Browsing by study line "Special Education"

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the experiences of parents of children with special needs when encountering professionals and to understand the meaning of these encounters. Child’s special needs affect parents in many ways and there is more parental burnout among parents of children with special needs. Parents of children with special needs regularly encounter professionals from social services, health services and schools and family-centeredness has become one of the values that conduct services planning. Family-centered practices recognizes parents as the experts on their child, acknowledges the individuality of the families, promotes partnership, and are based on the family’s strengths. In previous studies parents described parents as the experts on their child but stated that professionals do not always acknowledge their expertise. System is described fragmented, and parents experience that professionals do not see the complexity of their lives. The study is based on thirteen semi-structured qualitative interviews with parents of children with special needs. The interview material was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results showed that when encountering professionals parents experienced that parents and professionals had different roles. The roles of the professionals were companion, expert, know-it-all, and border guard. The roles of the parents were expert, organizer, and fighter. System affected encounters as it was experienced fragmented, and it contained different rules. Also, diagnosis and resources affected encounters. Encounters, occupational skills, services, and information sharing were experienced coincidental. Encounters evoke emotions and emotions affected encounters. Based on the results, it can be concluded that from parents’ perspectives there are issues that hinder family-centered practices. Encounters also have issues that increase parents’ burden. System should be improved so that it matches better the needs of the families, for example there could be a coordinating professional. Professionals should acknowledge parents’ expertise and consider parents’ emotions when encountering them.

Goals. The aim of this thesis was to find out how practicing mental health skills impacts on students’ experience of their well-being and mental health skills. Mental health skills include socioemotional skills, resilience, coping skills, self-esteem, recognizing and using strengths together with everyday wellness skills. Previous research has shown that mental health promotion programs have succeed to promote students’ well-being and mental health skills for example, peer relationships, self-esteem as well as resilience and coping skills. However, these mental health promotion programs have also shown uneven effect on students’ well-being. In some cases, only part of the students participated in the program reports the positive effect or there is no reported effect at all. Methods. This study is a quantitative master’s thesis. The research data was collected in one primary school in Uusimaa in Finland. The data consists of survey results that were collected during the school year of 2021-2022 from 229 primary students. The students practiced mental health skills with “The Mental Health Skills Badge” -learning and teaching module during one school year. Students estimated their well-being and mental health skills before (in August) (N=229) and after (in May) (N=203) the practicing. The survey was conducted by Webropol survey tool. The data was analyzed by IMB SPSS Statistics 27-program. The analysis method of the study was a t-test. The differences between the students’ initial and final measurements were also investigated by comparing the deviations of the answers. Results and conclusions. The results of the study showed that practicing mental health skills during one school year does not have impact on students’ well-being or mental health skills. These results show that promoting students’ well-being and mental health skills is a very challenging task. In the future, Finnish basic education should pay attention to teaching mental health issues systematically and effectively. These findings also show that when introducing a new set of teaching and learning materials, attention should be paid to its complete implementation.

The aim of this study was to find out how well the special needs of children are recognized, evaluated and monitored, how changes are made to the level of support and what factors affects the realization of the support that a child needs. This study produces topical information about support practices in municipalities. Previous studies on three-tier support in early childhood education have not been conducted, thus this study provides new insights into the practices of three-tier support model. The subject of the study is very topical. Three-tiered support is under development in early childhood education and information is needed on the practices implemented. Emilia Känä, Lotta Meismaa and Piia Lahti have created indicator of this study and collected the research material in 2020 as part of Opettaja työnsä tutkijana –course at Helsinki University in collaboration with the Board of Education. The survey was conducted as stratified random sampling. A total of 209 ECEC leaders, 186 Finnish speaking and 23 Swedish speaking, answered to the questionnaire from 198 different municipalities in Finland including Åland. 62,3 % of the Finnish municipalities responded to the survey. Answers were analyzed combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. Conclusions are presented with tables and examples form research material. The results showed that the special needs of children are recognized quite well, but the practices for evaluating and monitoring the need for support are diverse. According to findings of this research, some municipalities lack a plan, policy or tool for monitoring support. Research shows, that there are differences and similarities between municipals at different levels of three-tiered support model. Most differences were found in the practice of intensified and special support. Research shows that municipalities can provide support quite well, but there are still various reasons why the needed support is not put into practice. The study highlighted the reasons related to personnel and the municipality as well its lack of resources. Conclusion is that practices are diverse at the national level and equality is not achieved. A national support model is needed and ECEC law and the National curriculum for ECEC are need to be changed to ensure equal support.

