Browsing by Subject "fenomenografia"

The research assignment of the study is based on the research literature of body image, according to which children's body concerns are significant in nature and often begin early before school age. The purpose of the study was to clarify the perceptions of primary school teachers about the importance of the teacher in the phenomenon of the formation of body image in children. The study seeks answers to teachers' views on the question of the formation of children's body concerns and their prevention. The data was collected using an online questionnaire employing a narrative completion method. The data consists of the reports (n=34) of primary school teachers (n=17), which were analysed with a qualitative phenomenographic research approach. From the reports of primary school teachers on the formation of pupil body concerns and their prevention, four types of different perceptions emerged, which constitute the main result of phenomenographic analysis. The teachers understood the formation of the student's body concerns and their prevention from the perspectives of equality, positivity-negativity, neutrality and pedagogy. Teachers' perceptions of the formation and prevention of body concerns as a result of teacher activity were mainly consistent with previous research literature. In their reports, teachers also identified causes unrelated to the teacher. The study shows a realistic understanding of teachers in the phenomena of the formation and prevention of children’s body concerns, as well as the ignorance of teachers in the existence of minority phenomena. Based on the research, it would next be essential to examine the study of the status and body image formation of minority children in a Finnish elementary school, research aimed at promoting a positive body image, and the latent need in current teacher education to understand diversity and reflect on the teacher's own bodily position.

Objectives. Studies show that intelligence is declining in Western countries. Researchers ’concerns have widened into a debate over whether society is depleting or whether there is an issue in statistics. The purpose of this study is to sort out the epistemological beliefs of the Mensians in relation to the decline in intelligence. It also explores how incremental theory of intelligence is reflected in the beliefs of Mensians. The aim of the study is to give people who are found to be intelligent the opportunity to describe the evolution of intelligence to broaden the understanding of the phenomenon. Because intelligence is a complex concept, the theoretical background of the study contains broad research of measurement and definition of intelligence. Methods. This qualitative research is part of a phenomenographic research tradition. The material of the study is secondary data from a previous master’s thesis, which examined the beliefs of Mensians in the development of intelligence. This study focuses on the open-ended response in the data, in which Mensians describe why they believe intelligence is declining in the West. In accordance with the phenomenographic research approach, the material was first analysed by classifying the beliefs found in the material into units. Those units were formed into descriptive categories that reflect the relationship between the beliefs associated with the phenomenon in a larger picture. Results and conclusions. According to the results of the study, Mensians widely believe that intelligence is built on a person’s own making. Therefore, incremental beliefs were strongly present in the epistemological beliefs, but entity-theoretic beliefs were also found. The Mensians saw many reasons for the decline in intelligence, the most common being digitalisation and transition in society. Other answers include the breeding of stupid people, chemicalization and life habits. There was concern about the decline in intelligence and it was understood to be part of the negative development of modern society. On the other hand, many Mensans also questioned the whole phenomenon and suspected it as a misunderstanding.

The purpose of this study was to examine how HR professionals working in private employment sector view and experience their own expertise. Expertise is a phenomena that can be interpreted in many ways and it has been studied a lot from different perspectives. In this study the focus was on professional expertise and on experience of having expertise. My research question was: What kind of perceptions HR professionals have of their own expertise? With this research question I wanted to find out how the HR professionals view their own expertise, what are the main elements of it and what kind things and experiences affect the development of their expertise. This research was a qualitative case study. The research data was collected by interviewing eight HR professionals working for a private employment company WorkPower Oy. I used thematic interviews as a data collecting method. The research data was analysed with a phenomenographic analysis. The phenomenographic analysis focuses on individuals’ perceptions and experiences on certain phenomena. The results of this study show that the expertise of the HR professionals consists of many different elements. Wide enough knowledge, capacity to act, social skills and ability to reflect one’s actions and know-how are key elements of HR professionals’ expertise. Also the ability to find the right words in different situations is vital, since the work in human resources is mainly based on interaction with different people. In addition, this study showed that constant learning and development of one’s skills and knowledge is also important to the expertise of HR professionals. There are several different challenges to the development of expertise, such as a busy working schedule, constant changes in one’s daily work and insufficient support. According to this study, practical experience and work-based learning are crucial for the development of expertise for the HR professionals working in private employment sector.

