Integrated member

Margarida Alves Martins

Full Professor

Biographical Note

Margarida Alves Martins has a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University René Descartes Paris V and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Coimbra. She is a full Professor of Educational Psychology at ISPA where she teaches several curricular units in graduate, post-graduate and doctoral courses in Education and Educational Psychology. She is member of the board of the Master in Preschool Education and Teaching of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education. She has supervised post-doc, PhD and Master students in Education and Educational Psychology. She was head of the Centre for Educational Research (CIE-ISPA) funded by FCT (national research agency). She has participated as Principal Researcher in several funded research and intervention projects. She published several papers in national and international journals mainly on early literacy, reading, spelling and writing in primary school, and authored several books and book chapters on literacy.

Research Interests

Margarida Alves Martins has been working on early literacy development and on learning to read, spell and write in primary school. She also developed research on teachers’ conceptions about multilingualism and educational practices in multilingual classrooms and on migrant students’ inclusion in school contexts. She has developed several research and intervention projects in these areas, namely on invented spelling programmes in pre-school and writing and reading programmes in primary school.

  • Early literacy
  • Learning to read
  • Learning to spell
  • Learning to write
  • Multilingualism

Relevant Publications

Salvador, L., & Alves Martins, M. (2024). From spelling to reading: An intervention program with children at risk of reading failure. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 244. https://doi.org/101016/jecp.2024.105944

Leite, G., Alves Martins, M., Gaitas, S., Laranjeira, R., Alves, C. & Sarabando, T. (2024). Can peer mediation foster migrant students’ inclusion in mainstream classrooms? An exploratory case study. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2024.2356209

Albuquerque, A. & Alves Martins, M. (2022) Invented spelling as a tool to develop early literacy: The predictive effect on reading and spelling acquisition in Portuguese. Journal of Writing Research, 14(1), 109-127. https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2022.14.01.04

Dockrell, J. E., Papadopoulos, T. C., Mifsud, C. L., Bourke, L., Vilageliu, O., Bešić, E., Seifert, S., Gasteiger-Klicpera, B., Ralli, A., Dimakos, I., Karpava, S., Alves-Martins, M., Sousa, O., Castro, S., Søndergaard Knudsen, H. B., Donau, m P., Haznedar, B., Mikulajová, M., & Gerdzhikova, N. (2021). Teaching and learning in a multilingual Europe: Findings from a cross-European study. European Journal of Psychology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-020-00523-z

Albuquerque, A., & Alves Martins, M. (2021). Invented spelling activities in kindergarten: the role of instructional scaffolding and collaborative learning. International Journal of Early Years Education, 29(1), 96-113. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2020.1760085

Current PhD students

Maria Beatriz Madeira Gil (FCT scholarship 2024)
From planning to textualization: Pedagogical theories and practices. An intervention programme for teachers and pupils in primary education

External collaborations

  • Ana Albuquerque
  • Anabela Marcelo
  • Betina Astride
  • Edlia Simões
  • Miguel Mata Pereira
  • Mónica Gaiolas
  • Manuel Montanero Férnandez (Universidade de Badajoz, Espanha)
  • Sara Mourão Monteiro (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brasil)
  • Jacques Fijalkow (Universidade de Toulouse II-Jean Jaurès, França)
  • Terezinha Nunes (Universidade de Oxford, Reino Unido)

Alumni

  • Anabela Marcelo (PhD student until 2020)
    Ana Albuquerque (PhD student until 2020)
  • Betina Astride (PhD student until 2019)
  • Liliana Salvador (PhD student until 2017)
  • Mónica Gaiolas (PhD student until 2016)
  • Edlia Simões (PhD student until 2015)
  • Jorge Gonçalves (PhD student until 2015)
  • Sérgio Gaitas (PhD student until 2013)
  • Dominique Bina (PhD student until 2011)
  • Miguel Mata Pereira (PhD student until 2011)
  • Inês Vasconcelos Horta (PhD student until 2010)