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The purpose of the present work was to study knitting as a hobby: to find connections with the traditions, to sort out the present situation and anticipate possible future developments. The study attempted to shed light on the factors related to the commencement of the hobby, on the different forms of the hobby and on the significance of knitting for those who go in for it. According to the theoretical framework, knitting was studied as a hobby, as a part of the handicraft trade and as a learned skill. In addition, the significance of knitting was approached on by analysing the related values and attitudes. The collection of the data was done with a questionnaire which means that the basic methodology was quantitative. This was supplemented by the use of a qualitative approach in the interpretation of the results. The questionnaire had, in addition to multiple choice questions and statements, an open question meant for a wider inquiry on the significance of the hobby. The objective was to get as wide a picture as possible on knitting as a hobby in Finland. Helsingin Villakehräämö (Helsinki Wool-Spinning Mill) and Novita Neuleet-magazine agreed to co-operate in the study. With their assistance it was possible to reach knitters all around Finland. The questionnaire was mailed to the subscribers of the Novita Neuleet-magazine and to an equal number of assumed knitters. The size of the sample was 603 persons of whom 325 returned the questionnaire by the deadline. The return percentage was thus 54%. The analysis of the data made use of the SPSS-statistics programme with which it was possible to present frequencies and percentages on the sample as well as the necessary parameters. The differences between the groups were tested with cross-tabulations and statistical tests. The statements related to the significance and appreciation of knitting were subjected to a factor analysis so as to facilitate a possible classification of knitters into different types. The significance of knitting was also studied with content analysis and by applying essence type analysis. On the basis of the results the commencement of knitting as a hobby seemed to be closely related to the significance of the family and traditions, to needs and school experiences. 99 per cent of the respondents reported making at least one piece of knitwear a year, which means that people do a lot of knitting. The most common piece of knitwear was a sweater (82%). Statistically the subscribers of the Novita Neuleet-magazine knitted more than the control group. Useful pastime, recreation, creativity and self-expression were emphasised as factors related to the significance of knitting. Finishing a piece of knitwear was reported to give pleasure which was manifested in the joy of giving, overcoming challenges and the experiences of success. To describe knitting two groups of knitter types were formed: those for whom knitting is a way of life and those who do knitting because of a need. The members of the ‘way of life’-group always had a work in progress whereas the ‘need’-group started working when they needed a piece of knitwear or something to do with their hands. Woolen sweaters can be a thread of life because knitting was felt to bring meaningful content into the lives of the knitters. Knitting was also seen as a useful handicraft skill which the knitters wanted to retain for future generations.

Young carers have a responsibility to a close relative who, due to physical or mental reasons, has a reduced functional capacity. The responsibility is often kept within the family and affects the well-being of the young people in both a negative and positive sense. Difficulties with building friendships, lack of opportunity to participate in hobbies and reduced social capital are some of the challenges young carers face. Increased responsibility can also develop resilience and self efficacy. Young people spend a significant share of their time in schools. This makes schools a key player in the work of identifying young carers and supporting them in their everyday school life, as they have an increased risk of becoming marginalized. The objective of this study is to highlight these young people and make their voices heard. Furthermore, the aim is to find out how the care responsibility affects young carers’ and former young carers’ everyday school life and what kind of support they would need from the school. A qualitative, phenomenographic method was used for the study, which was conducted with semi-structured interviews. The informants were seven young carers and former young carers. The interviews were analyzed through a thematic analysis. The results show that the young carers experienced challenges in balancing the care responsibility and their own lives. Friends were considered important, but for the majority, social relationships were at times challenging. The young people appreciated the security and routine that school provided in their everyday life. They wanted more regular opportunities to discuss their burdens with student care and to be noticed by the school staff, especially by their own teacher. Tools for teachers are required to help them better engage with this group in a respectful way. Young carers must feel secure in sharing their stories with school staff. This requires the stigma, especially around mental health problems to be reduced. The young carers’ future study ambitions were limited by the care responsibility, which indicates that these young people also need attention in secondary education.