The aim of this thesis is to describe, analyze and interpret the meanings that the administrative representatives of the City of Jämsä Education and Culture Department give to the Music Institute as part of the Education and Cultural Services. The study is a qualitative case study and the data is analyzed according to phenomenographic analysis. The research is motivated not only by the researcher's personal interests in music and musical hobbies, but also by the interest in decision-making and its preparation. The research questions are based on the history of the national music school system and the local music institute, research on folk and music school and their social significance, research on Finnish leisure music hobbies, documents and regulations governing the activities of the city and the Music School, their organization and strategy. Three administrative representatives of the Education and Cultural Services in the City of Jämsä were interviewed for the study. The theme interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis of the material proceeded according to the phenomenographic analysis. The results of the study show that the Music School has also cultural, service and collaborative responsibilities in addition to its educational duties. The music school’s strengths include competent, long-term and motivated staff, content and collaboration. Weaknesses are related to financial aspects. The life-cycle perspective of the Quality-of-life Services is comprehensively realized in the Music School. According to representatives of the educational administration, the Music School is an actor to prevent inequality and exclusion, although fees and entrance examinations limit the opportunities for participation. From a communal point of view, the Music School creates a community in itself and it has many successful partners. Related to health improving aspect, the Music School first and foremost improves mental health. According to the interviewees, the Music School strengthens both local music culture and cultural activities. Through its activities, the Music School has been a part of the nationwide history of music schools, for example, by training experts in important musical positions. There have been structural, operational, economic, political and cultural changes in the administration and services of the City of Jämsä. In particular, the Music School supports the fields of well-being and vitality of the “Jämsä 2025” strategy. Economic, cultural and operational challenges are mentioned for the future.

The purpose of this thesis was to disclose the current views of Finnish and English language use and development in a multiculturalising Finnish service industry company from its personnel and their views of the future changes in the use of working languages. The research is topical as the foreign workforce in the industry keeps growing and the Finnish population is becoming more multilingual. So far there has been little research on the working languages of Finnish companies, as the research has mainly focused on multinational companies. The aim of the thesis is to find prevailing differences of views about the meaning of languages in multilingual working life from a phenomenographic point of view. Views have been outlined to the themes of everyday work, foreign language development and future working language. The language choices in work situations are studied from the perspectives of language skill development and situations of communication. In the study, seven people from four different organizational areas were interviewed: workers, supervisors, manager-level supervisors, and a member of the training team. The interview material was analyzed with phenomenographic methods using the Atlas.ti software. The results of the thesis show that there are regional differences in the importance of languages in everyday work within the service industry company. In work communities, the choice of language was based on the language skills shared by the members of the community. In situations where the employee did not have sufficient skills in the Finnish language, communication was facilitated by common languages of the work community. The respondents felt that the importance of the English language in the company will increase as the share of foreign workforce in the industry increases. The employees saw the importance of English language skills increasing at the supervisor level, but at the same time they also felt that the use of the English language acted as a slowing factor for foreign workers' learning of the Finnish language in everyday work.

The aim of this research is to reveal elements of contents and choices made in craft science doctoral dissertations. Total 27 dissertations have been published between 1994-2019 during the nearly 40-year history of craft science. The research theory focuses on the phenomenon itself revealing how and when the branch of science was founded and what it was based on. Theory section continues by introducing the central craft science models and theories focusing on those that are essential for the creation and objective of this thesis. The main question leading the research was: how the conceptions on craft science research content appear in craft science doctoral dissertations? The research is qualitative and inductive as it is based on analysing documents. It investigates conceptions on craft science through the dissertations. The research strategy and method is phenomenography, used also in the analysis of the data. Computerized coding was executed with ATLAS.ti coding programme and fulfilled with the help of NCT analysis model. The focus is on the dissertation abstracts. They sum up the most important information the craft scientists have chosen to share and reveal about their researches. The research aims to form an outcome space that summarises and offers an informative visual presentation of the data collected, coded and contemplated. The result of the analysis is a selection of categories of description that form an outcome space, which is common for phenomenographic research. The categories of description are: craft maker, role of craft, holistic craft, craft context and choices considering craft science researches. The outcome of the analysis is compared to craft science theories introduced in the theory section. Research findings also include a number of additional research suggestions and ideas.

