Ismo Koponen

Description of research and teaching

My research in didactical physics is on physics teacher education and higher education in physics, focusing on modelling of the learning processes and cognitive processes of learning, as they are accessible from empirical data. In that, the most important works are: network approach on concept learning, and model of conceptual change. Previous research topics include conceptual learning and epistemological role of models and experiments in learning physics.

Research leadership, funding and supervision

I am leading a research group of physics education research in Department of Physics, University of Helsinki. Two senior researers (university lecturers), two postdoctoral researchers and two doctoral students works in my group, with occasional visitors abroad.

My research areas are physics education research (learning and instruction of physics) and material physics (computational). In physics education research I have 23 peer-reviewed and in material physics 69 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals (class A1). Other 104 scientific contributions are either refereed proceedings or published abstract.