Previous research

Recent projects

LVC-Steps I (FOI/FLSC/Swedish air force, 2021-2023)

Live, virtual and constructive for efficient flight training (FOI/FLSC/Swedish air force, 2018-2020) – LVC combines live aircraft, flight simulators and constructive entities (AIs) in the same training scenario. In the research project we explore the training value this training concept offers for fast jet fighter pilots in live aircraft and flight simulators. We also explore how to design training scenarios for LVC-training to ascertain a good training value to pilots flying in real aircraft and pilots flying in simulators.

Efficient flight training and education (FOI/FLSC/Swedish air force, 2015-2017)

PLACES – Purposeful Learning Across Collaborative Educational Spaces. The research project investigated the intricacies and complexities of introducing mobile technologies into schools curriculum and accepted teaching practices, analysing actual transformations that the use of mobile technologies in schools brings to contemporary forms of learning in the 21st century (Swedish research council, educational science, 2013 – 2015).

A study on the role of representational artifacts and actions in interaction design: Sketching as an embodied practice. In the project we studied processes involved in the creation of design representations, more in particular the role that representational tools and action play in that process. Tools used in creation of design representations have limited power to represent the essentials of what is focused, namely interaction itself with its dynamic and temporal aspects. The project investigated what role representational tools and action (designers´ design oriented actions) play in processes of sketching, and the misunderstandings and problems designers run into and how these are overcome (Swedish research council, educational science, 2010 – 2013).

PanNordic TEL. The aim of the “Learning Ecosystems and Activities of the Future” (LEAF) initiative was to develop and implement a common Nordic strategy for supporting new funding possibilities to promote synergy in research and development in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) across the Nordic countries  (NordForsk, 2009-2012).

A mobile language blog for a living and shared every day use (Vinnova, IT services in entertainment and recreation, 2010-2012). In this project we developed a new modern mobile blogging service for writing (as well as for reading) multimodal everyday stories. The blogging service was  primarily directed towards school children/adolescents. The project is was collaboration between BrainGlass AB (former Vocab AB), DSV – Mobile Life and Kista Theatre. 
The main idea of the project was to combine pleasure and benefit for children/young people and provide them with new tools that are based on the social media already used by most young people today. These can be used both recreationally and in school to talk about culture, sports and other things in life that interest the users.

The project aimed to:
- Study how the schoolchildren used cell phones to express themselves through multimodal storytelling and how we could make this participation easier, more fun and more accessible
- Build mobile multimodal applications that would make it possible to blog using various modalities, such as: text, images, video, audio as well as symbols and associations
- Develop new types of blogs with integrated multi-modal dictionaries that would make it easy to use, label and index the media better
- Evaluate these tools on a small scale by means of project problem owners.

Learning and teaching at universities – towards active learning and use of IT in medical and technological education, Swedish Research Council. In this project we among other things focus on students preferences for approaching a learning situation and material and how this in turn correlates with surface- and deep learning strategies. One of the research questions in the project focuses on how we can design learning environments that foster surface learners to move towards deep learning and use of deep learning strategies in learning.

Shared Representations and Collaborative Learning of Interaction Design. The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). In the project we investigated how interactive artifacts can be used to support and strengthen shared use of representations in learning of interaction design. The research questions in the project were:
-what is the role of shared representations in the context of collaborative learning of interaction design,
-what is the role of artifacts (for instance large interactive surfaces for projection) in supporting and strengthening shared use of representations in a collaborative learning context.

The focus in the project was on representations that are used within the context of interaction design and processes of interaction design that have the potential to be supported by shared representations (artifacts, design patterns, language and language use).

Older projects
A focus of interest was to develop a theoretical frame of reference to understand the role of computers as media for communicating knowledge between human beings. The theoretical frame should serve as a support to the activities of specifying psychological and computational requirements on the representation of knowledge and on the dialogue in such systems, of developing methods for meeting the requirements, and of investigating the psychological feasibility of such systems, ( the CAFKA-project ).

A related focus of interest concerned how computer support could be designed and used in situations where people need other people’s expertise in order to solve a problem ( The COPS-project ). Focus was upon how problem solving expertise might be communicated with a knowledge-base as medium. Focus was upon the communication of knowledge, in terms of argumentation and explanation rather than on problem solving algorithms. The project worked both with empirical psychological studies and with computer science studies of possible methods of communicating knowledge in the context of critiquing systems. Sender’s explanations and argumentation as well as receiver’s understanding of these were studied. Computer supports for effective communication and mediation of problem solving advice and explanations, as well as corresponding methods for knowledge representation were developed.

Within the AUGMENT-project (AUGMENTation of expertise; Model refinements and Model shifts), the goal was to study how expertise for particular domains (both in men and machines) could be augmented in terms of refinements of and shifts between explanatory models of the domains. We used the term explanatory model to denote either mental models (in our heads) or conceptual models (in a computer) of a domain. We assumed the scenario to be “learning on the limit” which means that the user’s knowledge of the problem domain was at least minimally adequate for the conceived problem solving tasks. Likewise, the computer based tool was minimally adequate for supporting the problem solving activities. In particular, we were interested in studying shifts between explanatory models, the parallel use of several explanatory models and the gradual drift and degree of persistence of explanatory models.

The “STEPP”-project (Scenario based Training Environments for learning Protein Purification) was based on ideas that came up from the results obtained in the augment project mentioned above. The project focused on design and evaluation of a learning and training environment within the domain of protein purification.

Results from the AUGMENT-project (see above) and the focus on theories of learning, development of competence and cognition resulted in a research theme “Scenario Based Environments for Learning and Development of Competence” within the graduate school for Human Machine Interaction (HMI) in Stockholm (Stockholm HMI-node). In this project we focussed on several interrelated aspects in the context of learning and development of computer-based tools/environments for learning.

Yet another project with a focus on learning concerned distance and distributed education (DITE – Design of IT based Education ). A project was carried out in cooperation with Stanford University, USA (The global lifelong learning project). Focus was upon how different techniques should be used and adapted to the specific eduational setting to meet the requirements and needs that students have. A continous evaluation of methodologies used in the Stanford courses given at the department of Computer and Systems Sciences was performed.

Yet another focus was upon learning. In the project Hyperlearn (Hypermedia Learning Issues) the goal consisted in increasing the general understanding of how technologies of representation interact with human conceptual formation. The focus was upon providing explanations for learning purposes. The domain of physics was (once again) approached to study university students’ conceptrestructuring in learning. Different ways of structuring explanations was tested in a hypermedia context. The interplay between text and pictures was also investigated. The dependent variables consisted in concept formation as well as subjective perception of learnability, comprehensability and inspiration.

In the HYCAL-project (HYpermedia and Communication for Active Learning) we focussed on developing training environments for students learning about conceptual modeling based on the pedagogical model of cognitive apprenticeship.

I was engaged in an EU-project (I3, ESE – Experimental School Environments) “Playground” which is based on an animation based kernel – ToonTalk.

In the project `Children and teachers in knowledge construction with computer games´, (Swedish Research Council) we focussed computer based construction environments for children to construct their own computer games, simulations, etc.