Browsing by Subject "interventiotutkimus"

Aims. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of Lola's World educational game on children's early numeracy skills learning. Previous studies indicate that early numeracy skills are important for later mathematical skills development. Thus, it is fundamental to support these skills already in kindergarten. Core numerical skills before school age include non-symbolic and symbolic number sense, counting skills, basic skills in arithmetic and understanding mathematical relations. Some children show weak performance already in their early numeracy skills. These weaknesses can partly be explained with factors such a cognitive skills or socio-economic background. According to previous research short mathematical computer-assisted interventions have demonstrated positive effects on children's learning. Methods. Thirty-three children between 5 and 6 years, from four kindergartens, took part in this study. Twenty-three children were split randomly in two groups. One group (n = 12) played Lola's World focusing on early numeracy skills and other group (n = 11) was an active control group that played Lola's ABC Party that focused on language skills. Rest of the children (n = 10) served as a passive control group and they did not play any games during the intervention phase. Intervention continued three weeks and children played Lola Panda -games every day for about 15 minutes. Children's numeracy skills were measured using Early numeracy test and their nonverbal reasoning skills were assessed with Raven test. Analysis was done mostly using one-way ANOVA. Results and conclusions. There was a positive development of early numeracy skills during the intervention, but it was not statistically significant in any of the groups. Children's numeracy skills increased most in Lola's ABC Party group and the least changes were measured in Lola's World group. Children whose homelanguage was Finnish had better numeracy skills than children whose homelanguage was other than Finnish. Because there was a strong negative correlation between playing time and numeracy performance it seems that the intervention was not appropriately supporting early numeracy skills development. Perhaps it is also possible that Early numeracy test was not sensitive enough or Lola's World does not improve all skills included in the test.

Emotional and interaction skills, or social and emotional skills, help school children to become aware of their feelings, create positive relationships and make responsible decisions. All of these skills are needed to success in life and school. There has been a great deal of intervention research in teaching social and emotional skills, but it is still unclear how these skills are learned and can be taught effectively so that as many children as possible can benefit from these skills. More research data is needed on how different aspects of social and emotional skills (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making) develop during socio-emotional skills interventions. The aim of this study is to continue Burakoff’s Master’s thesis in the spring of 2021, in which students who participated in social and emotional intervention were divided into three different skill level groups. Burakoff found that those who rated themselves as weak improved the most in socio-emotional skills, but surprisingly, those who rated themselves as good improved the least. Burakoff viewed developments in socio-emotional skills as a whole. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of students’ social and emotional skills when viewed through five different socio-emotional domains and at three different skill levels. The secondary data used in this study were collected from five different European countries and the data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test. The results obtained are in line with Burakoff's finding, as looking at the different domains, the intervention has succeeded in developing the different domains of socio-emotional skills statistically significantly only in the group of weak. In the group of good, all domains decreased statistically significantly. The results did not suggest that the domains developed in a certain order, but it seems that social awareness would be the domain that developed the most of the sub-areas with the intervention. In addition, in the group of good, self- awareness may have increased as a result of the intervention.

Mathematical word-problem-solving is proven to be a problem type which most low-achieving schoolaged students experience difficulties with. Solving word-problems requires recognizing and utilizing many skills, such as arithmetic skills, algebraic skills, reading comprehension, cognitive and metacognitive skills. Research based knowledge on how to help secondary school students with mathematical difficulties to solve word-problems is limited and focuses on the phenomenon behind the difficulties rather than on effective pedagogical ways to support learning. The purpose of this research is to gather current research evidence and to answer the question of which are the most effective evidence based word-problem-solving intervention programs for low achieving students in secondary school. The research method used was a systematic review of the literature. All the intervention studies had to meet the criteria for inclusion to be selected in the review. The analysis of the effectiveness of the programs was based on effect size calculations. In addition the intervention studies, which met the adjusted criteria for the required research method used in the study, were viewed separately, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of these intervention programs was based on the effects reported in the original studies. Four intervention researches met the original criteria for inclusion, and three of these examined the same problem-based-learning intervention program called Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI). EAI was the only intervention program, which was effective for low achieving students based on self-developed tests and standardized test. Eight intervention studies met the adjusted criteria for inclusion and the intervention programs in these were divided into strategy instruction programs for problem solving and instruction method programs. There were studies in both groups, which reported positive effect for students with mathematical difficulties. Two shared characteristics was found in all the interventions, which were dividing the educational content into smaller components and guiding the students focus on the usefulness of the strategies used to solve the word-problems.

