Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p29074"

Abstract The topic of this study is strength of character education applied to pre-school education. The purpose of this study was to examine, did understanding of the concepts perseverance, self-regulation and compassion increased during strength of character education intervention. Analysis and interpretation sought to clarify, whether these character strength concepts can be used as a tool in preschool everyday life. For example, the abstractness of character strength words, subjects young age and poor Finnish language skills can pose challenges to the use of character strength words. There were several Finnish speakers who spoke a second language and children with special developmental and learning characteristics. Children's age also influences linguistic development, the construction and understanding of concepts. Character strengths are based on positive psychology. Positive pedagogy is the application of positive psychology in practice. The goal is individual and meaningful teaching that supports the holistic development, personality and happiness of the individual. Character strengths are among many other qualities and abilities that have a positive impact on learning. They can be taught and learned just like any other skill. Studies show that positive psychology increases well-being and happiness. Most strength research, such as identifying strengths and influencing strengths on happiness and success, focuses on adults. In the work of fostering learning and well-being in kindergarten and school, the examination of strengths and resources are now limited. There is a clear need for positive education and pedagogy, but the debate about strengths, and especially the conscious and systematic teaching of these concepts, has been little. This study was conducted (executed) as a qualitative action study. The baseline for the three-week intervention was Uusitalo-Malmivaara´s and Vuorinen´s (2016) research and Huomaa hyvä! character strength teaching material, which they have developed for a Finnish school. The strength of character education intervention was used to test the teachability of Huomaa hyvä! character strengths in pre-school education. Efforts were made also to change the culture of the preschool group into a philosophy of positive pedagogy. The data was collected by interviewing six 6-year-old children. The research material collected in the semi-structured interview was analyzed by means of theory-based content analysis. The results showed that the understanding of each subject increased with each of the three concepts during the character education intervention, regardless of language and cultural background or learning challenges. The amount and quality of definitions and examples given by children vary to some extent. In practice, children learn to recognize strengths so well that they can be used as a tool in everyday life in preschool and systematically practiced. They identified strengths more in their everyday lives outside of preschool after the intervention. Thus, they were able to apply the new knowledge they learned in the preschool to different contexts in practice which indicates that understanding learning has happened. The concept of compassion was best adopted by children and self-regulation was the most challenging to adopt. Authentic learning environments and hands-on exercises positively influenced on learning.