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Aims. It is important to study factors to manage work-related stress to get more tools to support sustainable ways of doing work and flourishing work environments. The purpose of this study was to examine what extent servant leadership, sense of community and workaholism are associated with burnout and recovery from work. Job Demands-Resources Model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) and Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 2001) were used as a theoretical framework of the study. In this study servant leadership and sense of community were considered as resources and workaholism as a work-related demand. Previous studies have shown that servant leadership and sense of community are negatively associated with burnout, whereas no previous research exist focusing on the associations between servant leadership, sense of community and recovery. According to previous studies, workaholism is positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with recovery. In this study, following the JD-R model, it was hypothesized that servant leadership and sense of community are negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with recovery. In addition, it was also hypothesized that workaholism is associated positively with burnout and negatively with recovery. Methods. This study is a part of an occupational health study, in which three large organizations (N = 1415) were examined by using an e-mail questionnaire. The participants answered questions concerning burnout, recovery, servant leadership, community and workaholism. The data was analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that servant leadership and sense of community were negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with recovery. Workaholism was positively associated with burnout and negatively with recovery. As a conclusion, servant leadership and sense of community can serve as important social resources against burnout and support recovery from work. Thus, promoting servant leadership and employees’ sense of community might serve as advantages for organizations. In addition, it would be important to actively recognize workaholism to reduce its threat for employees’ well-being.

Observing children’s point of view has recently become more essential in the development of services that they use. The aim to participate children in the development process has generated a new educational need for professionals. Online training program Katsele palveluita lapsen silmin by the Finnish branch of organisation Save the Children International aspired to supply this need by offering knowledge and tools for implementing service design that takes children and their views and opinions into consideration. The training was designed to suit the needs of professionals who work with services used by children. This study aims to examine how the online training program supports learning and helps participants develop their skills that are essential when working towards participatory design with children. A training evaluation model is used to examine the research problem. This study was conducted with qualitative methods. The research data was collected by a questionnaire and thematic interviews. 35 participants who had enrolled with the training program answered the questionnaire and five of them were interviewed. The data was analysed using the principles of thematic analysis within a theoretical framework. The participants had a positive reaction towards the training program. They were mainly satisfied with the training program because it took their own educational needs well into consideration in the content and the implementation parts of the training program. Changes in the participants’ attitudes toward the use of participatory design methods were observable. In addition, the participants expressed personal development in their knowledge and skills concerning the training’s topics. Training transfer emerged both in thought and in action, and showed up in changes regarding participants’ work, especially through experiments carried out during the training. This improved the quality of their work and increased the level of taking children’s view into account. Finally, the effectiveness of the training is seen as strengthening participation and agency of children using the services as a part of service design.

Depression has a tendency to be transmitted from parents to their children. Both environmental and genetic factors contribute to the development of depressive symptoms, but the mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission of depression are still largely unknown. It has been suggested that one possible pathway in the intergenerational transmission of depression risk might be interplay between genetic and environmental factors, so that the individual's genetic makeup might alter his/her sensitivity to the effects of adverse environmental circumstances. Because several psychiatric disorders have been indicated to stem partially from the same genetic background, it is possible that in addition to parental depression, other parental mental disorders might also increase the risk of depression in offspring. In the present study, I studied whether parental history of psychopathology is associated with offspring depression and whether stressful life events have different consequences on the children with and without parental history of psychiatric disorders. In the present study, the data from the ongoing prospective study of Young Finns was used (n=2428). At the baseline in 1980, the participants(offspring) were derived from six different age cohorts. The participants' age range was 3-18 years at that time. Parental history of psychopathology was assessed in 1980 and 1983, and stressful life events (move, school change, parental death, parental divorce) were assessed in 1980. Offspring depressive symptoms were measured in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2007 and 2012 using Beck Depression Inventory. The association between parental psychopathology and offspring depression and the effect of stressful life events on this relationship was examined using multilevel regression modeling. This made it possible to examine the developmental trajectories of offspring depression. Parental history of psychopathology was associated with higher depression level in offspring, but it had no effect on the age-related trajectories of offspring depression. Parental psychopathology seemed to create a long-term risk of offspring depression but it did not expose the children to adverse developmental course of depressive symptoms. The children with parental history of psychopathology were not more sensitive to stressful life events compared with the children whose parents had not suffered from psychiatric disorders. However, it has to be taken into account that single stressful experiences may not represent a stressful environment very well.

