Pentti Hakkarainen (psychologist)

Pentti E. Hakkarainen (1944 – June 1, 2021 ) was a Lithuanian educational psychologist of Finnish origin.

Education and career
He graduated from the University of Jyväskylä in 1967, where he went on to obtain a master's degree and then a Ph.D. in 1970 and 1972, respectively. Hakkarainen defended his habilitated doctoral thesis in 1991. During the period of 1997-2011 he worked as professor at the University of Oulu and was elected as vice-dean of the Department of Educational Sciences in 2006. He was a professor of Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences since 2012 where he headed the Research Laboratory of Play (LUES, VMU). He is editor-in-chief of Journal of Russian & East European Psychology and served on the editorial boards of '  and '. His research interests included creative, developmental teaching and learning in preschools, schools and higher education, narrative learning and development in play and virtual environments. He published a number of books in Finnish, English, and Lithuanian.