Browsing by Subject "fenomenografia"

Aims. Touching is an essential part of human life and well-being: touch is a way of communicating in human interaction, and touching has positive influence on growth and development of a child. Thus, touching should also be a part of school life in interaction between a teacher and a student. On the other hand, many studies discuss concerns that teachers have regarding touching students. In this study, the aim was to discuss primary school teachers’ attitudes towards touching as a pedagogical tool: is it allowed to touch children, do teachers want to touch in the first place, in what kind of situations do teachers touch, and how is touching discussed in schools. The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding of touching in schools. Methods. The research data was gathered by interviewing six class room teachers, and I applied theme interview in the interview. This study was a qualitative study, and I applied phenomenography study’s analysis model in the analysis. Phenomenography is based on different kinds of ways of understanding the same phenomenon: therefore I observed primary school teachers’ different views about touching in school. Results and conclusions. Primary school teachers associated six different meanings with touching: touching as natural and common thing; as a tool for calming and guiding; as caring; as a worry; as an object of avoiding; and as restricting. The factors that influence teacher’s decision to touch are the norms of society and community, context of the situation in which touching occurs, teacher’s own touching history, characteristics regarding a student, instructions or pedagogical freedom, and conscious decision making or spontaneous action. As a summary for these results, there was formed five different roles for teachers as touchers: teacher as an educator, as a communicator, as a restrictor, as an avoider, and as a victim. Even though the results cannot be generalized to apply every primary school teacher, the results imply possible ways of comprehending touching as a pedagogical tool.

Psykedeeleistä on tullut jälleen osa julkista ja akateemista keskustelua. Psykedeelistä kokemusta on haastavaa kuvata sanallisesti, mikä vaikeuttaa aiheen ymmärtämistä ja siitä käytävää keskustelua. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastelen psykedeelistä kokemusta kahdesta näkökulmasta: kuolemanrajakokemuksen kaltaisena ilmiönä ja kognitiivisena muutosprosessina.Aineisto koostuu erowid.org-sivustolta kerätyistä kokemusraporteista, jotka kuvaavat psykedeeli DMT:n käytöstä seuranneita kokemuksia. Tarkastelen raportteja teoriaohjaavan sisällönanalyysin keinoin, ja teoreettisena viitekehyksenä toimii kuolemanrajatutkimukseen kehitetty NDE-C-asteikko. Pisteytän kokemuksia sen perusteella, kuinka paljon ne sisältävät NDE-C-asteikon kuvaamia ulottuvuuksia. Kuolemanrajakokemuksen kriteerit täyttäviä raportteja analysoin fenomenografian keinoin. Etsin teksteistä ilmaisuja kokemusten aiheuttamista maailmankuvan ja ajattelutapojen muutoksista. Analyysissa nojaan Batsonin ja kumppaneiden (1993) sosiaalipsykologiseen teoriaan uskonnosta ja sen määritelmään uskonnollisesta kokemuksesta kognitiivisena muutoksena. Tutkimuskysymykseni ovat seuraavat: Voiko psykedeelistä kokemusta tutkia mielekkäällä tavalla myös kuolemanrajakokemuksena? Ennustaako korkea pistemäärä kuolemanrajakokemusasteikolla kognitiivisia muutoksia? Millaisia käsityksiä psykedeelin aiheuttama kognitiivinen muutos voi synnyttää? Tulokset viittaavat siihen, että NDE-C-asteikko toimii tarkoituksenmukaisena työkaluna myös psykedeelien tutkimukseen. Korkea pistemäärä ennusti kognitiivisia muutoksia. Fenomenografisen analyysin tuloksena esittelen kaksi hierarkkista kategoriasysteemiä, jotka kuvaavat muutoksia sekä maailmankaikkeuden luonnetta että yksilön elämää koskevissa käsityksissä. Kategoriat toimivat psykedeelisen kokemuksen aiheuttamien kognitiivisten muutosten systemaattisena kuvauksena.

