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The aim of this study was to gain new information regarding music perception and its relations to other domains of perception, especially speech. Disorders of music and speech perception, known as amusia and aphasia, respectively, have traditionally been regarded as dissociated deficits based on studies of brain damaged patients. This has been taken as evidence that music and speech are perceived by largely separate and independent networks in the brain. However, recent studies of congenital amusia have begun to broaden this view by showing that the deficit is associated with problems in perceiving speech, especially intonation and emotional prosody. This study investigates the association between perception of music and speech prosody using a task that does not rely on melodic or emotional prosodic cues. The study also seeks to determine if music perception is associated with visuospatial perception, pitch perception, verbal working memory, and various biographical music-related variables. The data from 62 healthy participants was used. The participants carried out four computerized tests: the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), which measures the perception of music; a visuospatial test, which was constructed as analogous to one of the subtests of MBEA; and tests of the perception of pitch and speech prosody. Verbal working memory was evaluated using the Digit Span - subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III. Biographical music-related variables were measured with a questionnaire. MBEA scores correlated significantly with scores on tests of speech prosody and pitch perception whereas there were no notable correlations between the MBEA and the visuospatial and working memory tests. The perception of speech prosody and pitch perception were not correlated. This pattern of results suggests that the link between music and prosody perception is not mediated just by pitch. Interestingly, the relationship was strongest concerning the perception of rhythm in music, which indicates that temporal cues may be important in linking music and speech prosody. Musical education and hobbies were found to be variably related to the melodic or rhythmic aspects of music perception. Taken together, these results raise the question of whether the processing of rhythm and melody can sometimes be more separated than the processing music and speech. The mean and the distribution of the MBEA scores were found to be very similar to those reported in previous international studies, thereby indicating that MBEA can be considered a functional study method also in the Finnish population.

The aim of the study is to by a systematic literature review investigate the effect of listening to music in order to reduce math test anxiety. The research questions are: 1. Are there any differences in music styles when trying to affect math anxiety? 2. Does background music lower anxiety in a mathematic test situation? The method of this study is a systematic literature review. The material consists of seven internationally peer-reviewed articles and dissertations. The material was collected from electronic information sources. Principles of thematic analyzing were used in the analysis. According to this study calming classical music was found to lower math anxiety in mathematic test situations, especially among persons who were measured with severe math anxiety. The Mozart effect stands up in the study, but according to this study even other slow paced classical music effects the anxiety and lowers it. However, fast paced, unpredictable music has been found out to either keeping up the anxiety or even increasing it. Low paced classical music seems to have elements, which effect math anxiety by lowering it. However, more studies would be needed on how peoples' own musical preferences or musical history effect lowering the math anxiety. Could one achieve anxiety lowering effects for example in the classroom during a math exam? In this study the subjects of study were 20-30 years old. More studies would be needed on how background music effects the math anxiety in children. Could the background music have an effect on lowering math anxiety in elementary school students during a math exam?

The purpose of this research is to study primary school teachers’ thoughts about today’s music teaching. The aim was to acquire information and understanding about music teaching in Finland nowadays. The idea was to carry out a study on experiences and skills of the teachers, planning and evaluation in music teaching and also integration of music into other subjects in lower primary school. The intention was also to investigate teachers’ attitudes to the curriculum, the highlights of music teaching and also teachers own ideas about developing the teaching of music. The research was carried out as a survey-research. Answers were received from 15 communities in Finland. There were both multiple-choice questions and open questions about music teaching in the survey form. That was addressed mainly for teachers specialized in music teaching. The survey form was published in the Internet and the answering was done by e-mail. The answers were collected during the spring of 2005 and altogether 96 teachers took part in the research. The research data was analyzed mainly quantitatively, but the open questions were analyzed also qualitatively. According the results the teachers at lower primary school are mostly quite satisfied with the state of the music teaching in Finland nowadays. The improvements were mainly desired in time and material resources, supplementary training (f .ex band and IT-skills) and sizes of teaching groups. The teachers are basically satisfied with the music teaching curricula, although they are considered to be challenging as the resources constantly diminish. According to the teachers’ experiences the evaluation of students in music teaching is difficult. Music is often integrated with other subjects. Many teachers point out the importance of practical and art subjects especially at lower primary school.