The aim of this study is to examine parents' beliefs on what impact Covid-19 has had on our young children's physical activity. With the term young children, I refer to children aged from one to six years old. The research questions for this study are the following: 1. How do parents view the impact Covid-19 has had on children's physical activity? 2. What kind of change in the child’s physical activity can be seen? 3. Is there a change in the child’s attitude towards physical activity? In the chapter physical activity some background on how children master physical movements will be presented. The chapter contains children’s physical development, as well as benefits and the needs for physical activity. Physical development and physical activity go hand in hand, developing physically often leads to the child becoming more physically active. In the chapter Covid-19 and everyday life, viewpoints on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected young children’s everyday life and especially physical activity are examined. The Covid-19 pandemic led to activities organized for families with children, such as story-time in library, music-play at the library/church and family café etc. stopped to decrease the spreading of the Covid-19 virus. A short complete lockdown took place in the beginning of spring 2020, where early childhood centers closed, and only parents/guardians who could not stay at home with their children had the right to bring their child to early childhood education. The parents that had the opportunity to stay home with their child were offered online early childhood education via the early childhood education center that they normally attend to. How much activities were sent out depended on the early childhood centers approach and beliefs (Hilppö, et al. 2020; Nurhonen et al. 2021). However, it was decided later that early childhood education centers remained open during the pandemic, and children were offered everyday life as normal as possible. Even though, early childhood education centers opened, the Covid-19 restrictions still existed (Nurhonen et al. 2021). How these restrictions were followed depended on the family. With the use of questionnaire, that were sent out to early childhood education centers and parent-child activities I have tried to get a view on how parents view the impact Covid-19 has had on young children’s physical activity. Has the pandemic affected young children’s physical activity? What are the parents’ beliefs? and how well with Covid-19 going on can children be physically active? I collected 103 answers from the questionnaire. Looking at the collected data I have also tried to see how and what attitudes towards physical activity children have. Do they enjoy being outdoors, physically active and has this changed during the pandemic? What can be concluded from this study is that even though the Covid-19 pandemic has been going on for 2 years it has not, according to the parents of the children, affected young children's physical activity that markedly. The children of this study seem to be as physically active as before the Covid-19 pandemic. This study is only a sample of a specific number of people, trying to explain how Covid-19 has affected the daily lives of children. Further study is needed to fully understand the changes made by Covid-19.

Because personality can be defined as a relatively permanent and individual way of thinking, feeling, and acting, and because personal values can be used to explain our motives and attitudes, both personality and personal values may be considered to influence mate selection. The similarity of couples has been observed to be linked to relationship satisfaction and a smaller divorce risk, which makes the consistent study of couple similarity important. The purpose of this study was to investigate couple similarity in Big Five personality traits, as well as in the 10 and 19 personal values defined by Schwartz. Based on these theories and earlier research, three hypotheses could be set, according to which couples are similar (1) in the personality traits of openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, (2) on the motivational dimensions of personal values, and in hedonism, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security from the 10 value types, and (3) in hedonism and tradition, as well as in all the specified value types of self-direction, universalism, benevolence, conformity, and security from the 19 value types. The sample of this study was a part of a larger project, and it consisted of 261 18-55-year-old heterosexual couples, all of which were either parents of small children, expecting their first child, or university students and their spouses. The results of this study principally corresponded to the hypotheses. The couples were observed to be similar in all Big five personality traits, on the motivational value dimensions, in universalism, tradition, conformity, hedonism, self-direction, security, benevolence, achievement, and power from the 10 value types, in all of the specified value types of universalism, self-direction, conformity, and power, as well as in the specified value types of benevolence-dependability, security-societal, humility, and face from the 19 value types. According to these results, it seems that men and women do not end up in relationships completely arbitrarily, but that personality traits and personal values guide couple formation at least to some extent.

