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Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a goal-oriented process in which the learner monitors and regulates his or her own learning. Meta-skills of learning such as SRL are important both in formal education and in professional development taking place in working environments. For the teaching profession, it is crucial that teacher education supports its students' abilities to critically reflect on and research and develop their own work. In short, teachers need competences for continuous professional learning. This master's thesis analyzes the connection between student teachers' SRL and competences in continuous professional learning. SRL was defined as forethought of learning, learning strategies, and learning skills. Competences in continuous professional learning were constructed on an understanding of the teacher as a professional capable of researching and developing his or her work. Because there are structural and content differences between class and subject teacher education, this thesis also analyzes whether there are differences in continuous professional learning competences between the two programmes. The data were collected using a web-based survey as part of a research project on teacher education. SRL was measured using a self-report instrument for higher education students, including questions about regulatory strategies of learning and motivational factors. The instrument for continuous professional learning focused on teaching professions' reflective features and professional development. Both constructs were measured using a five-point likert-scale. The respondents were student teachers from University of Helsinki and University of Oulu studying to be either class or subject teachers (N = 417). Data analysis was conducted using correlations, t-tests, and linear regression analyses. In addition, confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were conducted in the preliminary analysis. Students' competences in continuous professional learning correlated with the different constructs of self-regulated learning, although none of the correlations could be described as strong. Regression analysis indicated that in the forethought of learning dimension, utility value of studies and self-concept as a learner best explained competences in continuous professional learning. In the dimension of learning strategies, self-management was the only statistically significant explanatory variable. In the learning skills dimension, application of theories and rehearsal best explained continuous professional learning. There was a significant difference between class and subject student teachers in continuous professional learning, although the effect size was moderate. The division between class and subject teachers was also a significant explanatory variable in all regression models. Depending on the model, 6.9 to 11.5 percent of variance in continuous professional learning could be explained. The results indicate that self-regulated learning is connected to continuous professional learning competences, but the explanatory power of SRL is not very strong. In the future, it will be important to investigate whether these results are due to an actual relationship between the two phenomena or a matter of data and measurement. Class and subject teacher education seems to some extent to produce differences in continuous professional learning competences. This could indicate that there is a need to develop subject teacher studies in order to make sure that all teachers, regardless of their training, have the necessary competences to develop professionally.

Aim of this study was to investigate the connection between children’s self-regulation and temperament. Additionally, the aim of the study was to determine whether a child’s age, gender or mother’s level of education modified the associations between temperament and self-regulation skills. The research material was collected in 2017 in kindergartens in Salo (N=29) and Riihimäki (N=3) as part of the DAGIS project. Data consisted of questionnaire material collected during the baseline measurement of the project. The subjects (N=802) were 3–6 years old children and their families. Children’s self-regulation skills were measured using PikkuKesky survey (challenges in self-regulatory skills) completed by early childhood education teachers or other professional (N=757). Also, parents filled a form that measured child’s cognitive and emotional self-regulation skills separately. Children’s temperament was assessed using Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (very short form). This questionnaire was filled by parents. The relationship between child’s temperament and self-regulation was analysed using linear regression analysis. In addition to that, regression analysis was used to examine whether a child’s age and gender or maternal education level had an interaction effect with temperament on self-regulation. The results of the research showed that there was a connection between children’s temperament and self-regulation. Children with high levels of surgency had more challenges in their self-regulatory skills, while better effortful control meant that the child had fewer challenges in self-regulation. This study did not find connection between challenges of self-regulation and negative affectivity. Children with high levels of effortful control as well as those with more surgency was associated to better cognitional self-regulation. In contrast, children with high levels of negative affectivity had weaker cognitive self-regulatory skills. Children with high levels of surgency or negative affectivity had weaker emotional self-regulation skills, while children with high levels of effortful control was associated to better emotional self-regulation. In this study, age, gender and maternal educational background, had no interaction between temperament and self-regulation. Children’s personal temperament needs to be taken into account when developing child’s self-regulatory skills and pay attention to supporting the self-regulatory skills of children with different temperaments - especially surgency ones - at an early stage.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse, interpret, and describe the meanings of making a senior ball costume yourself. In addition, the motivation behind making their own costume instead of buying ready-made or tailored costume by someone else is being examined. The first part of the study describes, analyses, and specifies the types of senior ball costumes that are self-made. The second part of the study examines why dancers have made their costumes and what significance it holds for them. This research was conducted as a qualitative study using content analysis. The data for the study consisted of responses to an online survey, which were analysed using a data driven analysis method. The photographs from the online survey were analysed using a theory-directed analysis. Atlas.ti software was used to assist in the analysis. A total of 38 people responded to the online survey. The dataset consisted of 36 photographs of 25 different senior costumes. The senior dance costumes varied in colour, style, design, material, and details. In this study, all costumes were sewn, but other techniques including dyeing, embroidery, customization, and gluing were also used. The costumes aimed to express personality, old-fashioned aesthetic, recycling, and a departure from traditional appearances. The purpose of the senior costume can be divided into two categories: the product and the process of making. The costume as a product held emotional, aesthetic, expressive, supply-related, and functional meanings. It also held significance during the celebration. Wearing the dress during the celebration felt special for many of the dancers, as they had spent time and effort on the costume. Positive feedback about the costume increased the feelings of accomplishment in the seniors, and they felt proud of themselves. Some of the dancers had subsequent use for the costume after the senior ball, which indicates special attachment towards the self-made costume. For the dancers designing was a meaningful aspect of creating the costume and the whole process was educational. The process also involved emotional and social significance for dancers. The significance of the costume, as described by dancers, varied between individuals. For many dancers it was important to have a costume that felt personal and fitted well. For the participants of this study a self-made costume created more meaning than a ready-made or tailored costume. They valued handprint and it was desired to be displayed in the costume. According to the study, it is hard to find a ready-made old-fashioned costume, so the small group making their own costumes who are inspired by the past respect the original tradition of the event by wearing old-fashioned clothing.