Recent studies have shown that early and intensive exposure to music correlates with the development of auditory processes. In this research, 130 children between the ages of 7-13 were studied every two years in order to explore the effects of musical training on pre-attentive auditory processes. These data are part of a comprehensive longitudinal study started in 2003. In order to assess automatic and memory-related brain processes, auditory evoked potentials were recorded with electroencephalography (EEG). The focus was on two particular components: the mismatch negativity (MMN) and the P3a. The MMN component is assumed to reflect early detection of change in a sequence of repeating sounds and thus relates to early pre-attentive auditory skills. The P3a component is related to involuntary attention switch towards auditory changes. Both components can be elicited during passive tasks in which participants are not explicitly attending to auditory stimuli. The development of pre-attentive auditory skills was studied with two different paradigms. Basic auditory processing was investigated in a paradigm that included changes in five different sound features (the Multi-feature paradigm). This paradigm is of special value when studying children since it allows shorter measurement times than the traditional MMN paradigms. The detection of more musical sound changes was examined in an oddball paradigm with minor chords as deviants and major chords as standards (the Chord paradigm). The results show that pre-attentive auditory discrimination skills develop faster among children with musical training than control children. This was revealed by differences in both MMN- and P3a-components particularly in the Chord-paradigm. The amplitude of the MMN-components was found to increase with age under nearly all conditions in both groups. These results give new and valuable information about the development of attention and discrimination skills of different sound features in childhood. The findings also highlight the significance of musical training in enhancing the development of auditory abilities in school-aged children. This study is of special value due to extensive amount of data, long-term follow-up and the innovative paradigms.

The effects of musical training are a subject of growing interest in the field of cognitive brain research. Earlier it has been found that in addition to honing the skills directly related to musical performance, musical training also can elicit transfer effects in neuronal circuits affecting other areas of cognitive performance. One such function is attention, which is a cognitive process known to mature during childhood. This thesis seeks to investigate whether early-onset musical training is linked to correlates in involuntary attention shift on a neuronal level in school-aged children. The EEG data was gathered from 69 subjects, 54 percent of whom had received musical training. The subjects were between 11 and 17 years of age, and they were divided into two age-groups (between 11 and 13 years and between 15 and 17 years of age), in addition to the division of musically trained and non-trained control group. We assessed the subjects' involuntary shift of attention with the amplitude of early and late P3a component, evoked by unattended novel stimuli during a visual task the subjects were instructed to attend to. The results show that the amplitude of early P3a decreased for recurring novel stimuli. The effect was found for the musically trained group, but it was absent in the control group. For the younger subjects, the amplitude for late P3a was larger for the control group in comparison to the musically trained group. No such effect was found with the older subjects. Late P3a amplitude was larger for the young subjects of the control group in comparison to the older subjects, an effect that was absent in musically trained subjects. Both the age-related difference in P3a amplitude for the control group, and the training-related difference for the younger subjects suggest maturation of attentional processes. The amplitude of the P3a has earlier been connected to higher use of resources. In light of this evidence, the results suggest that younger musically trained subjects must allocate fewer resources identifying and processing task-irrelevant novel stimuli compared to the control group. However, any age-related maturation in attentional processes present with the control group in this study is absent in the musically trained group. This leads to an assumption that musically trained subjects simply reach the peak of their attentional skillset earlier than the control group, but display no observed attention-related advantages during the late adolescence.