Objectives. For this thesis, the objectives were to find out, what kind of factors effect school absenteeism in Finnish compulsory schools and how school absenteeism effects youth’s conceptions of the future. Risk factors can be divided into individual, school, family, and community factors. Other objective for this thesis was to find out, how youth perceive the future and are there differences between youth attending school and school absentees. Conceptions of the future were divided into educational aspirations and visions about the future. Previous research has found out that school absentees have lower educational aspirations and more negative visons about the future than youth attending school. In this thesis will be found out, which risk factors affect most on school absenteeism in Finnish compulsory schools, and how the future shows out on school absentees. Methods. This thesis is a quantitative master’s thesis. Used data was School Health Promotion study in 2019 (Kouluterveyskysely), which is collected by Finnish institute for health and welfare (THL). Data included 8th and 9th grade students (N = 87 020). Data was processed in IMB SPSS Statistics 27 -program. Methods for this thesis were multinomial logistic regression analysis, cross-tabulation, and t-test. Results and conclusions. The biggest risk factors for school absenteeism were dissatisfaction with school, substance use, bullying other youth, perceived difficulties in concentrating, and difficulties in sleeping. Parents’, especially mother’s higher education protected youth from school absenteeism. The main results of this thesis were mainly in line with previous research. School absentees perceived the future more negatively and had lower educational aspirations than youth attending school. There was a statistically significant difference between the conceptions of the future between the groups. School absentees were more likely not to want to continue education after compulsory education. By the results of this thesis, risk factors for school absenteeism can be recognized more accurately, students’ comprehensive well-being can be supported better, and student counselling can be improved.

Goals. Deci and Ryan's (2000) self determination theory has been researched in the context of schools. The significance of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relat-edness on learning, motivation and well being has been proven through much research. This re-search aims to find out how these basic psychological needs are found in the memories of pris-oners, what kind of strengthening or weakening aspects of motivation and well being can be found in the memories and to take a look at the weaknesses and strengths of school systems that can be found in the memories of the prisoners. Method. The material used, VASORA, which was collected from 11 Finnish prisons. 243 pris-oners answered an open questionnaire in which they were asked to depict their school memo-ries, more specifically, their memories of peer relationships, teacher relationships and coping in different studies. The research is qualitative in nature and the data analysis method used in this study was content analysis. Results and conclusions. The key finding was that basic psychological needs were not suffi-ciently met during the prisoners' school period. Bullying, loneliness, learning difficulties, prob-lems of concentration and hyperactivity, absence and other factors that weaken the well be-ing were highlighted in the data. For developing schools, it is key to note these weak spots of the system in which the student is in danger of sliding towards exclusion.

According to research, teachers starting their careers face many challenges in the school world, one of which is the challenging behaviour of students. Previous studies have also shown that, in order to survive the first years of work, teachers need the support of others. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of special education teachers at the beginning of their careers relating to working with students with challenging behaviour. The study examines how special education teachers build their competence when dealing with students who behave in a challenging manner. The study also examines what kind of support special education teachers at the beginning of their careers need when working with students with challenging behaviour. The research data was obtained by interviewing five special education teachers at the beginning of their working career. They had a maximum of three years of work experience, and all of them had graduated with a master's degree in special education. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews and the collected data was analysed using data-based content analysis. The results of the study show that the special education teachers felt insecure about their own competence when working with students who behave in a challenging manner, especially as newly graduated teachers at the very beginning of their career. Through work experience they felt that their competence had developed. The special education teachers starting their careers built up their competence in working with students with challenging behaviour with the help of work experience, work community, education, model learning, self-reflection and knowing their students. They needed support especially in dealing with violence, intervening in bullying, dealing with students' psychological symptoms, cooperating with different parties, limiting the amount of work and building self-confidence. Support was required from work communities, mentor teachers, university studies, the schools’ operating cultures and further education. The most important conclusion is that teacher training should be developed in such a way that it would give more competence in dealing with the challenging behaviour of students. The support of the working community should already be present in the structures of every school and working community, so that it is available to all special education teachers from the beginning of their working career.

Bullying and conflicts between peers have been a topic of discussion and research for years. Although a lot of attention is paid to bullying in particular in our society, and measures to prevent it are constantly being developed, it still occurs in many schools. Research has shown that bullying is a multi-faceted phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of risk factors at the individual, class and school levels. It’s important to address conflicts and bullying immediately and by adequate means. Sometimes, however the situations escalate and especially then they can threaten both the well-being of the individuals involved as well as the school community. Aseman Lapset provides support for schools in resolving challenging and prolonged bullying and conflict cases in the form of K-0 project. The purpose of this study is to examine bullying and conflicts in the school context from the viewpoint of K-0 employees and to find out what kind of factors may influence the prolongation of these cases. This study was conducted as a qualitative study with phenomenological-hermeneutic features. Thematic interviews were used to collect the data. The interviews were conducted in the autumn of 2021, and a total of nine (N=9) K-0 employees participated in three group interviews. The data was transcribed and then analyzed using data-driven content analysis. The themes that were described by the interviewees in this study were related to school culture, students and their families, and more broadly to society in general. These included school climate and anti-bullying/conflict practices, peer relationships, individual needs of the students, strong emotional responses of the parents involved, and the availability of community support services. Especially school culture and its different aspects were emphasized in the interviews.

