Juuso Henrik Nieminen

The University of Hong Kong | HKU · Faculty of Education

Assessment of student learning is commonly understood as a seemingly objective measurement of learning outcomes. It is seen as fair that assessment targets students' abilities – not their identities or personalities. This idea fails to acknowledge how assessment transforms its object, the students, often in unintended ways. While higher education r...

In university mathematics education, students do not simply learn mathematics but are shaped and shape themselves into someone new—mathematicians. In this study, we focus on the becoming of disabled mathematical subjects. We explore the importance of abilities in the processes of being and becoming in university mathematics. Our interest lies in ho...

This study examines how authentic assessment could nurture students' epistemic agency: their sense of agency in using, evaluating and producing knowledge. Authentic assessment commonly emphasises 'realism' and 'employability skills'. As important as these ideas are, this approach to authentic assessment neglects the key academic value of knowledge,...

Students' emotions have been increasingly examined in feedback research. Socioculturally positioned research has particularly noted that emotions do not exist in a vacuum but are contextually situated, which also holds true for feedback encounters. In this scoping review, we provide a synthesis of earlier studies on emotions in feedback in higher e...

Universities can prepare students for work, and universities can educate increasingly diverse student cohorts, but can they do both concurrently? This question of whether universities can offer equitable and inclusive careers education is increasingly under scrutiny. In this study, we address the largely under-theorised area of work-based placement...

Assessment plays a crucial role in student learning in higher education. Until rather recently, the role of assessment in relation to inclusion has been unexplored. In this study, we conduct a research synthesis of 42 studies published between 2010 and 2022, including 868 student participants, to map the assessment experiences of students with disa...

In this conceptual article, we discuss the idea of students' epistemic agency as an overlooked link between assessment, knowledge and society. We transcend the contemporary discourses around assessment that focus on its authenticity and student-centredness and instead investigate assessment from the viewpoints of knowledge and knowing. This approac...

Koulutuspolut ovat muuttuneet entistä avoimemmiksi oppijoiden tuen tarpeista riippumatta viime vuosien saatossa. Myös korkeakoulujen ovet avautuvat aiempaa useammin opiskelijoille, jotka tarvitsevat yksilöllisiä tuen järjestelyjä opintojen aikana. Tähän osaltaan vaikuttavat inklusiivisuuden lisääntyminen perusopetuksessa (Laki perusopetuslain muutt...

We conduct a critical review to explore how research on mathematics classroom assessment has positioned students (127 studies, 2015–2020). Our analysis shows how research has positioned students as passive recipients of assessment by portraying assessment through discourses of measurement and cognition. Conversely, students are positioned as active...

After decades of turbulence and acute crises in recent years, how can we build a better future for Higher Education? Thoughtfully edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin, this rich and diverse collection by academics and professionals from across 17 countries and many disciplines offers a variety of answers to this question. It addresses t...

Assessment accommodations are used globally in higher education systems to ensure that students with disabilities can participate fairly in assessment. Even though assessment accommodations are supposed to promote access, not success, they are commonly portrayed as potentially being cheating in that they provide certain students with unfair advanta...

When students enter higher education, they not only start learning and studying but begin a journey of becoming someone new in relation to themselves and to society. Scholarly research has increasingly emphasised this transformative element of higher education yet, to date, the role of assessment has received little attention in the processes of be...

Virtual Reality (VR) holds the potential to improve student spatial and visual learning in archaeology through embodied 3D interaction with ancient spaces and objects. For an introductory course on Mesopotamian archaeology that spanned the Uruk to Achaemenid periods, we experimented with VR tours as part of the student learning experience. Although...

Classroom assessment has received little attention in the socio-political studies in mathematics education. This is surprising given how profound the role of assessment is in the contemporary landscapes of mathematics education. In this paper, we propose that classroom assessment deserves to be theorised in its own right, separate from other factor...

This study explores the perceptions and practices of upper secondary school language teachers on differentiated assessment. The data were collected through a closed and open-ended questionnaire (n=48) and individual interviews with four teachers. The results show that the teachers used a variety of assessment methods, with a predominant emphasis on...

In this article, we conclude that students’ collaborative problem-solving activity can usefully be considered a complex system that is subject to unpredictable variation. Supplementing sound research methodologies with intuition-based speculations about the likelihoods of non-deterministic events suggests potentially more productive ways of researc...

Reflection is a key learning objective of teacher education, yet little is known about the ways in which it could be supported through assessment. In this case study (N = 14), we examine the potential of a novel assessment task – reflective podcasting – in supporting first-year student teachers' reflection. We analyzed student group podcasts and co...

Mathematics-specific learning difficulties and disabilities (MLD) have received increasing attention in scholarly research. In this study, we place MLD research in its wider context of risk societies by discussing the manufacturing of MLD as a risk. This framing of MLD builds on a certain idea of hope in how research could provide the means to bett...