The main purpose of the Master Thesis was to find out what kind of attitudes the pupils in the 9th grade of Finnish comprehensive school have towards music as a school subject and compare it to the attitudes of the principals at a school level. The theoretical context of the research is based on the former studies of the significance of music education in the comprehensive school, the connection between learning and attitudes and the motivational factors towards the study motivation of music. In addition to this, I have analysed the role of the evaluation and the assessment from the point of view of developing the educational system and what is the role of management and leadership in relation to the pupils' behaviour and attitudes. The data of the research is the Finnish National Board of Education's collected data of the assessment of the learning outcomes of arts education and it is nationally representative (N=5056 I phase and n=1570 II phase), both the Finnish-language and the Swedish-language pupil data. I have especially concentrated on the items of measuring the attitudes, the certain background variables and the questionnaire of the principals. The numerical data was analyzed using the multivariate statistical methods. The results of the research prove that in general the pupils and the principals think that music is quite significant as a school subject. The girls valued music on average more than the boys when comparing all the dimensions. The differences were systematic but the effect sizes were under 10 %. There were not statistically significant differences between the Finnish-language and the Swedish-language pupils. Comparing the grades of music in the 7th grade, the differences were growing linearly and the effect size was 15.7 %. There was a positive statistically significant correlation between the Significance of music and music as a hobby (Active interest in music, Informal interest in music, Taking part of music activities in the school) during free time. The strongest correlation were with the Active interest in music variable (r= 0.53, p= .000). Also the principals thought that music is important as a school subject considering the development of the pupil and the function of the school. The answers of the pupils were not clustering at a school level and there were no strong correlations between the attitudes of the pupils and the principals. A statistically nearly significant and a slight correlation (r= 0.21, p= .011) was found between the principals valuing the Significance of the music for school function and the pupils valuing the Benefits and hobbyism. The role of a well-motivated and active music teacher can be important from this point of view. The most important conclusion of the research was that the significance of music is a very personal individual level phenomenon. The results highlight also that in the pupils' opinion the most important thing about music lessons is to musical activity and learning as an experience.

This thesis studies the solutions related to music technology used in music education by music teachers and classroom teachers who teach music. The goal of this thesis is to map the technology used in music teaching in addition to music technology applications in use and discuss the reasons for their use. This qualitative study has been carried out using method and material triangulation. The material consists of three interviews and two surveys. Music teachers' use of technology in teaching was investigated through semi-structured thematic interviews, open-ended and multiple-choice questionnaires. The interviewees were two classroom teachers and a middle school special education teacher. The questionnaires were answered by music subject teachers and class teachers. The analysis of the data was performed inductively-deductively using data-oriented and theory-driven content analysis. Due to the limitation of the data, the results can only be considered indicative. The results illustrate well the incompleteness of the implementation of the digital leap in elementary and middle school music education. Based on the results, music technology is used in different ways in teaching. Teachers' training, available resources, personal interest in the subject and finding suitable programs affect the use of technology in teaching. Four different technology-using teacher profiles can be derived from the data: conservative, experimental, multimodal and technology- and application-oriented teacher.

This is a case study, which has been done by ethnographical research. The subject of this research was the fourth class in one comprehensive school in the area of the capital in Finland. The fieldwork was done in the spring term in 1998. There were 24 pupils in the research class and two of them were muslimgirls from Somalia. The methods were participating observation, interviews, discussions and essays, which were written by the pupils. The purpose was to describe and understand the affectness of muslimgirls to the everyday life of this class. I wanted to find out how the teacher and other pupils felt about muslimgirls and what were the experiences of the muslimgirls about their school life and how their religion affected to their schoolday. The main results: Islam affected to the muslimgirls’ clothing and eating. They had islam lessons, they practised about fast and they were allowed to be away from school when they had religious holidays. The other pupils knew that the muslimgirls had the other religion than they had, but they didn’t think that it would affect to muslimgirls’ schoolday. Muslimgirls had Finnish girlfriends in their class and they had a good time together. Earlier the pupils bothered muslimgirls, but not so much anymore. Some boys in the class looked down on muslimgirls or they were hostile towards them. Muslimgirls had some problems at school. They had difficulties with some subjects and they had problems to adapt some habits of the school. The teacher thought that the co-operation with the parents of the muslimgirls was difficult. Despite of these problems the muslimgirls had a positive attitude towards school. In this case the muslimgirls had reached the period of integration according the acculturation theory of Berry. They had adapted well to the class because of their teacher. They also spoke Finnish very well and they had lived in Finland many years, which also helped their adaptation.