The aim of this study was to find out how the technique of knotless netting is perceived by the craftsperson of the twenty first century. In this study the craftspeople are represented by the researcher herself, seven craftspeople and teachers (3) teaching knotless netting as well as their students (21). The main interests of this study are the mental pictures and relationship to knotless netting that craftspeople have in the twenty first century. Points of focus are also the specific characteristics of knotless netting, as well as experimenting with new and different materials. The aim of these experiments has been to find new and unusual uses for knotless netting. Preserving knotless netting as a craft and technique are also questions dealt with in this study. The methodology of this study is a qualitative and phenomenographic study of several cases. The data collected are interviews of the teachers, observations in two knotless netting courses, questionnaires answered by the students in these courses and experimental samples made by the author and evaluated by other craftspeople. These samples were made during the years 2005-2008. The interviews, questionnaires and evaluations were conducted under winter and spring 2008. The reference literature is comprised from publications in several different fields. In this study ethnography is the most dominant field of reference due to the fact that knotless netting is so strongly linked to history and antiquity. In the past the technique of knotless netting has been passed down from generation to generation in whatever form the teacher has known. There are many different ways of stitching and binding in knotless netting. This technique is closely connected to traditional knotless netting mittens even today. Nowadays knotless knitting is taught in craft schools, evening classes and in other recreational courses. The concrete understanding of knotless netting by means of two-dimensional instructions is challenging. Craftspeople often require somebody to actually demonstrate the correct way to make the stitches and hold the work before they can proceed with the technique. The way knotless netting is perceived by craftspeople is linked to their backgrounds and preconstructed mental images concerning the technique. An etnographer approaches knotless netting in a different way from a crafts-scientist or a person in an evening class wishing to master the technique. The attitude of the teacher is passed on to students and also affects the way the student perceives knotless netting and its possibilities as a technique. A craftsperson has mixed feelings toward knotted netting. On the other hand the surfaces produced by this rare technique are intriguing but the costs due to the slow manufacturing process are seen as an encumbrance.

Changing work as well as changing expertise requirements are an often discussed topic in our current public discussion. In this study, the main interests were the conceptions of expertise and experiences of changing work and expertise requirements. The participants of the study (n=12) were a group of professionals working in a company providing language services. The aim of the study was to analyse how the participants understand expertise and what kind of changes and new expertise requirements they have experienced at their work. The main analytical concept of the study is expertise, and the theoretical framework consists of research literature on expertise on individual and collective dimensions which were compared to the conceptions of expertise among the sample group. The changes the research subjects have experienced at work were thematically analyzed by mirroring their views against some viewpoints on changing work and the historical work types. The study is based on a qualitative research strategy and the material was analysed by applying phenomenographic content analysis. The material was collected through one-to-one interviews. The work related expertise as described by the participants is presented through examples, whereas the phenomenographic analysis focuses on the participants’ conceptions of expertise and on experiences of changes of work. To conclude, the results of the study were collected to categories of description. The results clearly showed that the contextual dimension of expertise as experience in the professional field was considered as one of the most important element of expertise. In addition to knowledge, skills, self-awareness and education, expertise was also related to learning new things as a prerequisite for expertise development. Also, knowing the customer was seen as expertise. In addition, respect from others was also seen as part of being an expert. In this material, expertise was portrayed more as an individual rather than a collective quality, even though the work was considered a team effort. The changes at work were related to increasing customer demands, changing technology and financial pressures. Despite these changes, the underlying nature of work was seen as unchanged and overall, the changes were not considered to lead to any completely new expertise requirements.

