Browsing by department "Institute of Behavioural Sciences"

The purpose of this research was to find out about the experiences of young adults hobbies and the importance of hobbies in the life course. Theoretical starting point in this research is life course, as well as concepts of normality, norms and values. I also focus on the Finnish sports clubs and the various positive and negative phenomenas that are observed among different sports. The research question is "How do the experiences of hobbies take place in the speech of young adults?" The research gave interesting results, especially about the significance of hobbies and the phenomenon of hobbies. In the results of the research, the internal rules and hierarchies of sports hobbies, which no one seems to question, became even greater. This research could be used in the future to spread awareness of disadvantages in sports clubs and teams.

Aims. The expansion of higher education in the late 20th century has brought about changes in many traditional academic structures. For example, the traditional regional recruitment base of the student nations of Helsinki University broke down and their membership was made voluntary in 1969. During the next decades the number of new members in student nations declined rapidly despite the rise in overall student enrolment. The aim of this study is to investigate the changing role of the student nations through the changing regional and social basis of their new members from the 1970s to 1990s. For the subject of this study was chosen Hämäläis-Osakunta student nation, where the change was most rapid. This study aims to approach structural changes in education from the viewpoint of educational sociology by inspecting the representation of different social groups in the membership of the nation through the means of participation ratio to filter the changes of simultaneous changes in educational and societal structure. Methods. The study uses data from the membership register of Hämäläis-Osakunta. A permission to use the data was obtained from the nation. No identifiable personal data were collected. The data was picked from new member entries from the period 1969-1999 with ten-year intervals. The regional background of the members was operationalised by the place of the matriculation exam and the social background by the occupational status of the father, which was classified according to the census classification rules of Statistics Finland. Participation ratios were calculated with employed males ages 45–54 as base population. These were compared to new students of both at Helsinki University and countrywide as well as new members of Savo nation. Findings and conclusions. The social background of new Hämäläis-Osakunta members was observed to follow the general development of new students both at Helsinki University and countrywide. Exceptional growth of the nation's membership was mainly due to increase in members from Uusimaa region, while the traditional recruitment area of Häme declined until the 1990s. At the same time, the proportion of descendants of upper level employees (especially with higher education degrees) grew, although the overrepresentation of these groups was somewhat mitigated by the general rise of social status. From a regional viewpoint, a clear division could be observed: the role of upper level employees was accentuated in Uusimaa, while in Häme and the rest of Finland the social breakdown was more even. The representation of agricultural workforce increased slightly, while that of lower level employees decreased; workers remained largely underrepresented. The findings support the conclusion that traditional academic institutions, like student nations, retain their appeal most persistently among the more educated classes, who can best recognize their cultural capital.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out how kindergarten teachers experience music education in kindergarten. The main topics are how kindergarten teachers interpret the environment of music, if they find any challenges working with music and their thoughts about music’s impact on children’s development. The research method is the qualitative interview. The research is inspired of the hermeneutic approach. Three kindergarten teachers were interviewed. The results show that kindergarten teacher’s personal view on and interest in music impacts the shape of the musical activities in kindergarten. The kindergarten teachers experience some obstacles in music education, for an example they think they need more knowledge about music. The results also show that the music environment could be improved in kindergarten. It turned out that the possibilities of music education in kindergarten matters, especially for the children’s language development.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate what kind of an environment kindergarten is for highly sensitive children. By investigating what kind of challenges and opportunities highly sensitive children faces in kindergarten, and how pedagogues can support highly sensitive children, can improvements and opportunities be brought up. The research questions are: What does it mean to be a highly sensitive child? What kind of challenges and opportunities does highly sensitive children face in kindergarten? How can pedagogues support highly sensitive children in kindergarten? The research is a qualitative study with a phenomenographic method approach. The research material was gathered through half-structured interviews in where three pedagogues who work in kindergarten and preschools have been interviewed. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The results show that highly sensitive children are understood as different and that highly sensitivity comes out in different ways. Highly sensitive children do face various challenges and opportunities in kindergarten, that are mainly related to different kind of resources. The competence and sensitivity of pedagogues understands to be important or the most important thing for the wellbeing of highly sensitive children in kindergarten. The size of the group, environment and activities can either create challenges or opportunities for highly sensitive children, depending how they are adapted to the needs of highly sensitive children. Pedagogues who understands, do see the individual needs of highly sensitive children and can adapt the activities and the physical environment to these needs, understands create opportunities and support highly sensitive children in kindergarten.

Read-aloud is a daily activity both in daycare and preschool. It is used for various purposes such as to gather children and introduce them to new topics, although it’s mainly associated with the rest time. Several studies point out the positive effects of read-alouds, among others expanding children’s language skills and encouraging their literacy development. The purpose of my study is to introduce the children’s thoughts and experiences of a read-aloud activity in preschool. My study is a qualitative work and is mainly focused on personal interviews with children. I interviewed eight preschool children in two groups. The main focus of the interviews were the children’s thoughts and opinions about the books preschools use, and the read-aloud experiences in general. The result shows that read-alouds mostly have a positive impact on children. Most of them think of it as a part of the rest time, but also, they consider it a learning opportunity. It’s important to note the role of the books in read-aloud times. The chosen book itself determines whether or not the read-aloud is a fun or a boring experience for the children. The book’s content and language playes an important role in understanding it, and it determines if the children will find it difficult or easy to listen to when it’s read to them.

