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The paper outlines an ongoing longitudinal study (2018-2026) in a Swedish municipality, examining the relationship between the physical learning environment and teaching practices within an Innovative Learning Environment (ILE). Emphasizing student-centred learning, it acknowledges the complexity of translating physical design features into effective teaching practices. The study employs the Typology of Teacher Power and Control (TTPC) as a theoretical framework and a convergent mixed-method design to collect various data types, including classroom audio, teacher interviews, and questionnaires. The analysis demonstrates two distinct clusters of student-centred learning practices, differentiated by how symbolic power and control are either retained by the teacher or dislocated to the students. 

An increasing number of K–12 students are being offered distance and remote teaching alternatives. As digital technology enables education to reach greater physical distances, to more students, and evolve into various instructional forms, it raises questions about the consistency between different distance and remote teaching modalities in terms of student learning experiences and the role of instructors. In this study, students’ perceptions of the psychosocial environment are analyzed using transactional distance (TD) as a theoretical lens to understand their perceptions of closeness and/or distance in a remote teaching and learning environment. Qualitative and quantitative (descriptive) data were collected using a survey based on What Is Happening In this Class (WIHIC) and the Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ). The data represent 271 students (73% response rate) from 25 schools and 44 classrooms. Results show that aspects of TD vary between the learning environments, leading to various design issues for distance and remote teachers to consider. A prominent contribution is that challenges faced in the field of distance education are not solely technical in nature. While students’ evaluations of technology may be quite similar, it is the interaction and perceived accessibility in the learning environment that significantly influence the learning experience. Based on the results, it is also concluded that survey could be used to strategically evaluate TD with the potential to develop remote teaching and learning practices in schools.

Teachers in three schools in a community in the northern part of Sweden tested prototype classrooms designed as innovative learning environments. This was an introductory step before merging the schools into one new school building, whose architecture was “new, innovative, modern, and flexible”. Our study spans six years of following this process with regard to how the aimed concept of student-centred learning develops during this time. The results presented here are based on data from the prephase, while the teachers explored the prototype classrooms to learn how these facilities created new preconditions, but also for preparing students for the move. The mixed data consist of both audio recordings of nine teachers during classes and retrospective interviews with the same teachers.

The analysis is based on our theory-driven framework, the Typology of Teacher Power and Control (TTPC) (Bergström & Wiklund-Engblom, 2022), derived from Bernstein’s (2000) theory of power and control. In TTPC, Bernstein’s concept of framing is interpreted as teacher’s use of control in communicative practice, while the concept of classification represents teacher’s power distribution regarding classroom organisation. Each of the two dimensions include several subcategories, which are our evaluative tool to identify variation of emerging teaching practices. 

In the first analysis, three clusters of teacher practice emerged, ranging from teacher-centred teaching to student-centred learning. These clusters were used in an integrated analysis with interview data, thematically analysed, to illuminate how teachers themselves reasoned. These results show differences in beliefs about power and control distribution in the classroom. The cluster of increased student-centredness had dialogical and relational approaches and beliefs, in contrast to the teacher-centred cluster, which discussed their choices in their practice in relation to controlling students and student behaviour in the environment. 

This study is an exploration of the prerequisites in Swedish teacher education policy for teacher educators’ dual didactic task of developing student teachers’ professional digital competence to such a level that they are capable of developing K–12 pupils’ adequate digital competence. Data were collected from 20 Swedish teacher education institutions offering teacher education programs in which student teachers could earn the degree of Master of Arts in Primary Education for School Years 4–6. Overall, the data comprised national guidelines and curriculum regulations for teacher education in Sweden (e.g. the Swedish Higher Education Ordinance; N = 1), program syllabi at the selected teacher education institutions (N = 20), and course plans (for all 240 ECTS, 4-year full-time studies; N = 450), in total N = 471 policy documents. Signs of professional digital competence in policy were few, and most were found in the course plans for mathematics and natural sciences. In the discussion, findings are problematized in relation to the challenging role of teacher educators as second-order teachers seeking to fulfill their dual didactic task.

This paper reports on a school development project of an innovative learning environment (ILE). Staff and pupils from two traditionally build corridor schools have merged into a new build school, whose architecture is described as new, innovative, modern, and flexible (OECD, 2017). Instead of having one classroom with a standardised size of 60m2, the ILE consists of different rooms both regarding size and furniture. Another change was that teachers had to be prepared to go from the traditional practice of individually teaching a class with approx. 25 students to the practice of team teaching with 2-5 teachers teaching a whole grade with approx. 60-100 students. The narrative of the project focused on the shift from teacher-centred teaching to student-centred learning, which in previous research have been a challenge due to well established teacher-centred methods (Cardellino & Woolner, 2019; Sigurdadottir & Hjartson, 2016; Gislason, 2010). 