The aim of this study was to examine elementary school teachers’ opinions on education in religion and ethics. How teachers perceive the education in religion and ethics today and how they perceive the thought of a common subject for all religions and ethics. Earlier studies shows that Finland is going more and more towards a multicultural society (Odiah, 2007; Mäkelä et al. 2017). Researchers have found out that the education in religion is not equal and that it is categorizing people into different groups (Salmenkivi & Åhs, 2022). In this master’s thesis I’m going to examine the teachers specific perceives and opinions about the education of religion and ethics today and how they perceive the education in the future. This master’s thesis is a qualitative study with a phenomena graphic approach. Six elementary school teachers from Uusimaa are the study’s informants. The material was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with the class teachers. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of the study showed that there are mainly two different perceptions about the teaching of religion and ethics today. These perceives correlates with how the elementary school teachers perceive the idea of ​​a common subject for all religions and ethics. Five out of six teachers felt that the current model should be changed and perceived a common subject positively, while one out of six teachers was satisfied with the current model and did not consider a need for a common subject. The study resulted in the following themes being highlighted: equality, practical arrangements, overlapping teaching, fear of marginalized religious teaching and community, understanding and world view. These themes were perceived by the majority of teachers as problematic in the current model and as themes that could be improved through a common teaching subject for all viewpoints.

This pro gradu study examines learning environment of early childhood education (later ECE) by the aspect to enable the goals of the new Finnish ECE plan. Previous study indicate that the learning environment plays fundamental role in child’s learning. This study represents the project called “Virtaa varhaiskasvatukseen”. Project took place in Lohja 2017. Main point of this project was to develop the physical learning environments of ECE to correspond the goals of the new Finnish ECE plan. Purpose of the study was to examine how well the learning environments of day care center enables the action of the new Finnish ECE plan and what kind of innovative solutions to sustain the goals of ECE were developed during the project. Four day care center groups including personnel, children and their parents participate to design, to execute and to evaluate the physical learning environment. Material of the study consisted of quality measurements done before and after modifications and some graphical and written material collected during the study. The material was analyzed by comparing the measurements taken before and after the modifications and to describe the different phases and effects of the project according to principals of design study. Study indicates that old facility of day care center does not enable the actions of the new Finnish ECE plan as well as the new designed facility. This revealed through quality measurements done before modifications. However, facilities can be upgrade without any major renovation. Some changes were done at the facilities that were part in this study. Differences between the facilities of day care center were decreased because of the changes that were made. Nearly all of the solutions that were developed can be utilized in wherever day care center.

This study was part of a large research project FINNABLE 2020. In this Case Study educational ExerGames were used on 4th grade class. The aim of the study was to analyze students' and teachers' experiences about physical self-efficacy, motivation and how ExerGames fit in schools everyday. The study purpose is to develop educational ExerGame use in class, because there are only a few studies about new technology use in schools in Finland. The Case Study took place with one 4th grade class of 23 students over a six week period. The data was collected using beginning- and end-surveys, observing play situations at school, student Focus groups' and teachers' interviews. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis and quantitative methods. Students of study class had high physical self-efficacy rates. The concept of physical self-efficacy consists of persistency, time control, help seeking, expectations of success. The results of physical self-efficacy, internal- and external motivation were positive. Educational ExerGames motivated both active and inactive students. Physical activity and new technology interested students. Especially inactive students liked playing together ExerGames. ExerGames can be used to promote physical self-efficacy and motivate inactive students to move in an easier way. In the class ExerGames were used in many ways and students felt that they learned while playing, although there were only few playtime hours, because of many tight time limits and other restricting factors. ExerGames should be designed to fit the time-space path of the school more flexibly. Students saw ExerGames as very inspiring and useful. This encourages to find out how ExerGames could be better integrated in to schools' everyday life.