Objectives. The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze and interpret the way novice class teachers see school bullying. The secondary purpose is to describe how peer harassment affects the novice teachers’ job. In 2010-centery studies, school bullying has been seen as a form of negative social behavior between pupils (Repo, 2015; Herkama, 2012). Teachers have to focus more and more on teaching social skills to pupils rather than the actual teaching. This has been associated with younger teachers’ increased stress levels at work and even plans on switching ca-reers (Aho, 2011). This study examines the education side of teacher job at the context of school bullying. Methods. This study is a qualitative research from the point of view of phenomenography. The material has been produced in a group chat between three novice teachers and the interviewer. All teachers have graduated during the last year and worked their first year as teachers. Besides of novice teachers I will also call them young teachers at this study, since all of them were under thirty years old. Results and conclusion. The peer harassment has changed because of new technology and smart phones. The term ‘school bullying’ has become an inadequate way in describing the reality of the bullying experiences that pupils have to deal with. From novice teachers’ perspective, it seemed that low social skills of pupils were the main reason why there are so much conflicts be-tween pupils in everyday life. The actual school bullying was rare, but the preventative jobs, such as conflict solving, took lots of time from teaching and learning in the class. Decision mak-ing, insecurity regarding the effectivity of one’s own practices as well as co-operation with the parents were experienced as a burden with negative effects on teaching. In conclusion, bullying and the bullying-preventive work increases the overall workload of teachers and takes up time and resources from the actual teaching.

Youth violence has been a topic in public debate for many centuries and violent entertainment has been a main focus in search for reasoning youth violent behaviour and the acceptance of violence. The aim of this study is to survey the aspects of major consumers of entertaining history culture on the legitimacy of violence. The hypothesis was, that the major consumers of entertaining history culture do not justify the use of violence as problem solving measure. The entertaining history culture is limited to include historical movies and tv-series together with computer and console games. This study was executed as qualitative research with phenomenography as the methodological philosophy. The focus was to find out the thoughts about justified violence of ninth grade students who consume a lot of entertaining history culture. The research material was collected from inquiry from one hundred participating ninth graders. The inquiry was held to find out major consumers of entertaining history culture that would be suitable for semi structured interviews. Seven people were chosen for interviews. The study revealed that the major consumers of entertaining history culture react negatively to the legitimacy of violence both in historical context and in real life. The youth say that movies and games aren't a direct cause of violent behaviour, but can be harmful if a person has another mental difficulties already. The youth told that they can easily separate movies and games from real life and think them as entertainment that you can also learn from. The youth also had a positive image about the future, although they saw the media stirring up some threats. This study should stand by earlier research which say that violent entertainment don't increase either youth violence or the legitimacy of it.

The educational transitions of immigrant youth are seen as challenging and young immigrants complete the upper secondary education less frequently than their native counterparts in Finland. The aim of this study was to examine how the school officials, such as student counselors, principals and education administration officials, consider the specific features of the upper secondary transitions of immigrant youth and their own possibilities in supporting these transitions. The theoretical setting consists of the concepts of transitions system and transitions regimes. The data included 10 semi-structured interviews with school officials from the Helsinki metropolitan area. The interviews were analyzed using phenomenography. According to the school officials the specific features of the transitions of immigrant youth are educational choices and the assessment of competences in the comprehensive school; abilities and educational background in the upper secondary school; and the importance of language skills and social groups in both school levels. The specific features become challenging because they operate in a specific context: the Finnish education and transition system. Transition to the upper secondary school is above all institutional and in order to receive a place of study one must comply with the rules of the system. Instead of a short phase the transition is a longer process that should be supported in the long term. The school officials considered their own possibilities in supporting immigrant youth relatively good but the possibilities were restricted by resources and structural practices. The guidance of the youth could be done with more and deeper cooperation between various parties. The different preparatory educations are characteristic for immigrants but the present quantity and forms of the educations do not meet the requirements of the diverse groups of youth. The potential discontinuities and prolongations of the transitions on an individual level are in a conflicting relation to the macro level objectives of fluent transitions. The role of education in equalizing the positions of different groups in the society is increasingly important as the population becomes more diverse. The multiple needs of the immigrant youth have to be taken into consideration more consistently. The thesis is a part of the research project “Transitions and educational trajectories of immigrant youth” (Transit) of the Research Unit focusing on the Sociology and Politics of Education in the University of Helsinki.