Cheerleading on esteettinen, voimaa, kestävyyttä ja esiintymistaitoa vaativa kilpaurheilulaji. Kilpailuissa ohjelman tukena käytetään tarkoin määriteltyä musiikkia, joka tekee ohjelman suorittamisesta sekä katsomisesta mielekästä. Käsittelen tutkielmassani näitä cheerleadingissa käytettyjä kilpailumusiikkeja, joiden tyyli on hyvin ainutlaatuinen, sillä musiikit koostuvat useista eri musiikkikappaleista, ääniefekteistä ja kustomoiduista elementeistä. Selvitän kilpailumusiikkien erilaisia merkityksiä cheerleadereille ja valmentajille, minkä lisäksi pohdin kilpailumusiikkien tilaus- ja tekoprosessia sekä niiden tilaajien että tekijöiden näkökulmista. Aiemman urheilun ja musiikin yhteydestä tehdyn tutkimuksen mukaan musiikki vaikuttaa urheilusuoritukseen positiivisesti, joten oikeanlaisen kilpailumusiikin käyttäminen sekä harjoituksissa että kilpailuissa on tärkeää. Selvitän, millaiset tekijät ja elementit kilpailumusiikissa ovat cheerleadereille merkittäviä sekä miten kilpailumusiikki vaikuttaa urheilusuoritukseen ja joukkueen yhteishenkeen. Kerron myös kilpailumusiikin tilaus- ja tekoprosessista etsien tehokkaita keinoja luoda entistä sopivampia musiikkeja cheerleading-joukkueille. Aineisto koostuu cheerleadereille tehdystä laajasta kyselytutkimuksesta, johon sai vastata sekä monivalintavastauksilla että omin sanoin. Yksilöllisten vastausten myötä tutkimus on pääosin kvalitatiivista, temaattista sisällönanalyysia. Monivalintavastaukset ja vastausten suuri määrä antavat kuitenkin mahdollisuuksia myös kvantitatiivisiin menetelmiin, kuten yleistyksiin ja jaotteluihin. Kyselytutkimuksen lisäksi käytän aineistoina kilpailumusiikkeihin liittyviä videoita sekä Suomen Cheerleadingliiton kilpailusääntöjä ja arvostelukaavakkeita. Olen itse harrastanut cheerleadingia ja tehnyt kilpailumusiikkeja useita vuosia, joten hyödynnän tutkielmassa aineiston lisäksi omaa käytännön kokemustani. Tulokset viittaavat siihen, että kilpailumusiikin merkitykset cheerleadereille ovat moninaiset ja vaihtelevat paljon urheilijasta sekä valmentajasta riippuen. Kaikista tärkein rooli kilpailumusiikilla on kuitenkin niin sanotun hyvän fiiliksen tuojana harjoittelun ja kilpailusuorituksen aikana. Kilpailumusiikki tuo urheilijoille voimaa ja motivaatiota sekä helpottaa esiintymistä. Se nähdään myös yhteishengen luojana sekä musiikin suunnitteluvaiheessa että ohjelmaa tehdessä. Kilpailumusiikin suunnitteluun ja ideointiin kannattaakin osallistaa koko joukkue, jotta musiikki vastaisi mahdollisimman monen urheilijan toiveita ja että siitä muodostuisi joukkueelle tärkeä, yhteishenkeä lisäävä kilpailuohjelman ääniraita.

Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastelen nuorisomuusikkojen työtä ja heidän kokemuksiaan omasta työstään Suomen evankelis-luterilaisessa kirkossa. Tutkielma on luonteeltaan laadullinen tutkimus, jonka analysoinnissa käytän fenomenografista otetta. Tutkielmani aineisto koostuu seitsemän nuorisomuusikon virassa tai viransijaisena toimivan henkilön haastatteluista. Toteutin nämä haastattelut puolistrukturoituina yksilöhaastatteluina teemahaastatteluina etäyhteyksin. Koska varsinaista aiempaa tutkimusta ei nuorisomuusikoista ole ollut, käsittelen tutkielman teoriaosuudessa muusikkoutta kirkossa sekä muusikkouden käsitettä sen ulkopuolella. Teoriaosuudessa hahmottelen myös nuorisomuusikkojen työympäristöä kirkon musiikki- ja kasvatustyön näkökulmasta. Tutkimuksen tuloksissa ja niiden tarkastelussa käsittelen nuorisomuusikkojen kokemuksia omasta työstään ja heidän syitään hakeutua juuri nuorisomuusikon virkaan erilaisista koulutustaustoistaan huolimatta. Fenomenografisessa tutkimuksessa aineiston analyysi liittyy siihen, miten kokemukset ja käsitykset tulevat esiin toisen asteen näkökulmasta. Tällä tavoin muodostin tutkimusaineistostani neljä pääkategoriaa liittyen nuorisomuusikkojen kokemuksiin: muusikkous kirkon työssä, yksinäisyys omassa työssään, eri musiikkityylien käyttö kirkon musiikkitoiminnassa sekä nuorisomuusikon työn moninaisuus. Tutkimustuloksista voi päätellä nuorisomuusikkojen ydinkokemuksena heidän muusikkoutensa. Muusikkoina he osallistavat nuoria kirkon toimintaan eri tavoin sekä toimivat muusikkoina monenlaisissa tilanteissa. Nämä kokemukset peilautuvat osaltaan myös musiikkikasvattajana toimimisen kokemuksiin. Nuorisomuusikkojen työ on monipuolista, mutta he kokevat yksinäisyyttä omassa työssään. Nuorisomuusikot kokevat rytmimusiikin olevan suomalaisen ihmisen ”musiikillinen äidinkieli”, jonka avulla kirkon musiikkitoiminta voisi paremmin tavoittaa tavallista ihmistä kuin perinteisempi kirkon toiminnassa käytetty musiikki. Tutkimukseni avulla nostan esiin kirkon kasvatuksen kentällä pitkään olleen nuorisomuusikon virkanimikkeen olemassaolon sekä selvitän tällä hetkellä nuorisomuusikkona kirkossa työskentelevien käsityksiä ja kokemuksia kirkon musiikkitoiminnasta.