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05 Oslo - Norway´s Capital City 06 Norway´s Premier University 09 About the Faculty 10 Research 17 Studies
Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Oslo P.O.Box 1161, Blindern N-0318 Oslo Norway
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E -mail: postmottak@uv.uio.no Phone: (+47) 22 85 82 76 Web: www.uv.uio.no/english
Graphic Design: Shane Colvin Photos: Shane Colvin, Alex Tufte & Colourbox Print production: CopyCat
Words of Welcome The Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Oslo is the largest educational research institution in Norway, and one of the leading faculties in our field in Europe. Education on all levels is an important driver for social, political and economic development and crucial for a sustainable and inclusive society. Our aim is therefore to offer our students the best educational programmes in in the country within the broad and complex field of educational sciences. Our Faculty is an international organization with students and academic staff from around the world. In particular, when it comes to international collaboration we focus on long-term collaborative relationships that promote quality, stimulate academic growth and strengthen interaction between research and education. We hope the pages that follow provide you with an overview of the Faculty and we encorage you to visit our website to find out more. Sincerely,
Berit Karseth, Dean January, 2015
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Oslo - Norway’s Capital City Oslo is the oldest of the Scandinavian capitals, and its history goes back 1000 years, when the first settlements were built at the inlet of the Oslo fjord. Oslo has a population of nearly 600 000 inhabitants. The city centre is compact and has a wide range of cultural activities, fine restaurants, and a lively nightlife. However, Oslo is also a place to leave the city life behind. It is the only European capital that boasts cycling, hiking, ice-skating, kayaking, sailing and skiing - all within its city limits.
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Norway’s Premier University The University of Oslo (UiO) is the highest ranked institution of education and research in Norway - and one of the World’s Top 100 universities, according to the Shanghai World Ranking. With five Nobel Prize winners, UiO has a strong track record of pioneering research and scientific discovery.
UiO facts and figures Students
27 700
Employees
6100
As a classical university with a broad range of academic disciplines, UiO has research communities in most areas. Moreover, UiO currently has 8 National Centres of Excellence and a strategic focus on interdisciplinary research in the field of energy and life sciences in particular. As a broadly based, nonprofit research university, UiO has access to good public funding schemes.
Faculties
8
Museums
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Library Holdings
3.6 million items
Operating Budget
850 million (USD)
Nobel Prize Winners
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UiO offers more than 800 courses in English at all levels, including 40 Master’s degree programmes taught entirely in English and several PhD programmes. UiO focuses on research-based education and attracts highly qualified students from all over the world.
Shanghai Ranking
#69 (World)
As a part of its international strategy, the university works to establish closer, more ambitious ties with first-class international partners. As a result, UiO has an international campus where students and staff from 130 different countries constitute more than one tenth of the student population, one fourth of the PhD students, and one sixth of the acadamic staff. The university also collaborates with the City of Oslo and national agencies in order to provide reception services for international students and researchers.
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About the Faculty The Faculty of Educational Sciences is one of the largest institutions dedicated to educational research in Europe. The faculty is composed of three departments and two research centres with a total of nearly 300 employees and 3 300 students. We offer three different bachelor degrees and ten master programmes, as well as Norway`s most prestigious teacher-training programme and several joint interdisciplinary programmes. Our research portfolio includes education, special needs education, and curriculum studies, as well as related topics such as school leadership, virtual learning technologies, and new media.
New Centre The Centre for Educational Measurement at the University
Units at the Faculty Departments •
Department of Education
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Department of Special Needs Education
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Department of Teacher Education and School Research
Centres •
Centre for Educational Measurement (CEMO)
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Centre for Professional Learning in Teacher Education (ProTed)
Research Schools •
National Graduate School in Educational Research (NATED)
of Oslo (CEMO) is an international research unit which conducts research in educational measurement in all levels of the education system. CEMO’s mandate is to develop national competence by disseminating knowledge about educational measurement to stakeholders and teaching
Supporting Units •
Section for Research and Mediation Support (FFS)
of Master and PhD students. For more information: www.uv.uio.no/cemo/english
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Research Our research areas cover a substantial part of the broader field of educational sciences. This includes research on digital learning environments, research on leadership of educational institutions and research on professional learning and knowledge management within both private and public sector institutions.