Background. The Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression (DASA) is a 7-item rating scale used to predict imminent aggression in psychiatric inpatients. DASA measures the presence of seven behaviors that predict the probability of violence within 24 hours. The purpose of this research was to validate the sensitivity of DASA in a Finnish psychiatric inpatient population, examine the risk decreasing interventions applied after identifying high-risk patients and study which interventions were the most effective in decreasing the DASA score over one day of follow-up. Examinations also took into account the number of interventions needed to decrease the perceived risk of violence. Methods. The data (n = 300) were collected in a naturalistic setting during a six-month period in an acute psychiatric admission ward. Interventions were clustered into four groups by frequency of use: (1) interventions restricted by the Finnish Mental Health Act, (2) PRN-medication, (3) discussion with nursing staff, and (4) other interventions. Associations between interventions and change in DASA scores were examined separately for each intervention and also in a single model adjusted for all other interventions. Results and conclusions. There were 44 incidents in which a patient had been mechanically restrained or secluded. Patients had been rated as potentially violent (DASA ≥ 4) in 61 % (n = 27) of the incidents and non-violent (DASA = 0) in 16 % of the incidents (n = 7). The most frequently used interventions were PRN-medication (33.5 % of all interventions), seclusion (15.8 %) and focused discussion with nurse (10.8 %). Interventions regulated by the Finnish Mental Health Act (seclusion, mechanical restraint, involuntary intramuscular medication, limitation of the freedom of movement, physical restraint, and limitation of contacts), PRN-medication, and discussion with nursing staff were not associated with DASA score the following day. Only the category of "other interventions" (e.g., daily activities) were associated with lower DASA score the following day when examined separately or when adjusted for the use of other concurrent interventions. The results showed that the total DASA score decreased if the patient received one to three interventions. Four or more interventions had no statistical relevance on DASA score the following day. DASA is an effective method to predict imminent aggression in the Finnish psychiatric patient population, even though there remains unpredictable violence that is foreseen through DASA scores. Psychiatric staff tend to use fairly restrictive and coercive methods, but DASA scores were seen to decrease only in individuals who received non-coercive interventions.

The different forms of creating, sharing and analysing information have globally evolved and expanded in meaning. Previous research suggests that teachers have found it challenging to integrate these new forms of communication into their teaching practices. The pedagogy of multiliteracy, which the new Finnish core curriculum emphasizes, has been one of the measures taken towards meeting these changes. The role of the teacher is central in promoting multiliteracy, as the given support and guidance affect the child's motivation, attitudes and interest in the learning process. The aim of the study is to explore how teachers in early childhood education, pre-primary and primary education (Year 1-2) define multiliteracy and how their understanding is reflected in different teaching practices, which aim to promote children's learning opportunities in the area of multiliteracy. The need for this study is important as little research exists on teachers' understanding of the concept of multiliteracy in their teaching. This study draws upon a research and development program The joy of learning multiliteracies (MOI), at the University of Helsinki. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the pedagogy of multiliteracy and the dynamic literacy theory. The qualitative research design was selected to get an insight into teachers' experiences and thoughts. The study has been conducted by using semi-structured interviews based on video-stimulated recall and a group interview to investigate seven teachers' definition on multiliteracy. The results of the study suggest that the teachers have formed their own views of the concept multiliteracy and that these interpretations are visible in their teaching practices. Multiliteracy was defined by the teachers as a wide multimodal ability to express oneself, which requires children to be able to analyse, interpret and apply diverse forms of information and communication. The children's curiosity and joy are perceived as the foundation for promoting multiliteracy. The teachers' own commitment and enthusiasm were considered crucial. Digital tools and implementing of media education were emphasized as one of the development areas regarding multiliteracy. The ability to take into account the cultural contexts of texts, were in accordance with the Finnish curriculum, yet the teachers did not recognise it as a part of multiliteracy. Cultural literacy is however an important part of the pedagogy of multiliteracy. The results of the study confirm that further reinforcement of teachers' expertise in developing multiliteracy is essential both in working life and in teacher education, especially regarding how to include and promote cultural literacy.

