معرفی
Espen Sagen is a Researcher at the Department of Social Economics and Finance within the School of Business at the University of Stavanger, where he pursues his PhD in Social Economics. Affiliated with the interdisciplinary Synapse Lab, he develops evidence-based interventions targeting motivation and learning in educational and professional contexts.
His research centers on how student and parent beliefs shape academic development, with primary focus on designing digital tools to modify parental investment behaviors. As principal investigator for the WE-TEACH project, he leads the creation and testing of an intervention for elementary school parents addressing beliefs about educational investment and child motivation strategies. He concurrently contributes to the CL-App project, developing support systems for NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) youths transitioning into work or education.
Analysis of his 2023-2024 conference presentations reveals a cohesive research trajectory in behavioral education economics, consistently employing randomized controlled trials to evaluate interventions. His work bridges macro-level policy implications with micro-level psychological mechanisms, emphasizing scalable digital solutions for systemic educational challenges. Key thematic threads include parental agency in child development, behavioral barriers to investment, and causal evidence for intervention efficacy.
Sagen secures research funding through project leadership (WE-TEACH) and collaborative partnerships (CL-App), directing cross-functional teams within Synapse Lab. His methodology integrates economics, psychology, and education science, with future work likely expanding into longitudinal impact assessment and socioeconomic disparity reduction. The lab environment fosters iterative testing of interventions across diverse demographic cohorts.