In 2011, Finnish comprehensive schools started using a three tiered support system. The aim of the new system was to answer students’ needs of support in a flexible way, as early as possible. For years the Finnish school system has attempted to move in more inclusive direction. Providing support is now the responsibility of all teachers. The research findings on the implementation of support are contradictory, and teachers, for example, have found resources and training inadequate to implement support. There is a need to further develop effective, inclusive education arrangements. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' conceptions of the implementation of three tiered support in their schools, and the factors contributing to and impairing the implementation. In addition, possible differences and similarities between different groups of teachers in the conception of support implementation were examined. The research material of this qualitative, phenomenographic study was part of secondary data collected by an electronic questionnaire from comprehensive school staff in a city. The answers of teachers in grades 1-9 (N = 847) to two open-ended questions was analyzed utilizing the phenomenographic method by categorizing the concepts first into meaning categories and later into higher categories. In addition, the data was quantified by examining the prevalence of conceptions across the answers and by teacher group. As a result of the conceptions of the factors contributing to and impairing the implementation of the support, vertical systems of categories of description were created. Factors contributing to the implementation of the three-tiered support consisted of four categories of descriptions: Collaboration, Teachers’ professional skills, Organization of school practices, and Resources. About one-third of teachers found that support had improved in their school during the last two years, while about one-third found it had weakened. Teachers’ conceptions of the reasons for the decline in support formed four descriptive categories: Lack of resources, Reasons related to students’ needs of support, Problems related to school structures and practices, and Reasons related to placement of students with special educational needs. The views of the teacher groups were mostly consistent, but there were small differences, especially related to importance of the teachers’ skills and school practices.

The purpose of this study was to describe early childhood educator’s views on play as a learning environment. Recent studies have supported the importance of play in the early childhood education but yet it seems that there is not enough time for play in practice. In the context of Finnish early childhood education, the significant role of play is highlighted in the curricula and in the educator’s beliefs and values. However, according to several studies, these values are often difficult to implement in practice. The research questions were what kind of views educator’s has on play as a learning environment, how educators support play and argue its importance and does the educator’s perspectives differ by educational background. The participants were two early childhood teachers and two nurses who were working in preschool at the same kindergarten. Research material was collected by theme interviews and the data was analyzed utilizing phenomenography. In phenomenography, the goal is to find variation between people’s perceptions. Three main categories and six more detailed subcategories were formed as a result of the analysis. The first main category “educator’s views of play as a learning environment” included four subcategories: “the definition of play from educator’s perspective”, “playful teaching”, “play as a socioemotional learning environment” and “play as a central learning environment”. The second main category “different ways to support play” contained subcategories “supporting the fluency of play” and “enriching play”. In addition, there was one main category “challenges” which described the challenges that seemed to prevent educators from supporting play. According to the findings of this study, there were three different educator’s roles in play: mediator, safety monitor and observer.

The popularity of video games has grown significantly over the last half century. Most Finns aged 10–75 have stated that they play digital games at least once a month. Video gaming is an increasingly common and diverse phenomenon and should not be seen as a mere pastime for the youth. Video game play has been studied in the past, for example, through the motivational factors of playing them. In addition, the study of problematic gaming and downsides of video games have been quite common. Attention has also been paid to the serious games, for example for learning and well-being purposes. However, these studies, which are often quantitative studies, do not really provide answers to the relationship between video games and everyday life. In previous studies, the needs for this type of research have been pointed out. This home economics’ study describes the perceptions that gamers have of video gaming as an everyday life activity. This study is a qualitative master’s thesis with phenomenographic approach. This approach allows the phenomenon to be described using the concepts of gamers. The study material was collected through individual semi-structured thematic interviews from six actively playing gamers. The interview material was transcribed, and from that the single concepts were analysed into pool of meanings. From pool of meanings, a total of 12 categories of description were formed, corresponding to different perceptions. These were abstracted into four categories of description that describe the phenomenon at a more general level. Each category is part of a larger whole, forming together the outcome space. Gaming as established everyday practice, gaming as an everyday resource, intensive everyday gaming and composed gaming were the general level perceptions of video gaming as an everyday life activity. The research results describe video gaming as a phenomenon that is constantly interacting with other activities of everyday life. Also, it is being included to one's own daily rhythm, taking one's own interests, daily situation and available resources into consideration. The results are displaying what the digitalisation of everyday life, as one of the biggest changes in everyday life, can mean in the context of video gaming. Video gaming blends into a natural and meaningful part of everyday life.

