For Kimmo Svinhufvud, research serves as an important counterweight to teaching. His doctoral thesis topic was “Thesis writing as an interactive activity – A Conversation Analysis Study on the Interaction between Master’s Thesis Seminars and Master’s Thesis Advisor Meetings”. In the thesis, Svinhufvud studied the structure of interactive situations related to thesis writing – such as advisor meetings and seminar work – as well as ways of pedagogically developing the working methods used.

– I have applied for funding for a post-doc study. It can be difficult to find time for research in the midst of my current teaching job. I also hope that I will be able to combine research and teaching at some point in the future.”

His new research topic is also related to supporting university students. Svinhufvud wants to research the interaction between students and student counselling psychologists at individual meetings.

–The questions brought up at a meeting with a psychologist are partly the same as at thesis meetings with an academic supervisor, but the perspective and methods sometimes differ. By studying conversations with student counselling psychologists, general conventions related to student guidance in the academic world can be outlined. Then we can start to consider whether some of the characteristics of the work done by the student counselling psychologist could be applied to the academic supervision.

According to Svinhufvud, a meeting with a student counselling psychologist is particularly interesting from the writing perspective too, because writing can have many roles in such sessions. Participants make notes on the discussion, reflect on various types of homework and make references to many types of texts and documents in their speech. Svinhufvud is interested in studying how speech, kinetics (gaze, gesture, movement etc.) and writing tools cohere with each other in an interactive situation.

–Research work appeals to me even if I don’t get any funding for it. Then I just have to find time for research somewhere between work and leisure.

A national symposium called Kirjoittamisen tutkimuksen päivät (‘Symposium of Research on Writing’) will be organised at the University of Helsinki on February 5th and 6th. Kimmo Svinhufvud is taking part in the organisation committee of the symposium, which is being arranged for the first time. During the two days, there will be thirty interdisciplinary presentations with varying methodologies and perspectives. Nearly one hundred people from all over Finland are participating in the event. Kimmo Svinhufvud’s doctoral dissertation is available as an electronic source on E-thesis.