The aim of this study is to describe and understand the boundaries of touching in school environment. Based on interviews with teachers, I describe how the boundaries of touch are negotiated, in the school context, and give examples of situations where teachers feel that the boundaries are crossed. The topic has appeared frequently in public discussion. Often the perspective is problem-oriented, with the result that some teachers shy away from touching altogether. Although there are regulations regarding appropriate touch at school, unambiguous definitions are difficult as everyone interprets a touch from their own perspective. That makes this research on the boundaries of touch important and relevant. This master's thesis is a qualitative study. The material consists of 19 semi-structured thematic interviews with comprehensive school teachers, collected as part of the project “Koskettava koulu” (‘Touching school’) in 2018. Of the teachers, 16 were women and 3 were men. Most of them were trained and qualified as classroom teachers and worked at lower comprehensive schools. However, a few subject teachers and special teachers were also among the interviewees. Data-driven content analysis has been applied on the material. Based on the results, boundaries of touching in school environment are considered especially in relation to the limits of playfulness, use of force, and sexual behaviour. Judgement of the boundaries of appropriate touching was influenced by the characteristics of the teacher and the student, e.g., student’s age, gender, and cultural background, teacher’s gender, and how well the teacher knew the student. The negotiation of the boundaries appeared to take place in three phases, e.g., anticipation, intervention, and aftermath. Teachers strove for anticipation through rules and discussion. Intervention in the situation was either verbal or physical. The aftermath took the form of a conversation or a more serious disciplinary action.

This study examines consumers' perceptions of the factors and meanings behind clothing consumption and approaches consumers' perceptions of the concept of reasonable consumption. There are many ecological, ethical and economic perspectives behind clothing consumption. Earlier studies show that leisure time, pin-money and social media in particular have changed consumer behaviors. The research material was collected through focused interviews. A total of five interviewees (3 women and 2 men) were selected at random sampling. The interviewees' background variables included only gender and age, which was limited to 25-30 years. The themes of the focused interviews emerged from the frame of reference. The themes formed were: meanings, material, media, fashion and moderate consumption.The data was analyzed by means of theory-based content analysis. The analysis was divided into three phases: reduction, clustering and creation of theoretical concepts. The original expressions taken from the empirical data were condensed into reduced expressions, subspecies, and generic concepts as the analysis progressed. At the end of the analysis, the generic concepts were linked to previously formed themes which, according to theory-based content analysis, formed the theoretical concepts of the research. As a result of the study, the most important factors influencing the consumption of clothing were the expectations of the subjects about the clothing and the influence of culture created by the media and the fashion. The subjects created expectations for the clothing based on the material, price and manufacturer, which guided the consumption. The subjects experienced media and fashion as creative images that guide the purchase of clothing. General public speech and reflection on ethical and ecological aspects also guided the choices of the subjects. They also saw clothing as a social construct, with consumption driven by respect for the situation and the dress code required by the situation. The meanings in clothing consumption were related to the characteristics of the clothing, its appreciation for the clothing and its sociality. For the subjects, the meanings of the garment was in necessity, instrumentality, and passion. Moderate consumption was structured in the subjects' reflection between need and desire. Appreciation for the garment, the real need for the garment, and the systematic direction of the garment led to moderate consumption. Respondents also felt that external factors such as economic constraints and the surrounding climate influenced moderate consumption.