The starting point of this master’s thesis is the Act on General Upper Secondary Education, which entered into force in 2019, and the subsequent general upper secondary school reform, which obligates general upper secondary schools to provide special needs education and learning support for their students. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the job description of general upper secondary school part-time special needs teachers, as described by the special needs teachers themselves. In addition, the purpose of this thesis is to understand what kind of support students in general upper secondary school need. The aim of this thesis is to make the job description of general upper secondary school special needs teachers clearer and more approachable. Also, the goal is to make the support needs of general upper secondary school students understandable. Only little research has yet been carried out on these themes. This thesis was qualitative, and the thematic interviews formed the material of the thesis. The data was analysed through data-driven content analysis. Seven general upper secondary school special needs teachers participated in the interview. The results of the thesis conclude that the job description of the general upper secondary school special needs teachers is divided into three categories, each of which have various subcategories. In the job description, the following three categories stood out: identifying support needs, support for studying, and co-operation. Out of the job description, the most amount of the time was spent identifying reading difficulties and writing statements following the identification. Support for studying appeared in the job description as both support for learning and support for general well-being. The job description also essentially included co-operation between different actors. Students needed support in studying relating to both learning and well-being. Students especially needed support in time management and with problems concerning concentration as well as being able to identify and deal with learning difficulties. Students also needed widespread support in maintaining well-being, of which anxiety and depression were especially highlight

Mathematical problem-solving skills have become increasingly important in our technology-driven, rapidly evolving modern society. The OECD (2017) has identified mathematical problem-solving skills as a key skill for the future. Mathematical problem-solving skills are considered a key competency in everyday life as well as in educational and academic progress. In everyday and work life the mathematical questions are mostly described in verbal format. Therefore, teaching to solve mathematical word problem-solving (WPS) tasks is one of the most relevant ways to train higher-order-thinking skills in elementary school mathematics. The connection of word problem-solving tasks to everyday life has led to their prominent place in mathematics and science curriculums (Jaffe & Bolger, 2023; Seel, 2017). Research findings consistently demonstrate the effectiveness of problem-based teaching approaches (Hoffmann, ym., 2006; Pineda, 2019; Salmivirta, 2020). However, gaps in students' mathematical problem-solving skills have been identified in Finland (Kupari 1983; Kyllönen & Nissinen 2014) and internationally (Dewolf et al., 2014; PISA 2003; PISA 2015). Especially for students with mathematical learning difficulties, mathematical word problem-solving is challenging (Arsenault & Powell, 2022). This thesis aimed to develop a digital word problem solving assessment tool using quantitative analysis. The thesis was carried out as part of the Future Problem Solvers! project in cooperation with the University of Helsinki, Åbo Akademii University, the Aalto University, and the Turku Research Institute for Learning Analytics. The research material was collected during the autumn of 2023 on the digital ViLLE learning platform from 3-6 grade pupils in primary schools with 104 word problem-solving tasks. The tasks used to collect the data were created at the beginning of 2022, and the data consisted of 70 886 responses. The data was analyzed using Excel 2022 (version 18) spreadsheet software and IBM SPSS Statistics 28 statistical software during the academic year 2023-2024. In the process of finding suitable tasks for the assessment tool word problem solving the schemas (Marshall, 1995) of the task instruction were used. The main result is 30 items suitable for a digital assessment tool to map arithmetic word problem-solving skills. The suitable tasks have been divided according to their level of difficulty for grades 3-4 and 5-6, as the difficulty of the tasks changed with the grade level. The study found that when developing a verbal problem-solving assessment tool, it is important to consider whether a wide range of mathematical content areas is practical to assess, as the verbal problem-solving task is relatively time-consuming. The development of assessment tools is important for the development of an evidence-based approach to teaching and learning support. This thesis is a first step forward in the development of digital assessment and further teaching of arithmetic word problem-solving.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the educational arrangements of foster children are executed according to different professionals working in the school context. The aim was also to discover whether there are differences in the views of different professionals. The foster children may regard additional support in learning, well-being and participation in education. Multiprofessional collaboration that is well executed is one way of supporting the special needs. (Saariluoma, Eriksson & Korhonen 2021; Olsson ym., 2023.) To implement multiprofessional collaboration, a shared interpretation of the situation is needed (Isoherranen, 2012). Research material consisted of data drawn from surveys of three different groups of professionals working with foster children in education: the school administration and management, teaching and educational work and student welfare (N = 40). The professionals assessed how the educational arrangements of foster children are executed. The survey was conducted by VIP-verkosto in spring 2022. VIP-verkosto is a network of professionals aiming to better support students with additional needs that has a subsection representing children placed in care. The analyse was conducted using quantitative methods. The results show that according to professionals working with children placed in care, the educational arrangements were executed with varying degrees of success. The three groups of professionals seemed to share a view of how the educational arrangements are implemented and the differences were more visible inside the groups rather than between them. However, small differences can be distinguished. There was more variation in responses of student welfare professionals and in this group they were more likely to report that the educational ar-rangements are not well executed. The group of school administration and management had the most positive view of how the educational arrangements are implemented whereas the responses of teaching and educational work professionals appeared to be more neutral. The results cannot be generalized due to the small sample size and the differences in the sizes of the groups examined. However, the somewhat shared interpretation of the situation between the groups of professionals may indicate that conditions for multiprofessional collaboration are, from this point of view, good. According to previous research, together with this study, further research is needed to better understand and to develop the multiprofessional collaboration in education when working with children placed in care.