Within this broad spectrum of research areas, the faculty has particular competence in the following areas of expertise: •
Classroom research and subject didactics
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Educational leadership, school reform and education governance
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Comparative and international educational research
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Humanities studies in education
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Higher education and professional learning
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Modern childhood and research on young individuals
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Language development, text comprehension, and literacy
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Special needs educational research
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ICT and learning
Our academic staff is organized in research groups consisting of both senior and junior researchers, as well as graduate students.
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Selected Projects Studying computer and information literacy
Supporting second-language learners
International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) is the first international comparative study of lower secondary students’ computer and information literacy, and was carried out for the first time in 2013. ICILS is organized by IEA (The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement). The Department of Teacher Education and School Research and The Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education were responsible for the study in Norway. A computer-based assessment is used to evaluate students’ abilities to collect, manage, evaluate, and share digital information, as well as their understanding of safe and responsible use of digital information. In addition to the student test, a questionnaire is administered to students, teachers, ICT-coordinators and principals.
This project builds on a conceptual model that considers bilingual text comprehension as a multidimensional and dynamic construct and addresses how the emergent literacy growth of bilingual learners may be effectively promoted in preschool. The main aims of the project are:
Results from ICILS 2013 show that Norway is among the highest achieving countries on the digital test, with 30 percent of the students demonstrating good to very good digital skills, while 24 percent show very weak ICT skills. Norwegian teachers report positive attitudes toward ICT use in teaching. However, results indicate sparse use of ICT in schools. Project: International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) Supported by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training Contact: Researcher Inger Throndsen inger.throndsen@ils.uio.no
1. To determine the immediate and long term effects of a shared book reading intervention designed to enhance bilingual learners` comprehension of text. 2. To explore the growth of different language skills hypothesized to affect text comprehension and their relative role in predicting text comprehension. The project also has two secondary objectives, firstly to develop knowledge with implications for professional development addressing how preschool teachers may aid in preparing bilingual learners for future learning and text comprehension. Secondly to disseminate the knowledge gained from the project to the research community, policy makers, educators and parents. Project: Teaching for text comprehension: Supporting young secondlanguage learners’text comprehension in urban multiethnic preschools in Norway. Supported by the Research Council of Norway Contact: Professor Vibeke Grøver vibeke.grover@iped.uio.no
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Educational resources in the classroom The research project ARK&APP investigates the use of educational resources in the planning, conducting, and evaluation of teaching in four school subjects; Mathematics, Natural science, English (as a foreign language), and Social science. The project draws upon quantitative as well as qualitative data. Two national surveys are conducted. Here, school owners, school leaders, and teachers are asked about their choice of teaching resources, and in their practices as teachers in specific subjects. The 12 qualitative case studies observe how educational resources are used during lessons, with particular attention to how different resources generate engagement in different forms of studentteacher interactions. In each case, a pre-/posttest is conducted to map the students’ learning. Project: Ark&app Supported by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training Contact: Postdoctoral Fellow Ă˜ystein Gilje oystein.gilje@iped.uio.no
New knowledge about treatment of language impairment Associate Professor Janne von Koss Torkildsen at the Department of Special Needs Education and colleagues at the University of Arizona have conducted a study with notable results for the treatment of people with language difficulties. Language impairment is common, affecting approximately 7% of preschool children, and may lead to significant challenges in education and working life. Many language impaired individuals have difficulties with the understanding and production of grammar. Current interventions focusing on grammar typically take months to produce modest results, and there is thus a great need for more effective treatments. The study investigated the effect of introducing people with language impairment to a large variety of words that followed a linguistic rule. This approach differed from traditional treatments, where clients are usually exposed to few examples of each rule which are repeated many times. The results showed that the participants who were given highly variable input learned entirely new grammar in minutes. The secret lay in the great linguistic variations that these participants were exposed to. A comparison group who was exposed to a more traditional approach with few examples and many repetitions, did not learn the grammar. Article: Exemplar variability facilitates rapid learning of an otherwise unlearnable grammar by individuals with language-based learning disability. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56(2), 618-629. Contact: Associate Professor Janne von Koss Torkildsen j.v.k.torkildsen@isp.uio.no