Perusopetusikäisistä lapsista ja nuorista osa tarvitsee oppilashuollollista tai laaja-alaisempaa tukea kasvun, kehityksen, oppimiseen ja hyvinvoinnin turvaamiseksi. Lasten ja nuorten sekä lapsiperheiden palvelujärjestelmä on kuormittunut ja lapsi tai nuori sekä hänen perheensä voi jäädä vain koulun tuen varaan. Oppilashuollon resurssit jakautuvat epätasaisesti asettaen oppilaat eriarvoiseen asemaan. Koulukuraattoreiden oppilas- ja toimipistemäärät vaihtelevat suuresti eikä niistä ole yhtenäistä linjausta. Lasten ja nuorten sekä heidän perheidensä tuen tarpeet edellyttävät usein koulun ulkopuolisia palveluja ja monitoimijaisen yhteistyön tekemistä riittävän tuen saamiseksi. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tuoda esille perusopetuksessa työskentelevien koulukuraattoreiden käsityksiä monitoimijaisesta yhteistyöstä ja yhteistyöhön vaikuttavista tekijöistä sekä heidän käsityksiään monitoimijaisen yhteistyön kehittämisestä. Tutkimus on kvalitatiivinen tutkimus. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto muodostui kuuden perusopetuksessa työskentelevän koulukuraattorin yksilöhaastatteluista. Haastattelut toteutettiin teemahaastatteluina ja aineisto analysoitiin fenomenografisesti. Aineiston perusteella monitoimijainen yhteistyö mahdollisti riittävän avun saamisen asiakkaille ja lisäsi työhyvinvointia. Monitoimijaista yhteistyötä edistivät muun muassa yhteistyökumppanin tuttuus, ylemmän tahon tuki, palvelujen saavutettavuus sekä sovitut toimintakäytänteet. Monitoimijaista yhteistyötä vaikeuttivat muun muassa kiire, vuorovaikutuksen ongelmat, vääränlaiset uskomukset toisten työstä ja sektoroitunut palvelujärjestelmä. Monitoimijaisen yhteistyön kehittäminen vaatii sektorirajojen ylittämistä ja esimiehen tukea. Koulukuraattoreiden käsityksissä sektoroituneen palvelujärjestelmän kehittäminen vaatisi valtakunnallista kehittämistä ja lainsäädännöllistä ohjausta. Tutkimuksessa koulukuraattoreiden monitoimijuudelle antamat merkitykset kietoutuvat ammatillisen toimijuuden ulottuvuuksiin tarjoten mahdollisuuden osaamisen kehittymiseen, työhyvinvoinnin paranemiseen ja sosiaalityön arvoihin perustuvan, laadukkaan työn tekemiseen. Monitoimijaisen yhteistyön kehittämisellä voitaisiin vähentää alueella työskentelevien toimijoiden työn päällekkäisyyksiä, lisätä tuottavuutta ja varmistaa laadukkaiden, asiakkaita osallistavien palvelujen tarjoaminen muuttuvissa olosuhteissa.

Aims of the study: The main objective of the study was to understand how the Border and Coast Guard Academy perceives the criteria of good e-learning, e-learning planning and e-learning challenges. The main hypothesis of the study is that e-learning has changed the learning methods of educational organizations and teachers are nowadays required to be familiar with new ways of planning their education, so that e-learning would enhance the learning capability of students. In the previous literature e-learning in education has been extensively studied, but this study explores the planning of e-learning and the planning process from the point of view of the educational organizations and teachers. So far this aspect has not been broadly studied. The main questions of the study were: 1. How does The Border and Coast Guard Academy's employees define the planning of e-learning processes? 2. What challenges related to the planning process does the employees of The Border and Coast Guard Academy identify? 3. What are the criteria for valuable e-learning? Method: The research is qualitative in nature and follows a phenomenographic and thematic analysis methodologies. Ten employees' of The Border and Coast Guard Academy were interviewed during spring 2014 in Espoo and Imatra with a thematic interview. The interview transcriptions form the empirical data of the study. In the study the employees' conceptions on planning and challenges of e-learning were themed and in the analysis different perceptions were sorted. These impressions were then organized according to scope and sophistication. Results and conclusions: The Border and Coast Guard Academy generally plan their e-learning courses individually and the planning process does not follow any pre-determined phases or instructional design models. The employees identified that rules regarding planning of e-learning is needed and teamwork during the planning process would be highly valuable. The attitude towards e-learning has changed and teamwork to increase collaboration was identified as issues for development. The challenges of e-learning planning is the lack of the knowledge on how to plan efficiently, pedagogical and technological issues, the lack of clear guidelines for the organization and other organizational challenges e.g. internal communications. The employees of The Border and Coast Guard Academy identified ten important criteria for e-learning. The criteria that were described are: activating students, help the students learning, support and counsel students, more efficient allocation of resources and time, the freedom of time and place, the utilization of learned information, gathering feedback, making sure the learning is current and supporting the sense of community and interaction. The study showed that the planning process requires clearly defined guidelines by The Border and Coast Guard Academy and that the know-how and collaboration in the organization need to be strengthened. When preparing the guidelines and implementing the pedagogic possibilities of designing web-based teaching the above mentioned ten important criteria for e-learning can be utilized.