This article provides an opportunity to rethink traditional ways of assessing students' knowledge in mathematics through a discussion of the ethical and philosophical aspects of assessment. This is achieved by applying Bornemark and Cusa's thinking of humans' calculating (ratio practices) and reflecting (intellectus practices) capacities on assessm...

In scholarly research, disabilities are predominantly understood as something that obscures assessment rather than enriches it. In this study, I examine how research on assessment adjustments (e.g. extra time in tests and separate testing rooms) portrays disabled students. I discuss how this area of research plays a role in constructing an image of...

Disabilities and neurodiversity are dominantly understood as something that challenges higher education rather than something that enriches it: ableist underpinnings characterize higher education despite policies of widened access. While earlier research has explored ideas such as 'inclusive pedagogies' and 'pedagogies of belonging', these importan...

Systemic challenges for feedback practice are widely discussed in the research literature. The expanding mass higher education systems, for instance, seem to inhibit regular and sustained teacher-student interactions. The concept of feedback literacy, representing students’ and teachers’ capacities to optimize the benefits of feedback opportunities...

Authentic assessment aligns higher education with the practices of students' future professions, which are increasingly digitally mediated. However, previous frameworks for authentic assessment appear not to explicitly address how authenticity intersects with a broader digital world. This critical scoping review describes how the digital has been d...

This study examines the underlying mechanisms of ableism and disablism in the assessment of student learning in higher education. Globally, higher education institutions rely strongly on assessment accommodations (e.g., extra time in tests) to ensure disabled students’ participation in assessment. This is also the case in Finland. Even though resea...

E-assessment typically seeks to improve assessment designs through the use of innovative digital tools. However, the intersections between digital technologies and assessment can be seen as increasingly complex, particularly as the sociotechnical perspectives suggest assessment must be relevant to a digitally-mediated society. This paper presents a...

This study outlines the assessment culture of mathematics in Finnish basic education (grades 6 and 9) based on a nationally-sampled dataset (N = 673). The study draws on the theoretical framework of assessment cultures as defined through cultures of learning, compliance and fear. We approach the assessment culture of mathematics through the student...

Assessment and feedback research constitutes its own ‘silo’ amidst the higher education research field. Theory has been cast as an important but absent aspect of higher education research. This may be a particular issue in empirical assessment research which often builds on the conceptualisation of assessment as objective measurement. So, how does...

With the myriad theories generated through research over the years, a continuing challenge for researchers is to navigate the multitude of theories in order to communicate their research, integrate empirical results, and make progress as a field by building upon empirical research. The Social Unit of Learning project was purposefully designed so th...

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a commonly used framework for designing accessible learning environments. While UDL has been reportedly applied to testing situations, much less is known about how classroom assessment (e.g., formative assessment) could be designed accessible to support the learning of all students. In this conceptual study, t...

How could assessment inclusively consider the diversity of students? In higher education, the most common answer is: through individual assessment accommodations. Inclusive assessment design has also been promoted to foster accessibility for all students. However, both of these approaches have largely drawn on the procedural understanding of ‘inclu...

The important role of student agency in collaborative problem-solving has been acknowledged in previous mathematics education research. However, what remains unknown are the processes of agency in open-ended tasks that draw on real-life contexts and demand argumentation beyond “mathematical”. In this study, we analyse a video recording of two stude...

Keskustelua-artikkeli, julkaistu: Psykologia 56(4), 644-649. Johdannon alku: Matematiikan opetuksen ja oppimisen tutkimus on alkanut enenevissä määrin painottaa kognitiivisten näkökulmien lisäksi oppimisen affektiivisia ja motivationaalisia elementtejä. Opetusmenetelmien yhteys matematiikkaan liittyviin motivaa- tiotekijöihin sekä affekteihin on ol...

School burnout has been studied extensively in schools but its relation to learning and studying processes at the university level is still an under-researched topic. The purpose of this study is to explore burnout and study interest profiles among university students and how these profiles differ according to approaches to learning, academic achie...

The viewpoint of parents has been scarcely studied in classroom assessment research. We address this research gap by examining parents' beliefs about assessment in the context of Finnish basic education (grades 1-9). A socioculturally oriented framework is developed to study the beliefs of parents. With this newly formulated framework, we qualitati...

Student self-assessment is commonly promoted as a formative assessment practice that boosts learning and self-regulation. On the other hand, it is suggested that self-assessment fosters students’ reflexivity and empowerment. Despite both arguments, student self-assessment plays a rather minor role in modern educational systems that value test resul...

Luentoja, ryhmäopetusta, tenttejä... Kukapa ei tunnistaisi näitä perinteisiä korkeakoulutuksen opetus- ja arviointimenetelmiä. Mahdollistavatko nämä menetelmät oppimisen kaikille opiskelijoille? Korkeakoulutuksen opetusmenetelmiä on harvoin alun perin suunniteltu koko opiskelijoiden kasvavalle laajalle kirjolle. Siksi ne voivat jopa luoda uusia es...

Assessment is often used to promote learning, but the mechanisms of how assessment relates to epistemology – knowledge and knowing – have been scarcely studied and theorised. In this study, we examine students’ epistemic resources in relation assessment in the context of university mathematics education. We draw on the theoretical framework of epis...

