research in nearby fields, as well as theories and concepts especially within the educational field, to answer the main question of the thesis.
Data has been collected in the form of 10 individual interviews, 9 field observations and 2 focus group interviews. The transcribed data was analysed using thematic analysis.
The thesis shows that pedagogical observation as a learning activity is perceived as useful and with a good learning outcome. The driving teacher students learn to cooperate with others and they become reflective and critical regarding the execution of driving lessons. They learn to convey and articulate knowledge and skills, and at the same time manage their own learning by carrying out assessments of themselves and others.
If successfully organised and implemented, the learning activity can result in these five shared learning outcomes: (1) collaboration with others; (2) engage in critical inquiry and reflection; (3) convey and articulate knowledge, understanding and skills; (4) manage learning and how to learn; and (5) to conduct self and peer assessments, consistent with peer learning. Analysed data material corresponds to these five points, but findings also show other more specific characteristics of importance for pedagogical observation, as there must be a plan for the driving lesson and a working agreement, the students must be engaged and the feedback must be constructive with subject knowledge. Last but not least, good cooperation and guidance skills is required.
The thesis proposes a description of pedagogical observation that delimits and clarifies the learning activity. The description includes a mutual learning activity, the acquisition of knowledge and skills by active help and support between students, in light of their sayings, doings and relatings.
This doctoral work aims to contribute to new knowledge about pedagogical observation as a learning activity, and is particularly relevant for Norwegian driving teacher education. It may also be of interest for driving teacher education in other countries and for other professional educations.
Supervisors: Kitt Lyngsnes, Catrine Torbjørnsen Halås and Anne Marit Valle
Research fellow: Solveig Salthammer Kolaas
PhD in the study of professional praxis Faculty of Education and Arts Nord University
This doctoral project investigates various practices related to the elective lower secondary school subject of stage production (produksjon for scene). The subject is investigated at the micro-level as a collective teaching practice in one single school, at the macro-level as a national practice and at the meta-level as part of the national education complex. The data for the study was generated from two sub-studies. Sub-study 1 is a case study where the empirical data was collected through interviews with and observations of four lower secondary school teachers’ work in the subject over a full school year. Sub-study 2 was a nationwide survey of teachers of stage production (N = 391).
The two sub-studies formed the basis for the three articles and the research summary of the thesis. Article 1 maps the optional subject of stage and scene (sal og scene) in Norway in 2019 through a nationwide survey and the use of descriptive, statistical analysis. Article 2 examines teachers’ perceived meanings of the subject of stage production through constant comparative analysis, and article 3 examines the community surrounding stage production teaching at a lower secondary school through narrative analysis and theory of practice architectures. The research summary is an overview of the three articles in the thesis and engages with theory of ecologies of practices.
The purpose of the study is to develop understandings about co-arts education, and this is done by (1) offering the concept of co-arts as a contribution to the academic discourse on arts, (2) developing the theory of co-arts meaning-making as a contribution to research on the place and function of arts subjects in schools, (3) highlighting dissonances between the subject’s co-arts potential and the school framework, and (4) proposing co-arts as core knowledge in schools and education.
Keywords: co-arts, stage production, arts education, teacher training, theory of ecologies of practices
Research fellow: Ola Buan Øien
PhD in the study of professional praxis, Faculty of Education and Arts, .Nord University
This article-based thesis consists of an extended abstract and three articles. The thesis is divided into two parts with a total of four texts and focuses on developing knowledge of musical leadership. In Part I, a synthesis is presented in the form of an extended abstract, and in Part II, the three articles constituting the substance of the synthesis are presented.
The author recommends reading the articles first as they constitute the background of the synthesis. The following is an overview of the two parts of the thesis.
Part I - The extended abstract is a synthesis of CS1-3 that consists of an introduction, previous research, theoretical framework, methodology and method, findings, discussion, and conclusions. In this synthesis, a hermeneutic practice ecological perspective serves as a theoretical lens for the comprehensive investigation of CS1–3. The conclusions suggest the Perpetual Practice Dialogue Complex as an approach to combine performative, pedagogical and research practices in the means to reveal, develop and articulate understandings in and on musical leadership.
Part II - The articles for each component study (CS) are attached as they were published or available in manuscript form at the time of this thesis submission. Through CS1-3, understandings of musical leadership were developed at the intersection of qualitative research and arts-based research (ABR). Nine concepts that served as aspects of musical leadership relevant to conducting were revealed by investigating a record producer’s practice (CS1). Through ABR, six of the nine concepts were transformed into sonic extractions (CS2), and live looping through loop station conducting (LSC) as an ensemble conducting approach offered several perspectives relevant to ensemble conducting in a pedagogical context (CS3).
Keywords: musical leadership, record producer, hermeneutic practice ecological perspective, arts-based research, music teacher education
Project partners:
Main supervisor: Elin Angelo (NTNU)
Supervisor: Jessica Aspfors (Nord universitet/Åbo Akademi)
NAFOL (The Norwegian National Research School in Teacher Education)Advisory board:
