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Objectives. As a special education teacher, I consider the welfare of the students in school to be important. Forming the class into a group of students that can work well together and have positive atmosphere to support learning. Research has shown that emphasizing courage has improved the social relationships between students and it is assumed to also support the group processes in the class. The research question of the study is to see how can courage as a character strength support the group processes in the class. The objective of the study is to figure out how the students experience courage and how courage appears during group work in drama lesson. Methods. The study was qualitative case study. The target group of the case study was a third grade special education class of ten students. The empirical evidence of the study was gathered from three different source materials: sociometric measurements done at three different points during the research period, student interviews, and drama lessons in small groups. The analysis was based on group theories of social psychology, positive psychological definitions of courage and the fields of learning in drama education. Results and Conclusions. The students of the special education class that were observed in the study proved to be brave and compassionate. They showed a growth mindset towards the idea of increasing and developing their courage. These qualities supported the interaction among the students in the class. Drama as a cooperative learning method supported the development of student interaction, a positive atmosphere, and proved to be effective for teaching and improving character strengths.

Primary school teachers are generally employed in a public service capacity. Central to this status is the concept of official responsibility, which refers to a broad accountability for potential mistakes. Primary school teachers require specific legal knowledge in their field to act legally correctly in their everyday work. In the worst case, a teacher might intentionally or unintentionally commit a crime. The purpose of this thesis is to find out how legal knowledge in their specific field has developed among currently serving primary school teachers. Furthermore, the thesis examines the level of legal knowledge among primary school teachers in relation to chapter seven of the Basic Education Act and self-efficacy from a legal perspective. This study was conducted using qualitative research methods. The data was quantified when presenting results. The final research material consisted of ten currently serving primary school teachers. The data was collected through interviews specifically designed for this thesis. Research permissions were obtained, and the interviews were conducted face-to-face. The data was analyzed using data-driven and theory-guided content analysis. According to the findings of this thesis, there are deficiencies in the legal knowledge of primary school teachers. The best performing teachers got eight out of twelve points, while the least successful managed only half of the questions correctly. The subjects cited several sources for the accumulation of legal knowledge in their field. Employers or supervisors were considered important from the perspective of ac- quiring new legal knowledge and understanding the need for it. About half of the participants felt their legal knowledge was sufficient. Interviewees described various reasons for the perceived detachment of laws from practice, although only three out of ten felt the laws were disconnected from practical application. In examining self-efficacy, a new concept was formed: legal self-efficacy. One teacher exhibited strong legal self-efficacy, while another had weak legal self-efficacy. The rest had legal self-efficacy that ranged between strong and weak. The results of this thesis could particularly benefit Finnish teacher education and employers, who play a key role in the accumulation and updating of legal knowledge.

The sampler is a work which has helped girls to practice sewing and embroidery for centuries. It is not common to sew them anymore, but there are lots of old samplers in museum collections. This study discusses the samplers at the Helsinki University Museum Craft Science Collection. The collection has been accumulated within textiles teacher education in Helsinki since the late 19th century. Most of the objects are practice works made by students in textiles teacher education. While both the Craft Science Collection and single objects of the collection have previously been studied, the samplers and the collection formed by them have been less focused on. The aim of this study was to survey the samplers of the Craft Science Collection and to analyze meanings related to sampler as a needlework and to the collection formed by the samplers. The study was carried out by using the Significance analysis method which is originally created for museum objects. The method consists of the stages of preparation, data acquisition, familiarization and contextualization. Then, the research material is evaluated with seven criteria: representativeness, authenticity, historical and cultural significance, memorable significance, communal significance, ideal situation and usability. As a result, the study shows that sampler as a needlework conveyed traditions and values. As part of studies of textiles teacher education, it functioned as practice work which formed identity and connected generations from the late 19th century until the early 20th century. The collection of samplers was found to have especially communal, historical and cultural significance. This collection conveys information about handicrafts, craft education and textiles teacher education of the past – and about the values behind them. The collection would have potential to act as teaching, exhibition or research material, but in some cases, the absence of context information may complicate it.

The purpose of this study is to examine classroom teacher students’ views on their civic competence. According to previous studies, teacher students have been found to have conservative values and they have participated in society through traditional ways. Teachers have found concerned towards political and social issues and that have been claimed to be the reason for young people’s passive participation in the society. The conception of an active citizen could be understood deeper by examining civic competence. The study was conducted as a qualitative theme interview study of six classroom teacher students. The interview themes were subjective civic competence, political participation and teacher as a social influencer. All of the interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis was accomplished using four-step phenomenography. According to the results, classroom teacher students perceived themselves being aware of societal and political issues. In the students’ perceptions the knowledge, the conversational skills and being aware of the teacher’s role were shown beneficial when improving the ability to deal with civic issues. The fear of influencing too much on pupil’s opinions affected negatively on students’ views of their own competence. The results show that the students saw themselves as active influencers both participating conventionally as well as being teachers but controversially, students evaluated their actions rather passive.

Nettle (Urtica dioica) has been used as a textile fiber among other bast fibres. Its culturohistorical significance is not clear, due to lack of studies focusing on nettle fiber. Main reason for that is the similarity of nettle fiber with all other bast fibers in their microscopic structures. The identification may have been inadequate. Main purpose for this Master's Thesis was to find those structural features that makes nettle fiber distinguishable from other bast fibers and to find the methods to study these features. I chose flax and hemp to be the reference fibers, because they are the two other bast fibers growing in Finland that can be used in textiles. My Thesis is divided into three parts. In the first theoretical section I study nettle as a textile fiber, and identification methods and physical structures of bast fibers in general. In the research section I introduced the methods suitable for identifying bast fibers from each other, and explained the structural differences between nettle, flax and hemp. The methods I used in this study are longitudinal observation, cross sections, Herzog's test with polarized light microscopy and SEM. From these results I created an Identification Manual for Nettle Fiber. It is a practical manual for archeologists, conservators and all textile researchers to use. From the photographic material I précised referential photo collection of physical structures of bast fibers. The manual and the photo collection are found as appendixes at the end of the study. In the final section of my research, I piloted the manual to a small sampling of textiles from the Finno-Ugric and Historical collections of The National Museum of Finland which were suspected to be made from nettle fibre. My conclusions in this study is that it is possible to identify nettle from other bast fibers. I was able to identify the materials of the textile sampling with the methods I had chosen. 16 from 25 samples that I studied were nettle. This partly disproves former results. My study points out that it is important to re-identify materials in ethnographic museum textiles to find out and discuss further the culturohistorical significance of the nettle fiber.

Objectives. Around the profession of teaching, certain stereotypes have formed about the types of people who become teachers and what interests and motivates them in that field, creating a certain mold for teachers. However, there are many variables behind this orientation. Previous studies have shown that individual's internal, external, and altruistic motivations particularly influence the choice to become a teacher. The goal of this study was to increase knowledge and understanding of the attractiveness of teacher education, focusing on the perspective of those interested in psychology. I wanted to find out what motivated students to be interested in elementary teaching and delve into how they justified their choice to themselves. I wanted to know which motives influenced the selection of the secondary choice the most and whether the secondary choice was still considered secondary later on. The theoretical framework was based on Reiss's (2004) motivation theory and Watt & Richardson's (2007) FIT-Choice scale. Additionally, I explore factors influencing career choices, such as education and the teaching profession. Methods. The study took the form of a case study, where I delved into four cases of elementary teacher students by conducting interviews to gather information about their experiences. I interviewed them individually using a semi-structured thematic interview, and then analyzed their responses through theory-driven content analysis. Results and Conclusions. As with case studies in general, the results of the study are not generalizable. The study revealed that for the interviewees, the choice of profession was guided by some form of alternative to psychology. The responses of the interviewees also indicated that there was not complete satisfaction with the teaching profession. Each interviewee had some future plan outside the classroom, albeit only much later. Surprisingly, the results showed that, contrary to the theory, working with children was a very significant motivation to choose teaching as a career for each interviewee.

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to investigate Finnish high-school students and teachers perceptions about what a short-term Nordic study abroad program offers to its participants. The benefits of study abroad were also addressed, as well as their connection to the reasons for attending such a program. Participants were also asked to state the challenges they faced during their study abroad. As data was gathered from three different participant groups, comparison between different participant groups was one of the central aims of the study. Participants. The participants consisted of three different groups; two of which were student groups and one that was a teacher group. One student group participated in an SA in Sweden for one month (Period scholars); the other student group participated in a one to two week long intensive language course in Sweden (Scholars to Sweden). Teachers had stays of different lengths, from less than a week to two weeks in Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland). Methods. The investigation presented herein relied on a mixed-methods strategy. The data of the study consisted of responses from 158 students and 92 teachers to a specifically developed Study Abroad Assessment (SAA) instrument. This data was analyzed quantitatively with SPSS using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and partly also qualitatively categorizing. In addition, material from six (6) students interviews before and after the study abroad (SA) period, and their reports on their stay, were analyzed qualitatively and reported as a case of an average student attending that particular program. Results and conclusions. Based on the analysis, there emerged four factors that represented dimensions which a short-term SA program has to offer. These factors were named according to their content as follows: 1) Personal growth; 2) Links to another Nordic country; 3) Development of Nordic awareness; and 4) Impact on career or study opportunities. Composite variables were created on the basis of these factors. There were some statistically significant differences between groups and group explained differing percentages of variance in each dimension. The Period scholars group differed significantly from other groups statistically in terms of "Personal growth" and "Impact on career or study opportunities" composite variables, whereas the Scholars to Sweden group differed significantly from other groups statistically in terms of the "Links to another Nordic country" composite variable. The Teacher group differed statistically significantly from student groups in terms of "Development of Nordic awareness" composite variable. The qualitative part of the study provided information on the benefits and challenges of study abroad that were compatible with previous studies. As a conclusion, it was noted that participants felt their language threshold to be lower than prior attending the SA, and that personal growth indeed was one of the main benefits of the SA.

Objective of the study. The objective of this Master's thesis is to study the experiences and views of class teachers on recess activity. The thesis also aims to discuss about the factors that motivates the teachers to arrange and enable recess activity for the students. Also the resources that teachers utilize to motivate and engage students in recess activity are explored. Methods. The material for this study was acquired during spring 2017 by interviewing three class teachers from a school located in southern Finland. The material was analysed by using qualitative content analysis. The material was categorized into different categories according to the themes emerging from the material. Results and discussion. According to the class teachers are provided with a variety of tools and ideas for promoting their physical activity during recess. Teachers also felt that longer recess allowed the students to engage in the physical activity in more depth. They also emphasized that one of the objectives for recess activity is to support self-determination of the students so that the recess activity becomes more peer-directed instead teacher-directed. Teachers found students to be the main source of their motivation. Enthusiastic attitude towards activities and self-determination of the students enhanced the motivation of the teachers to provide recess activities. However, students were also one of the factors that decreased the motivation of the teachers. Bad attitude and misbehaving of the students lessened the motivation. Colleagues were found both increase and decrease the motivation of the class teachers. Teachers used variety of methods to motivate students. Encouraging the students to get involved in activities was considered the most important method. Also the lifestyle and the experiences of the teachers were regarded to have an impact on teachers' readiness to activate and motivate students.

Objectives. In 2010, an amendment to the Basic Education Act introduced a three-step support model and its introduction has had a significant impact on the operational culture of schools. At the same time, it has also significantly shaped the work of teachers. When evaluating three-step support and its introduction, it is important to highlight the experiences of teachers who practice it on a practical level. In previous studies, teachers have highlighted several challenges related to three-step support and its practice. Teachers have experienced their skills to support students with special educational needs as weak. The purpose of this study was to find out how novice teachers in the early stages of their careers experience three-step support and its practice. The aim of the study was also to find out what kind of skills novice teachers felt teacher training had offered them to practice three-level support. Methods. The study involved four novice teachers, all of whom had less than three years of work experience after graduation. All teachers had graduated from the University of Helsinki. Teachers had experience of practicing three-step support in their own work. The data was collected by semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using data-driven content analysis. Results and conclusions. Teachers felt that the three-step support model included some functional elements such as the structure of the model, collaboration, and the structure brought by pedagogical documents. The model also saw much to be improved such as flexibility, boundaries of support steps, consistent practices and resources. The practice of the three-step support was stressful due to poor know-how, laborious documentation and high responsibility. Teachers experienced that co-operation with the work community and other professionals supported their work. Teacher training was perceived to provide mainly theoretical skills, while practical skills had remained weak. Teacher training was felt to contain lot of theory and the importance of learning through practice was emphasized.

Labor market training is facing new challenges after several social changes. In order to ensure the competitiveness and productivity, labor marketing training should respond faster to the targeted needs and enhance employment by skills development. This study seeks to determine the educational goals and targeted needs for labor market training, as well as to study what factors prevent and promote the employment of the unemployed, in the opinion of the trainers of labor market training. The research context is the Helsinki Association of Unemployed (HeTy) and the aim of the study is to provide a less studied and association oriented perspective in labor market training. The subjects of the study were adult trainers who are currently operating or operated during the year 2015 at HeTy. The research was conducted using qualitative methods and the data was collected by theme interviews at the turn of November and December in 2015. Content analysis was used when analyzing the data. Research shows that HeTy's educational goals are employment, communality and activation, from which employment was held the main goal. Based on the results, these educational objectives can be noted to serve excellently the needs of the unemployed. In contrast, a similar correlation does not exist between the needs of working life i.e. qualifications and educational objectives. The results show that due to structural barriers, and very scarce resources it is therefore very difficult to produce valuable expertise for working life with the training. In addition to the educational objectives and needs, the study examined the factors preventing and promoting employment. The results show that the obstacles to employment are divided into individual adhesive and structural barriers. Weak level of attitude and emotional factors, lack of knowledge, as well as the weakening of the welfare caused by long-term unemployment were listed as individual adherent barriers, or barriers, to which the unemployed person may influence. Instead, structural barriers were seen to be mainly related to structural unemployment, which individuals do not have influence on. Factors promoting employment were not divisible in half like the obstacles and rather connected only to the individual. A learning attitude, strong technological expertise and extensive networks were named as supporting factors in this study.