The aim of this study is to get an insight in which roles occur in children’s free play. How are these roles displayed, and how does children negotiate these roles? This study process how children interact in situations of free play. The main concepts that are discussed in the theoretical part are roles, role negotiation, play, and roleplay. The concepts are explained more profoundly in the theoretical part, which also establishes the theoretical basis of this study. This study is completed as a qualitative study with both case study and observational study as methods. As data collecting method I have been using video observation. The material for my study was collected in a Swedish speaking preschool in southern Finland. The video observations were made during two mornings in this preschool. The aim was to capture free play amongst children. Five preschoolers in total participated in the study. The results of this study indicates that role negotiations as a phenomenon is something that is not that commonly occurring in children’s free play. All of the children participated in choosing roles, but they mostly just announced which role they wanted themselves, without any further negotiation. The roles that occurred in these plays were quite ordinary and mostly permanent. No one chose a role that automatically would have indicated strong leadership, which means that all of the children were somewhat equal in status. The children also had thoughts about what characteristics their own role should have and how the other role characters should act. This could be explained as how the roles were displayed. In my study I found two main categories in how children expressed their own roles and their expectations of the other role characters. These main categories were verbally, and through action.

Aim The aim of this study is to examine how preschool teachers work towards supporting children’s development of digital competence and to obtain how children can develop their information and communications technology skills in preschool. The study strives to find out how children use digital teaching aid in preschool, what goals the educator has regarding activities where digital equipment is used and how the educator believes that children’s information and communications technology skills can be developed in preschools. Method The research methodology for this study is hermeneutic and consists of qualitative interviews with three preschool teachers from three different kindergartens in Espoo. Results and Conclusion The results show that a versatile and varied combination of both the usage of digital teaching aids and learning in the real immediate environment is the best possible method, that supports not only children’s overall learning within different educational fields, but also supports them to develop their digital literacy and information and communications technology skills.

The aim with this study is to recognize how children communicate and interact during free play and in what different ways children’s play start. In this study qualitative methods are used to gather information. I am also interested in finding reasons in conflicts in children’s free play. In this study video observation was used to gather information about children’s interaction in their free play. Participatory observation was also used and an observation diary was written. The video recordings gave the most important analyzable material. The participants in this study were from a bilingual kindergarten and every so often the same children participated in the free play where I recorded. The children’s play was not directed in any way, because free play was recommended for this study. The play situations were recorded and afterwards transcribed into text, which was analysed. The key findings in this study was that children communicate with adult-like sentences and speak to each other using a multifaceted narrative conversation style. Usually children’s play start with choosing toys or tools for the free play. The second common way to start free play was an experience from children’s everyday life and the third common way to start a play was choosing roles for a role play. Conclusions of this study were that children strongly connect their experiences in their free play and children use their imagination in their themes for free play in kindergarten.

This Bachelor’s Thesis covers the IDyOM (Information Dynamics of Music) model, which models the prediction of melody, and is based on statistical learning of melodic regularities. In addition the model is contrasted with the earlier Implication-Realization theory (IR theory) of the prediction of melody. The IR-theory hypothesizes that the prediction of melody is composed of innate bottom-up rules and learned top-down style. First some music theoretical concepts and theories and models of prediction are discussed. Melody is an essential part of music at least in Western culture. Melody can be defined as a sequence of tones. The prediction of melody can be studied with formal models, in this case a cognitive model. Predictive cognitive processes allow an organism or artificial intelligence to make a model of its future state and direct its behaviour accordingly. This Thesis also presents the background theories of statistical learning and information theory. The IDyOM model simulates statistical learning which means finding and learning regularities from input, by using unsupervised learning, in which correct answers are not taught to the model. The model is based on Shannon’s information theory which postulates regularities of discrete sources and stochastic processes. The IDyOM model is multidimensional in two ways: it combines the dimensions of the input, e.g. pitch, into new dimensions, e.g. intervals, and uses two inputs to compare a new melody to a broader corpus. The performance of the IDyOM model is compared to behavioral studies with human subjects and the IR theory. The IDyOM model explains human prediction of melody at least as well as a computational implementation of the IR theory. Statistical learning may be a mechanism for learning melodies.

The point of interest to this thesis is university studies and the impact they have on future employ- ment and societal status. Previous research has shown, that the meaning of education has changed in relation to employment. Nowadays, to be competitive in search of an employment one must educate oneself continuously. In this thesis I analyse the meanings given by university students to their stud- ies and the societal impact they have. I analyse my topic with the concepts of neoliberalism, cognitive capitalism and human capital. I consider neoliberalism as a zeitgeist that affects societal and personal activity. Knowledge and skills (human capital) are being collected for personal benefit. This could be described as a new form of capitalism, otherwise called cognitive capitalism. Four university students have been interviewed for this research. Discourse analysis has been used to examine the material from semi-structured interviews. University studies formed to bare great meaning, but didn’t guarantee an employment. Along with studies, students made all sorts of other activities, with which to prove to be an active citizen. This was often done to the detriment of one’s own wellbeing. It could also be read from the material, that the possibility for the collection of skills and knowledge was not equal in society. Education appeared to have an influence on inequality.