In Helsinki Medical school, half of the students experience lot of stress during their studies. Earlier inter-national research shows that university students wellbeing can be improved with practicing mindfulness skills, but in Finland there are fewer studies in this topic. Research on mindfulness trainings effects on different study programs, age-groups and genders are also missing. The aim of this study was to find out, if practicing mindfulness is linked to better wellbeing in university students in Helsinki Medical school. Other aim was to find out and there some effect concerning study program, gender, age, the amount of mindfulness training or earlier mindfulness background. The study was randomized controlled trial research with intervention- (N=52) and control group (N=35). Intervention group practiced mindfulness skills on different methods and control group had sup-port as usual from the university. The measures were gathered with online questionnaire in the in the baseline and at the end of the study (5-8weeks). T-test was used to analyze changes between baseline and finish measurements. Repeated ANOVA was used to measure intervention effect. The overall wellbeing in the intervention group did not change during the intervention. Whereas in control groups wellbeing decreased statistically significantly in almost every variable. It is possible, that mindfulness training helps to prevent increase of stress levels. There was seen decrease in subjective wellbeing in both groups, but in the intervention group the decrease was significantly less (p= 0.03, η2 =.053). The intervention effect size (η2) was small. In intervention group there was a significant differ-ence between medical and dentistry students and psychology and logopedics student’s subjective wellbe-ing (p=0.037, η2=.084). There was a moderate intervention effect (η2). Medical and dentistry students experienced more effect from the intervention. Due to small amount of the study subjects, results are di-rectional. The results support the earlier findings where mindfulness has effect on wellbeing. Methods based on mindfulness training should be studied more to find out cost effective and preventive ways to support medical student’s wellbeing. More research is also needed to find out the best methods for different genders, age groups and students from different study programs.

Aims. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of Nele and Noa in Rainforest intervention on executive functions (EF) of children with intensive special education needs in the school context. The field of research of executive functions is wide and there is no generally accepted definition of executive functions. Previous studies indicate that executive functions play an important role in children's learning and academic performance processes. It is also possible to influence the skills of executive functions with different kinds of interventions. According to previous research, Nele and Noa in Rainforest intervention has demonstrated positive effects on generally supported children's executive functions, but its effectiveness has not been studied on children with intensive special education needs. Children with intensive special education needs have been found to have various challenges in EFs. Interventions aiming to improve EF skills are therefore being called for. Methods. The study involved a total of 57 pupils, aged 5-13years, with intensive special education needs from seven different classes of extended compulsory education. The children were split in two groups. The experimental group (n = 31) performed individual tasks and played the pair and small group games of Nele and Noa in Rainforest intervention while the control group (n = 26) attended school normally and participated in the intervention only after the research data was collected. Intervention continued for six weeks and the experimental group participated in the intervention exercises three times a week. Children's executive function skills were assessed using ATTEX, Attention and executive function rating inventory. Analyses were done with non-parametric analyses, like Mann-Witney U-test and Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results and conclusions. There was a slight positive development of executive function skills in the experimental group in all areas of ATTEX during the intervention, but the results were statistically significant only in the skills of motor hyperactivity and EF – evaluation. The effect sizes of the intervention were medium-sized on total score, shifting of attention and EF -evaluation. The results suggest that it is possible to develope EFs on children with intensive special education needs with the intervention. However, based on this study, it is not possible to draw general conclusions on the effectiveness of the intervention for the EF skills and it calls for future research to investigate the effectiveness of intervention, for example, with a variety of indicators.