The present research project started two years before the teachers moved into the new ILE. During these two years, school leaders prepared teachers for the new practice. Among these preparatory activities, one core activity consisted of prototype ILE classrooms where teachers could practice student-centred learning methods. In our research, the materiality of the new classroom and teachers’ played-out practice are operationalised as two dimensions (Bergström & Wiklund-Engblom, 2022; Bergström, 2019). The first, a vertical dimension, concerns preconditions of the physical learning environment embodied through the arrangement of desks, use of teachers’ and students’ areas, relations between learning resources, and selection of software applications. The second, a horizontal dimension, includes teachers’ communication in practice pertaining to their selection of content, sequence, pace, and speech space (cf. Bernstein, 2000). The combination of the two dimensions creates a theoretical framework for an ecology of teacher practice as an “emergent phenomenon” (Carvalho & Yeoman, 2018, p. 5). This is an illustrative metaphor for the practice that emerge in teacher preparation for teaching in an ILE.

The aim of this study is to examine and unpack emergent and varying practices in the prototype classrooms with regard to the two dimensions. The following research questions were asked: 1) What variations in teachers played-out practice emerge from teachers’ organisation of the classroom space and communication in practice? 2) How can the teachers’ reasoning further explain the variation of these emergent ILE practices?

Theory: One outcome of our prior studies is the development of a new theory-driven analysing tool, the Typology of Teacher Power and Control (TTPC) (e.g., Bergström & Wiklund-Engblom, 2022, Bergström, 2019), constructed from Bernstein’s (2000) theory of power and control. In the vertical dimension of the TTPC-typology, Bernstein’s relative concept of classification is used to analyse how power emerge from the relationship between objects in the classroom. In short, strong classification keeps things apart, which indicates a strong symbolic power relationship. The opposite is true for weak classification. For example, desks in rows keep students apart and indicates a strong classification and teachers’ power. In the horizontal dimension of the TTPC-typology, Bernstein’s relative concept of framing is used to analyse how control emerge from teachers’ communication in practice. Framing is also a relative concept on a scale from strong to weak. Stronger framing indicates that the teacher has more control in the communication, while weaker framing indicates increased student control. Framing is operationalised as the variation of selection, sequence, pacing, evaluation, and teacher-student and student-student communication. Hence, the concepts of framing and classification represent the two dimensions, which construct a two-dimensional matrix illustrating the emerging teaching practices in the prototype classrooms.

Method: We adhere to a convergent mixed methods design where two types of data (classroom observations and retrospective teacher interviews) were integrated through several steps of analysis, data transformation, and integration (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Bazeley and Kemp, 2012). The rationale for the approach is that observational data, representing objective, formative data, shows the reality of the classroom activities, while the teacher interview data, representing subjective, formative data, provides insights into how teachers’ beliefs and attitudes relate to the choices made in their teaching practice (Bergström & Wiklund-Engblom, 2022). Thus, the use of both observational data and interview data aims for an integration analysis in which conclusions are drawn based on a broader explanation of the variations found in the emergent teacher practice.The classroom observations were conducted from three prototype learning environments in School A, B, and C. School A is a grade 6-9 school where teachers (N=4) were observed during five lessons. School B is a grade 1-6 school where teachers (N=3) were observed during five lessons. School C is a grade 1-6 school where teachers (N=2) were observed during four lessons. During the observations, the teachers’ communication was recorded and field notes and photographs were taken. The recorded material ranges between 20 and 60 minutes. The retrospective interviews (N=10) comprise nine individual teacher interviews and one group interview with the two teachers at School C. These semi-structured interviews included two themes: the physical learning space and teachers’ communication in practice. The audio recordings from both the classroom observations and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim.In the first main step, the transcripts and the fieldnotes from the classroom observations were analysed using the TTPC typology as it specifically targets variations in teacher-centred teaching and student-centred learning, i.e., to what extent teachers maintain or distribute power and control in played-out practice. Furthermore, in addition to exploring how typologies vary, we also explore why this could be based on the interview data. Accordingly, an integrative analysis was conducted with the TTPC clusters and teacher interviews by using crosstab queries in the QSR NVivo software.