The Act on Early Childhood Education and care, 540/2018, obliges that early childhood education is systematic, target-oriented and pedagogically focused. The updated law determines for the first time of the principles regarding the organizing of the round-the-clock kindergartens. Previous studies show that it is necessary to study nonstandard childcare both nationally and internationally. During this study, data is collected for the first time, by using the Progressive Feedback-tool in an observation study carried out in the evening hours. Objectives. In Finland, 7% of all children participating in early childhood education are placed in round-the-clock kindergartens. The aim of this study is to find out what happens in the round-the-clock kindergartens during the day. The second aim of the study is to find out how much and what kind of activities are carried out in the round-the clock kindergartens at evenings. The third aim is to find out how it would be possible to increase children's commitment to activities in the round-the-clock kindergartens at evenings. Methods. The dissertation was conducted as a part of the Progressive Feedback-method. The data were collected in five round-the clock kindergartens in Kouvola, during the autumn of year 2019. The data collection method was observation. Five trained observers participated in the data collection. 1146 observational data were collected. The data were analyzed with statistical methods by using the SPSS 25 for MacOS software. Outcomes and conclusions. The study indicated that in the evenings, the children mainly play with different items and they are committed to these activities. The proportion of target-oriented activities in the round-the-clock kindergartens was small (5,8%) in the evening and the adults functioned mainly neutrally. Commitment to various tasks in the evening was intensive, but there were only few tasks occurring in the evenings. Children engage in activities more intensively when also adults participate in them. In learning´s perspective the most valuable activity in the kindergarten appears to be playing that is supported by an adult. Evening activities differ from the activities carried out in the mornings.

Aims. Well-be and qualified early childhood education professionals ensure the quality of early childhood education. Pedagogical leadership that notes the fulfillment of psychological basic needs has the crucial role. Recently, however, leadership in early childhood education has greatly diversified. The purpose of this study was to clarify how the pedagogical leadership in early childhood education enables the fulfillment of the psychological basic needs of early childhood education professionals in their work. The aim of this thesis was to study the experiences of early childhood education professionals, how the fulfillment of psychological basic needs manifests in their work. In addition, the aim of this study was to find out the promotional and preventive factors related to the fulfillment of basic needs. Methods. This thesis is a qualitative case study. A theme interview was used as the data collection method. The framework of the interview was based on an interview formula measuring the fulfillment of psychological basic needs at work. Five early childhood education professionals were interviewed for this study. Theory–based content analysis was used as a method of analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that early childhood education professionals felt that psychological basic needs were filled quite well in their work. Fulfillment of psychological basic needs was associated with good pedagogical leadership. Based on the experiences of early childhood education professionals, the success of pedagogical leadership and thus supporting the fulfillment of the psychological basic needs of early childhood educators requires resources and leadership skills. According to the results, it is important to pay attention to the quality of the interaction, time available for the interaction, and the balance between work tasks and working hours. To support the fulfillment of the psychological basic needs of early childhood education professionals is essential to draw attention to adequate resourcing and the development of pedagogical leadership skills.

In this research pedagogical live action role playing is examined as a method of teaching history. The objective of this research is to present and define the concept of pedagogical live action role playing as a method of teaching history and examine its capability in teaching historical empathy. Pedagogical live action role playing is a teaching method under development which has elements from drama pedagogics and different learning theories. The theoretical part of this research consists of play theories and drama pedagogical theories which are relevant to live action role playing, and also the concepts of historical empathy and historical thinking. In drama pedagogics the main sources are the researches of Laakso (2004) and Heikkinen (2002, 2004). The historical part uses the researches of VanSledright (2002), Cooper (2000) and Ashby and Lee (1987) as its main sources. The research was carried out at the Viikki Teacher Training School in the class 6b during autumn 2007. The research material consists of three-phased interviews. During all phases three pupils were interviewed, and during two of the phases, also the teacher of the class was interviewed. The methods used in the interviews were thematic interview and stimulated recall -interview. The data gathered from the interviews was analyzed using content analysis. Pedagogical live action role playing has three phases when teaching history: pre-game (preparations), game (live action role play) and post-game (discussion after the game and in the classroom). The teacher's attention and carefulness is important during all phases. The mistakes made in the pre-game face e.g. in writing the characters seem to cause major problems in the pupils' game experiences. Pedagogical live action role playing is capable of teaching historical empathy, but according to my research this has some conditions, from which the most important is the pupil's historical knowledge before the game. Teaching historical empathy was based on aesthetic dualition: the pupil made decisions about the actions of his character as him/herself. The more background information the pupil had about the era they played, the more the pupil seemed to make decisions based on his historical empathy, aka his understanding of the era of the larp and of the people of the same era.