Aims. The aim of this thesis was to find out how virtual reality and augmented reality can be used in teaching crafts in the future. Virtuality has changed the world and it can be seen that virtuality is coming into teaching and schools. Previous research on virtual reality in teaching has shown that virtual reality brings benefits to teaching. The benefits of virtual reality have been highlighted in various contexts. The aim was to find out what kind of possibilities virtual reality and augmented reality are considered to bring to teaching crafts. Methods. Before we can think of the future, we must know the history and the present. The theory section of this thesis discusses teaching crafts in Finnish schools now and then as well as virtual reality and augmented reality. The research was realized as futures research and the data were collected with the Delphi method. The panel of experts consisted of craft teachers, craft teacher students and experts of crafts, virtual reality and augmented reality. The questionnaire was made with the E-lomake programme of the University of Helsinki. The panelists took part in two successive rounds of questions anonymously. The questions on the first round were based on topics arisen from the theory. The questions on the second round were created through qualitative analysis of the answers of the first round. Results and conclusion. The panelists found several different benefits, practical examples and ideas on how to utilize virtual reality and augmented reality in teaching crafts. The practical examples included learning new craft techniques, learning machines and tools safely, illustrating in a teaching situation and practicing skills independently. The discussions were not only positive, criticism and negative points were also presented. The result of the data analysis and thematic design was four main topics: 1) utilization of virtual reality and augmented reality in craft teaching, 2) benefits of virtual reality and augmented reality, 3) disadvantages of virtual reality and augmented reality and 4) the future of craft teaching. New technology is seen as an opportunity, but the most important aspect of handicraft is to be considered to be concrete handmade.

The purpose of this study is to implement immersive virtual reality (VR) technology as part of an environmental studies project in the actual complex school reality and analyze both the students’ and their teachers’ experiences and observations on the use of VR in learning and teaching. This study focuses on the user experiences and affordances that the appliance of VR technology brings forth in education. There are but few earlier studies on similar topics, most of which have been conducted in clinical settings. Three teachers and 59 students, 5-6th graders, from two different Finnish elementary schools participated in this study. The participants were all volunteers and took part in a nationwide VISIOT-project, coordinated by a nationwide Innokas Network. Its main purpose was to provide opportunities for trying out and developing virtual reality, augmented reality and Internet of things -technologies in education. The three teachers in this study applied a VR system that consisted of HTC Vive -device and Google Earth VR -program. The different ways in which the teachers ended up implementing the VR system turned out to be an important research topic in this study. The project went on for over three months, spanning from December 2017 to April 2018. The students assessed the use of the VR system during and after the project. Their experiences became another key research area in this study. Data was gathered with online questionnaires, pre and post-surveys for students, a test of the students’ spatial reasoning abilities, and with a pre-survey and innovative post interviews for the teachers. This mostly qualitative data was analyzed with clustering content analysis, where I would find similarities and differences in the participants’ answers and place them in schematized categories. The teacher’s encountered technical, spatial and temporal challenges, as well as challenges in orchestrating the implementation of the VR system. It appeared that VR’s implementation in education demanded more innovative scripts and different spatial, temporal and pedagogical arrangements than the two studied schools were used to. Albeit, the students adapted to the use of VR technology rather quickly and had a very positive emotional experience with it. The VR system was mostly used as a motivational addition to learning. Besides the visually enhanced exploration of the Earth and tourist role-play, the VR system’s actualized affordances included enjoyment and interest, realism and mental immersion, and mastery experiences. Students found the device as very comfortable and the program as user-friendly. Their conception of virtual reality was evidently affected by the applied VR system and its uses during the virtual field trip project. Despite of this, the students were able to imagine diverse learning worlds for VR. In addition to typical categories, they imagined high fantasy worlds and time travelling to the future. By and large, the students appeared willing to use VR technology again in the future. Their post-survey measures for self-efficacy and interest to engage with the technology were relatively high. The self-reported self-efficacy of boys was statistically significantly higher than the girls corresponding. The students found the VR program to be a credible source mostly due to the virtual world’s realism or resemblance with their experiences of the real world. Altogether, VR technology appears to be something that these 11-12-year-old students would gladly include in their learning environment, on the other hand, the teachers rightfully felt that the implemented VR system was too complex and demanding for permanent inclusion.

