LET Lab - Learning and Educational Technology Research Lab

LET Lab ensures that the future of learning remains human-centered in the age of artificial intelligence. We develop knowledge and solutions that empower people to learn and collaborate across education and work context and within a rapidly changing society.

Research group information

Unit and faculty

Learning and Learning Processes

Faculty of Education and Psychology

Researchers

Professors

Senior research fellows

Postdoctoral researchers

University lecturers

University teachers

Doctoral researchers

Doctoral school students

Administration personnel

Other members of the research group

Research group description

We investigate how people learn, collaborate, and regulate their learning in a rapidly changing world. Our research is interdisciplinary and grounded in Learning Sciences and Educational Psychology, with strong expertise in self-regulated learning (SRL), socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL), and collaborative learning (CL).

Our research seeks to understand how cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and emotional processes interact and shape learning at individual and group levels by combining strong theoretical foundations with process-oriented and multimodal methods. Building on this knowledge, we develop ways to support learning, collaboration, and human agency in increasingly technology-rich environments, extending to human–AI collaboration and Hybrid Intelligence.

Through interdisciplinary research, international collaboration, and research-based education, we advance scientific understanding of learning and contribute to future learning solutions in education, work, and society.

What we do

Our strategy

LET research strategy directly contributes to the research focus area of the University of Oulu Human-AI Co-Evolution and Strengthening Human Capabilities, and contributes to the university’s two key research programs: GenZ and Beyond: Strengthening Human Competences in the Emerging Digital Era (concluded at the end of 2023) and Hybrid Intelligence: Human-AI Co-evolution and Learning in Multi-realities (HI) (ongoing), both funded by the Research Council of Finland.

The main objectives of our work address theoretical, empirical, and methodological aspects of the learning sciences research and are as follows:

To carry out theoretical investigations and analysis of recent advancements in research on motivation, emotions, metacognition, self-regulation, and socially shared regulation of learning.
To carry out empirical studies of contextual and social dimensions of individual and collaborative learning in a variety of educational settings.
To design advanced learning technologies to support individual learning, create opportunities for collaboration, and increase competence building among team members.
To promote methodological development of multimodal and process-oriented methods to enhance theoretical and empirical understanding of the learners’ dynamics in achievements and appraisals in multiple contexts.

Theoretically, our work is grounded in socio-cognitive and constructivist approaches relying on recent theoretical and methodological developments in the learning sciences (Brandsford et al., 2000; Sawyer, 2006). Our special expertise lies in self-regulated learning (SRL) theory (Schunk & Zimmermann, 2008; Winne & Hadwin, 1998; Hadwin et al. 2018; Järvelä & Hadwin, 2024), research on motivation (Volet & Järvelä, 2000), as well as social interaction and socially shared cognition in learning (Resnick, 1991).

We regularly publish our research in high-impact international peer-reviewed journals (e.g. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), Metacognition and Learning, Computers in Human Behavior, etc.); produce book chapters in collaboration with our partners (e.g. International Handbook of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (2021)); and participate in national and international conferences such as EARLI, AERA, ICLS, CSCL, LAK. Our research and practice results are also disseminated via national and international media, lectures, workshops, and presentations.

Our research is mainly funded by the Research Council of Finland, European Union, Finnish Ministry of Education, local, regional, and international foundations, as well as doctoral schools and profiling projects of the University of Oulu. We actively collaborate with multidisciplinary teams at the University of Oulu (e.g. in affective computing, CMVS) and network with research groups both nationally (e.g. University of Jyväskylä) and internationally (e.g. University of Victoria (Canada), Radboud University (the Netherlands), Monash University (Australia), the University of Central Florida (USA), Technical University of Munich (Germany), University of Bergen (Norway), Copenhagen University (Denmark), KTH Stockholm (Sweden)).

LET Lab - Learning and Educational Technology Research Lab

Research group information

Unit and faculty

Researchers

Research group description

What we do

Study with LET!

Master's in Learning, Education and Technology

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Hybrid Intelligence: Human-AI Co-evolution and Learning in Multi-realities (HI)

Brown Bag Seminar: How is artificial intelligence transforming education and lifelong learning?

Nordic Learning Analytics Summer Institute 2023

Open lecture, Prof. Jeffrey A. Greene, The Need for More and Better Epistemic Iteration Between Self-Regulated Learning Theory and Assessment

GenZ Foresights seminar brought up the need to promote multifaceted human-centric views in the digitalised world

GenZ Foresights

GenZ Talks seminar

Research of artificial intelligence in learning receives international funding – Prof. Sanna Järvelä to lead the research center