Inclusive learning environments have been described as a crucial factor for fostering disabled students' sense of belonging in higher education. However, few empirical studies have elaborated on how learning environments contribute to disabled students' belonging. In this study, we have taken a socio-political approach and widen the theoretical und...

Student agency is often mentioned as a key feature of feedback practices. Commonly, the concept of agency is used to refer to students' active role in the process of seeking, receiving, generating and acting upon feedback information. However, the notion of what student agency means is often taken for granted and rarely elaborated. The feedback lit...

Assessment accommodations, such as extra time or personal space during examinations, have been traditionally studied through psychological perspectives. In this study, a critical approach is used instead to reframe assessment accommodations as sociocultural practices in the context of higher education. Drawing on discursive-deconstructive reading,...

Nieminen, J. H. (2020). Student conceptions of assessment accommodations in university mathematics: an analysis of power. Nordic Studies in Mathematics Education, 25 (3-4). (Journal not indexed in ResearchGate). Abstract: This study investigates the power relations that underlie assessment accommodations in the context of university mathematics. As...

Although an unprecedented number of autistic students are entering higher education, research focusing on their sense of belonging is scarce. Autistic students’ sense of belonging can be jeopardized due to the students’ encounters with a network of social expectations, activities, responses and biased attitudes. Using a participatory approach, our...

University mathematics has been described as a setting that has challenges in inviting everyone to be part of the mathematics community. Thus, university mathematics offers an important context for research on belonging. For this study, we utilised a mixed-methods approach to investigate the various ways mathematics students belong or do not belong...

This doctoral thesis adds to the theoretical understanding of the interplay of agency and power in self-assessment in the context of undergraduate mathematics education. This is achieved by utilising the Foucauldian notion of subject positioning, referring to the positions that assessment constructs for students. This thesis addresses summative sel...

It has been claimed that promoting student agency is one of the key features of new generation assessment practices in higher education. While studies in higher education have offered important new knowledge about how students show agency in assessment, what is largely lacking in the field of assessment and agency is i) an elaboration of the theore...

The idea of 'Assessment for Learning' is widely encouraged in education, but mathematics assessment lags behind. In Finland, mathematics is mainly assessed through exams. Implementing alternative assessment practices might cause resistance, from both teachers and students. The present study, conducted in the context of undergraduate mathematics, in...

Student self-assessment has been framed as a way to address the issues of power in assessment in higher education. However, rarely has self-assessment been used to challenge the broader political issues of grading. In this study, I introduce the concept of summative self-assessment, drawing on self-grading as a practice that seeks to disrupt the us...

Promoting student agency has been seen as the primary function for new generation assessment environments. In this paper, we introduce two models of self-assessment as a way to foster students’ sense of agency. A socio-cultural framework was utilised to understand the interaction between student agency and self-assessment. Through a comparative des...

Universal Design has been promoted to address the diversity of learners in higher education. However, rarely have Universal Design implementations been evaluated by listening to the voices of disabled students. For this study we investigated the perceptions of three disabled students who took part in an undergraduate mathematics course designed wit...

Self-assessment has been portrayed as a way to promote lifelong learning in higher education. While most of the previous literature builds on the idea of self-assessment as a formative tool for learning, some scholars have suggested using it in a summative way. In the present study, we have empirically compared formative and summative models for se...

Arviointi on mustaa ja valkoista! Ehei — kouluissa on mahdollista hyödyntää koko arviointimenetelmien värikirjoa! Monipuolisesti toteutettu arviointi ohjaa kestävästi niin opettajan työtä kuin oppijan arviointitaitojen kehittymistä. Arviointi on opettajan tärkein työkalu! Arviointimenetelmät voidaan käsittää työkaluiksi, mutta oikeastaan arviointi...

To meet the needs of the student diversity, universities have often implemented the principles of Universal Design in their teaching methods. However, previous literature knows little about the effectivity of these practices. In this study, two students with learning difficulties are given a voice to share their experiences about a Universally Desi...

Matematiikan oppijat eivät ole arvioinnissa lähtökohtaisesti samalla viivalla, jolloin myös arviointimenetelmien tarjoamat tulokset ovat vääristyneitä. Esteetön matematiikan arviointi pyrkii huomioimaan erilaiset oppijat sekä tarjoamaan monipuolisia mahdollisuuksia näyttää matematiikan osaamisen kykyjä. Tällainen arviointi on inklusiivista, sillä p...

Many researches have suggested that making assessment criteria visible supports learning. On the other hand, others have claimed that too much clarity in assessment criteria and feedback could lead to instrumentalism: superficial observance of criteria without deeper thinking. Due to this ambiguous body of knowledge, we wanted to investigate what t...

A new blended learning environment encompassing a wide variety of formative assessment was developed for a large undergraduate mathematics course to promote deep learning approach. In order to enhance reflection, the final exam was replaced by students' self-assessment. At the end of the course, a cluster analysis found four student clusters differ...