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Mentoring beginning teachers This project explores how contextual factors influence the situation of beginning teachers in Nordic countries. Beginners often experience a demanding work environment and a lack of organized support at the start of their professional career. Not surprisingly, there are high levels of attrition among newcomers to school teaching. For demographic reasons, many teachers will be retiring during the coming years. A low recruitment and/or retention rate of beginning teachers may lead to a shortage of qualified staff in Norwegian schools. Mentoring schemes for beginning teachers may have a positive impact on teacher commitment and retention, classroom instructional practices, and also indirectly on student achievement. This project will explore how national mentoring schemes in the Nordic countries, school management, and school organizational contexts influence beginning teachers’ commitment, retention, and feelings of mastery and support during their first year of teaching. Also, the project seeks to develop new knowledge with relevance to teacher education, mentoring, policy-making and educational research. Project: NORDMENT: Mentoring beginning teachers in Nordic countries Contact: Professor Eyvind Elstad eyvind.elstad@ils.uio.no
Evidence-based practice in education: functions of evidence and causal presuppositions Is the move to “evidence-based practice” (EBP) in education to be celebrated or deplored? In this project, Tone Kvernbekk uses system theory, causal theory and argumentation theory to work out a balanced perspective on this controversy. The author uses argumentation theory to argue that evidence in EBP has an indirect, as opposed to an assumed direct, function. This indirect function contributes to making EBP much more complicated than advocates and critics alike tend to assume. The project mainly inquires into the causal presuppositions of EBP, using recent causal theory among other things to lay bare the basic structure of interventions. It is argued that causes should be conceived of as INUS-conditions; which contributes further to complicate EBP. Finally system theory is used to unearth problems which causal theory does not have the resources to unearth; for example entities that are not amenable to intervention and the overall importance of the pre-existing system and its conditions. The project is finished and will be published by Routledge (2015), in the Routledge Research in Education Series Book: Evidence-based practice in education: functions of evidence and causal presuppositions Contact: Professor Tone Kvernbekk tone.kvernbekk@ped.uio.no
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Ph.D. Programme A doctoral degree from the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Oslo gives plenty of opportunities, whether one wants to pursue a career within research or work outside the world of academia. About 2/3 of all Ph.D - degrees within educational science in Norway are obtained at our Faculty. The Faculty has around 5 percent foreign candidates at any one time. Within the programme, the candidates can specialize within Education, Special Needs Education, Language Education, Science Education, Mathematics Education, School Development, and Learning and ICT. These specializations lead to the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.). Our programme requires a full three years admission period as a minimum requirment. For more information visit our webpage: www.uv.uio.no/english/research/doctoral-degree
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The National Graduate School in Educational Research (NATED) The National Graduate School in Educational Research (NATED) is a partnership between six Norwegian universities and one university college. The school is coordinated by the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Oslo. Through a combination of network structures and thematic tracks, the school aims to provide PhD students with: •
courses in research design, methodology and methods
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specialized education and training in thematic fields, of which are central to educational knowledge
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Studies English language programmes:
Our faculty educates more than half of the
The faculty offers several international
university-level students studying within the
two-year master programs that attract
field of educational research in Norway.
students from all over the world. Further-
The student body at the faculty currently
more, the faculty has extended interna-
Master degrees
numbers around 3300. The credit system
tional cooperation through numerous
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Higher Education
used for courses at the University of Oslo is
bilateral exchange agreements, both
based on the European Credit Transfer and
within the Erasmus+ program and bi-
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Accumulation system. A full semester’s work
Comparative and International Education
lateral agreements outside Europe. Our
load consists of 30 credits.
partners include the University of Califor-
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Special Needs Education
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Special and Inclusive Education (Master - experience based)
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Education Policies for Global Development (GLOBED)
nia Berkeley, ENS de Lyon, HumboldtInternationalization of both study programs and research has been an important part of
Universität zu Berlin and The Institute of Education at University of London.
the overall strategy at the Faculty of Educational Sciences for several years. Moreover,
International exchange students can
we are now representing The University of
attend for one or two semesters, as well
Oslo in an international consortium be-
as take part in both bachelor and master
hind The Master in Education Policies for
courses that are taught in English.
Global Development (GLOBED). Starting in September 2015, GLOBED will constitute a solid and coherent international educational programme in the areas of global education policy and international development.
Norwegian language programmes: Bachelor degrees
For more information please visit
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Pedagogy
our webpages:
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Special Needs Education
www.uv.uio.no/english/studies
Master degrees •
Pedagogy
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Special Needs Education
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Educational Leadership
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Teacher Education Programme (5-year integrated Master degree)
The Faculty also offers a one year course in Practical Pedagogical Education, as well as several part-time and remote learning programmes which are primarily oriented towards graduates and teachers.
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Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Oslo P.O. box 1161 Blindern 0318 Oslo Norway www.uv.uio.no/english