KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
(PROFILE)

Prof. Dr. Pang Ming Fai (University of Hongkong)

Ming fai Pang is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong, with research interests focusing on learning, teaching and assessment. He specializes in phenomenography, variation theory and lesson and learning studies. Recently, he extends his research focus to the development and assessment of financial and economic literacy, critical thinking and reasoning skills. He was the holder of the Carl and Thecla Lamberg’s Visiting Professorship of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2009-10 and is the recipient of the Gambrinus Fellowship of TU Dortmund University, Germany in 2015-16. He has been the Editor of the SSCI journal ‘Educational Research Review’ since 2010, and the Editorial Board Member of ‘Vocations and Learning’, ‘International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies’ and ‘International Review of Economics Education’.

Dr. Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen (University of Helsinki)

Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen is the project manager of the Centre for Educational Assessment at the University of Helsinki. She is a licensed psychologist who holds a PhD in special education. Her research focusses on the development of learning to learn skills and the factors influencing pupils’ performance in large-scale educational assessment studies, including pupils’ background, motivational beliefs, interest and effort but also country-, school-, class- and peer group-level organisational and social factors that influence both the development of learning outcomes and the willingness of showing them in an assessment situation. She is especially interested in analysing how weaker performers and pupils who need support for their studies could best be supported to secure the equity of education for all learners. She is a project leader of several cross-sectional and longitudinal educational assessment projects that are conducted in a close collaboration with some of the largest Finnish municipalities, The National Board of Education and the ministry of education and culture. She is the vice-NPM of PISA2015 and PISA2018 in Finland, having the responsibility for the coordination of the assessment and reporting of the core domains of collaborative problem solving and global competences. She is also the editor-in-chief of the Finnish Journal of Psychology “Psykologia”.

Prof. Dr. Romain Martin (University of Luxemborg)

Dr. Romain Martin is Professor for Psychology and Empirical Educational Research and director of the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing of the University of Luxembourg. Besides holding a master’s degree and a PhD in differential and educational psychology from the University of Nancy II, Prof. Martin is also a certified primary school teacher and registered state psychologist in Luxembourg. His research interests include life-long learning, cognitive neuroscience in an educational context, large-scale and longitudinal educational studies and the development of new educational assessment and learning tools with a specific focus on technology-enhanced tools. He has been principal investigator or project member of a large number of research projects in the field of educational measurement and applied cognitive science. A pioneer in computer-based testing, he initiated an open-source computer-based testing platform used in several large-scale international studies which has been developed in collaboration with the Luxembourg-based IT research centre CRP Henri Tudor. This project has led to the creation of a spin-off company in 2013 of which Prof. Martin has been one of the co-founders. Prof. Martin has authored and co-authored a large number of peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and books on applied cognitive science and assessment. He was and is involved in major international comparative large-scale studies, including the “PISA Program for International Student Assessment” and the “PIAAC Program for the International Assessment of Adult’s Competencies”.