Jacob Højgaard Christensen - Associate Professor, Danish School of Education
Aarhus, Denmark
Key Passions: Education, wellbeing, comparative research
Key Strengths: Analytical skills, Collaboration, Communication
I am currently an associate professor at the Danish School of Education. My early research focused on health education, where I conducted follow-up studies on national development projects. In this work, I particularly examined how health education initiatives affected students’ well-being and learning. Over time, my work has evolved to include comparative education and major international studies (International Large-Scale Assessments, ILSAs).
ILSA studies such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) offer valuable insights into students’ academic performance. However, they also provide extensive data on students’ well-being and their experiences with school subjects, classmates, teachers, and school life in general.
I have also conducted research using systems theory as a framework, and I currently teach Systems Theory in the master’s program in educational sociology at Aarhus University. I use ILSA data to explore various dimensions of students’ well-being and to analyze how these are linked to academic performance, sociodemographic factors, as well as the structures and frameworks of schools. My work includes both national and international comparative perspectives and analyzes developmental trends over time.