Objectives. The purpose of this thesis was to explore how students perceive queer in/visibility in higher education. Queer is defined as a concept that includes queer pedagogy, queer theory, as well as queer as an identity. Previous research has shown that queering educational institutions was not sufficiently happening. This study aims to give an overview of the current state of queer visibility in higher education by investigating how students in one education faculty perceive queer in higher education. The major question driving the inquiry was if and in what way queer was visible or invisible to the students. Methods. The study was conducted by applying a thematic analysis to participants responses to a writing prompt. The thematic analysis was operationalised through inductive and deductive coding. The deductive coding was based on the theoretical concepts of invisibility as well as on the Ward-Gale model. Inductive coding was used to complement the analysis. Results and conclusions. The results of the study show a profound invisibility of queerness in higher education and limited visibility. Queer visibility was mostly connected to individual students’ visibility and the queer community. There is a clear lack of visibility in staff, curriculum, and higher education structures. The outcomes demonstrate the harm this can do on students’ well-being. Some participants portray being queer as something that is hard but also that it could have been easier if there had been more education on the topic. The study initially aimed to expand the Ward-Gale model; however, the results demonstrate that elements of the existing model are not being implemented in the higher education institution that served as the site of this study. I suggest that further research needs to be done on this topic and strongly urges institutions of higher education to increase queer visibility. Furthermore, I suggest implementing teacher trainings, making use of queer teaching materials, encouraging teachers to queer their teaching style, and organising queer events. One way to begin enhancing queer visibility is to implement the Ward-Gale model that is presented in this study. The article will be submitted for publishing to the European Journal of Higher Education.

This study focuses on the uses of visual material (illustrations, tables, graphs, and videos) and their relation to text in upper secondary textbooks and the Finnish matriculation examination. There is not much research on how illustrations are being used in textbooks and high-stake exams, even though studies have shown positive results of the use of visual material in learning. The aim of this study was to provide more understanding on the roles of visual material and captions. The context of this study is influenced by the increase in visual communication, the central role of textbooks in Finnish classrooms, the critique towards textbooks that promote content instead of knowledge building skills, the national core curriculums that emphasize creative thinking and multiliteracy (LOPS 2015, LOPS 2019), and in the years 2016-2019 digitalized Finnish matriculation examination. The data of the research consists of the textbooks (printed and digital) of the first courses in psychology, biology, and English, and of the matriculation examinations (2018-2020) of these subjects. Altogether 488 visual elements with possible captions in textbooks and 127 in matriculation examinations were analyzed. The research approach used was qualitative, theory directive content analysis and the data were classified in categories in order to facilitate comparison. To support high-level learning, learning materials should support students in the areas of hierarchical building of concepts and theories, knowledge construction and application. The analysis showed that these features are somewhat more uncommon, and the main function of visual material is representative. Visual material has a significant role in textbook exercises and in the Finnish matriculation examination. However, they also carry some irrelevant, even cognitively burdensome features. Visual material in textbooks mainly indicates to the inner world of the textbook instead of external sources of information. The role of the captions in conveying the information was considered significant, especially when the pages of the books were abundantly illustrated. The visual material in printed and digital textbooks had only minor differences in their quality but notable differences in their quantity in this research. Based on this research visual material seems to have potential in both supporting learning and evaluating it, but illustrations should be used with consideration and care to avoid confusion and burdening the student.

Objectives. Recently, an increasing number of comprehensive schools in Helsinki have launched social media accounts, which they use to share visual images during the school days. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the ways in which schools portray themselves on the photo-sharing site Instagram, and how these visualisations represent the narratives of the Finnish comprehensive school and the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education. This analysis of Instagram images complements the research on the Finnish comprehensive school system, providing a new and authentic perspective on how schools wish to represent themselves through social media. Methods. This qualitative research is based on a data-driven visual content analysis. The material consists of 766 media images published on the Instagram accounts of seven comprehensive schools in the City of Helsinki during the three-month period between January and March 2021. The visual media were analysed using image analysis and thematic analysis. Results and Conclusions. The results of the analysis indicate that at the time of data analysis the visualisations by selected comprehensive schools in Helsinki are highly diverse. A series of images (Instagram carousel post) is the most common kind of post (83%). In half of the images (50%) there are no people. Of images containing people, groups of students (22%) are presented more often than individuals (5%). As a rule, the people in the images cannot be identified. The classroom (51%) is the most photographed learning place, and the next most frequent image location is outdoors (17%). Furthermore, five main themes emerge from analysis of the images: Steps of Learning (34%), Exhibition (24%), Our School (17%), Outdoor Activities (17%), and Current Topics (8%). The learning process, especially in arts, crafts, and home economics, is displayed in the images, as are the students’ learning outcomes.