Exected outcomes: The findings will be presented in two phases pertaining to the two research questions. Firstly, the results regarding variations in teachers played-out practice, are based on a quantification of the observational data and teacher audio recordings. Thereafter, a quantitative analysis using the TTPC framework identified clusters of teacher practice. The preliminary analysis indicate three clusters: i) teacher power and control, ii) mixed distribution of power and control, and iii) student power and control. These clusters are plotted in the TTPC-matrix as a visual summary where each teachers’ emergent practice can be identified. In these preliminary findings, we can see that only one teacher is found in the first cluster pertaining to teacher power and control. This cluster is defined by a strong distinction between a majority of the seven subcategories of the classroom organisation. Hence, this teacher had refurnished the classroom space back to a traditional classroom setting. Furthermore, the teachers’ communication was based on strong control in all six control categories. Moreover, the preliminary analysis indicates that the majority of the teachers are located in the second cluster pertaining to mixed distribution of power and control. Such practice is defined by a blurred distinction between the categories of classroom organisation, as well as the categories of teacher control in their communication.Secondly, in our aim to answer the second research question, the interview data will be analysed using thematic analysis. We expect to find themes related to the physical learning space of the prototype classrooms and other themes on influencing factors regarding teachers’ communication. We expect to find connections between teacher beliefs and choices made in their played-out practice by using both types of data in an integrative analysis.

Each time new PISA results are presented, they gain a lot of attention. However, there are many factors that lie behind the results, and they get less attention. In this study, we take a person-centered approach and focus on students’ motivation and beliefs, and how these predict students’ effort and performance on the PISA 2015 assessment of scientific literacy. Moreover, we use both subjective (self-report) and objective (time-based) measures of effort, which allows us to compare these different types of measures. Latent profile analysis was used to group students in profiles based on their instrumental motivation, enjoyment, interest, self-efficacy, and epistemic beliefs (all with regard to science). A solution with four profiles proved to be best. When comparing the effort and performance of these four profiles, we saw several significant differences, but many of these differences disappeared when we added gender and the PISA index of economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS) as control variables. The main difference between the profiles, after adding control variables, was that the students in the profile with most positive motivation and sophisticated epistemic beliefs performed best and put in the most effort. Students in the profile with unsophisticated epistemic beliefs and low intrinsic values (enjoyment and interest) were most likely to be classified as low-effort responders. We conclude that strong motivation and sophisticated epistemic beliefs are important for both the effort students put into the PISA assessment and their performance, but also that ESCS had an unexpectedly large impact on the results.

This study explores how Swedish teacher educators view individual, collegial, and organisational conditions framing the fulfilment of their dual didactical task, which is to use digital technology in a way that ensures student teachers graduate from teacher education (TE) with the professional digital competence (PDC) needed for their future working lives in a digitalised school. Using a purposive sampling approach, we used thematic coding to analyse 13 semistructured interviews with teacher educators representing 21 mandatory courses in educational science at one teacher education institution in Sweden. The findings cover aspects of the teacher educators’ PDC, how to act as a digital role model for the student teachers, support in educational policy and assignments, and the possibilities for participating in continuous professional development (CPD) in PDC. This study demonstrates an urgent need to improve conditions for successful fulfilment of teacher educators’ dual didactical task. For example, TE policy requires a strong focus on digital technology and PDC. CPD activities should be easy to access in order for teacher educators to develop their PDC. Moreover, leaders at the organisational level in TE institutions should acknowledge and place higher value on teacher educators’ work to digitalise educational practices.

At Swedish upper secondary school, all students have to pass a mandatory course with thename “Gymnasiearbete”. This course is different from all other courses due to severalreasons, for example, being a project work related only to the programme orientation andwithout an explicit course curriculum. In this project, we have followed students from theNatural Science Programme taking this course, and studied their interest, engagement andepistemic beliefs. Through observations, interviews, and questionnaires, we have foundtriggers important to emphasise to make students more engaged and interested to enhancetheir knowledge. We will, from both a teacher and researcher perspective, discuss this courserelated to both affective and cognitive variables.

The use of online, distance, and remote teaching is a growing phenomenon in the K–12 context. However, within this field of research, focus has primarily been on the use of asynchronous (not real-time) remote teaching and with a specific focus on the experience of teachers. The aim of this pilot study was to explore K–12 students’ experiences of the synchronous (real-time) remote teaching and learning environment. The following research questions were posed: (1) What possibilities and challenges can be identified from the perspective of students? (2) What development needs can be discerned for unexperienced teachers and students in synchronous remote teaching and learning environments? The data was collected from 177 students, using a quantitative instrument with questions in four dimensions: teacher support, involvement, cooperation, and autonomy support. Findings reveal both possibilities and challenges experienced by students in the synchronous remote teaching environment.

In the field of epistemic belief research, more studies on how these beliefs are formed in different cultural contexts are called for. Moreover, there are strong assumptions that teachers’ instructional practices are paramount to the development of students’ epistemic beliefs. The current study aims at investigating differences between Sweden and Germany in both, and in their relationships. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 4,731 students in Grades 5 through 11. To sum up, latent multi group comparison revealed several differences in the level of students’ beliefs and classroom characteristics. Moreover, latent regression analyses showed that the observed classroom characteristics were significant predictors of students’ beliefs concerning the justification and development of knowledge, and that the prediction pattern differ between countries.