Photo of Karin Forslund Frykedal

Karin Forslund Frykedal

Senior Associate Professor

To cooperate and learn together in a small group can be amazing and instructive but also a challenge. My research focuses cooperation and communication in small groups, both in elementary school and in primary health care.

Cooperation and communication in groups

My research is about cooperation and learning in student groups working together at compulsory school and discussion groups in parent education at primary health care. I am interested in both the teacher’s/leader’s and group members’ perspective on cooperation and the aim is to, through the research, increase the comprehension and knowledge of what happens when individuals cooperate and communicate in a small group. The empirical data are mainly from interviews, participant observations and video recordings but also from questionnaires and surveys.

The research comprises mainly of three areas within cooperation in groups. The first area is about students’ levels of ambition and their influence on the group’s patterns of behaviour in cooperative situations. The students’ different ambition and academic ability influence the construction of their diverse roles in the cooperation. In turn, the diverse role constructions create different emotions, from frustration to contentedness among the group members.

The second area is about assessment of knowledge and ability when students cooperate in small groups. Assessment of students’ individual and the group’s joint knowledge and abilities in cooperative situations are experienced among many teachers as a challenge and my research confirms that the assessment frequently takes place more informally than formally. In an ongoing research project me and my colleagues investigate how a short educational effort influences teachers’ and students’ abilities to assess at cooperative situations.    

The third area is about leadership in parent education groups at primary health care. The groups are often led by midwifes and child health care nurses, who has no formal knowledge or education within leadership, group dynamic or education. My research displays that the leaders has difficulties to create the useful and instructive group discussions that the parents ask for in the parent education groups.


Publications

2024

Johan Forsell, Karin Forslund Frykedal, Per Andersson, Eva Hammar Chiriac (2024) Upper secondary school students' perspectives on un/fairness in group work assessment Research Papers in Education (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2023

Anna Roumbanis Viberg, Karin Forslund Frykedal, Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi (2023) "The teacher educators perceptions of professional agency - a paradox of enabling and hindering digital professional development in higher education" Education Inquiry, Vol. 14, p. 213-230 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Eva Hammar Chiriac, Karin Forslund Frykedal (2023) Individual Group Work Assessment in Cooperative Learning: Possibilities and Challenges Contemporary Global Perspectives on Cooperative Learning Applications Across Educational Contexts, p. 94-108 (Chapter in book)

2022

Karin Forslund Frykedal, Eva Hammar Chiriac (2022) Individual Group Work Assessment - Formative Written Feedback as a means for Promoting Collaboration and Individual Accountability
Mia Barimani, Karin Forslund Frykedal (2022) Att leda föräldragrupper på mödrahälsovården ur ett föräldrastödsperspektiv Reproduktiv hälsa: barnmorskans kompetensområde, p. 424-434 (Chapter in book)

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International cooperation

Professor Robyn Gillies, University of Queensland (UQ), School of Education, Brisbane, Australia

Fil dr Gerd Christensen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark 

 

 

 

 

Commissions 

Faculty Program Director of Special Education program and Special Teacher Education program at Linköping University. 




National cooperation

Associate Professor at psychology Eva Hammar Chiriac, IBL, Linköpings University 

Associate Professor at psychology Michael Rosander, IBL, Linköpings University

Med. dr. Mia Barimani, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet.

Med. dr. Anita Berlin, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet. 

 

CV 

PhD in Education 2008 (Students’ course of action in group-work. About levels of ambition and patterns of behaviour in collaborative situations) 

Associate Professor of Education 2015




Supervision

Organisation