The purpose of this study was to examine the possible connection of applicants' self-esteem and gender to their performance in student selection for teacher education. The significance of teacher's personality has grown with working conditions that increasingly demand better social skills. Teachers have reported unusual tiredness and the willingness to quit has become more common. It seems reasonable to consider self-esteem as a protective buffer against the emotional stress these working conditions present for teachers, and therefore the student selection at least shouldn't favor those with whom this protective buffer is low. Self-esteem's connection with student selection for teacher education has not been studied before, but due to prior results regarding the broader benefits of high self-esteem, it was hypothesized to be positively connected to success in student selection. The selection process consists of a theory test and an aptitude test, which were addressed separately and together. In line with prior research, women were hypothesized to be more successful in theory test and men in the aptitude test. This study was a part of the SeSTE research project (Selecting Students for Teacher Education). There were 470 subjects who had participated in the selection process for teacher education in the University of Helsinki. Self-esteem was measured with Rosenberg self-esteem scale as self-assessment. The main method of analyzing was multinomial logistic regression. Gender was examined alongside self-esteem, and the effect of age was controlled. The hypotheses for self-esteem were mostly confirmed with no apparent connection seen with the aptitude test. Gender related hypotheses were confirmed as women were more likely to pass the theory test and men the aptitude test. According to this study the student selection slightly favors applicants with higher self-esteem, but the effect is small. If the hypothesis of high self-esteem as a useful protective buffer for teachers gains more evidence, it might be beneficial according to this study, to consider the possibility of focusing the student selection more to applicants with higher self-esteem.

In the school world today more attention should be put to the attitudes towards difference. Individuals should learn to recognize and accept diversities in the society. The focus of the ethics is to assist pupils to become conscious of their personal worldview and be aware of the differences of their fellow pupil's views. Main goal is to be able to encounter others more tolerant and respect the different values in the world. The aim of ethics teaching is to support pupil's identity work to find a tolerant and open-minded cultural identity. First it's important to become aware of the personal cultural background before understanding other views and co-operate with people from different backgrounds. The aim of this research is to clarify the objectives and contents of ethics in the National Curriculum 2004. The focus is on the theme Self-Awareness and Cultural Identity. This qualitative research is based on interviews. The research studies the views of primary school ethics teachers about cultural identity, the goals of their teaching and the methods to support the development of the pupil's cultural identity in the framework of ethics. Eight primary school ethics teachers from different backgrounds were interviewed for this research. The interview was a three parted focused interview. The material was analysed with a content analysis. The teachers supported their pupil's identity work with various methods. The common view of the development was towards a respectful and tolerant cultural identity. The main results of the research suggest that teachers should develop their pupil's skills from five different content categories. The categories are the awareness of the self, cultural awareness, co-operation and interaction, cultural education and cultural competence. The results emphasize the development of different skills: thinking skills, self-regulation skills, interaction skills, co-operational skills, conversational skills and cultural skills.

The aim of this master’s thesis was to describe mediation activities as part of a group discussion task in an academic English course. In addition, the goal was to investigate how successful mediation affects interaction. The perspective on mediation in this study is guided by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and mediation is defined through the CEFR descriptors for mediation. The descriptors were added in the CEFR, and mediation presented as one of the modes of language, in the 2018 CEFR Companion Volume. The new volume, as well as the concept of mediation, further emphasizes the communicative and action-oriented approach to language learning. Mediation refers to co-creation of meaning, facilitating understanding and communication between participants in interaction. The hypothesis in this thesis was that successful mediation has a positive effect on interaction whereas problems in mediation have the opposite effect. The participants (N=51) were students from three different academic English courses in the University of Helsinki Language Centre. The data were gathered as part of a course task consisting of small group discussions. The data consist of students’ answers to post-discussion questionnaires as well as video recordings of the discussions. Mixed methods approach was used in this study, and qualitative data were analyzed both inductively and deductively. This study concretizes the concept of mediation and makes mediation activities visible. It al-so shows how mediation activities can be described and assessed from the perspective of the CEFR descriptors. The results show that mediation can be taught and practiced, and that the CEFR descriptors can be used in defining different types of mediation. In addition, the descriptors can be used as a guideline in students’ self-assessment. However, the view on language learning the concept of mediation represents is seen as more significant than the specific descriptors. Mediation embodies a communicative approach that emphasizes the social nature of learning, cultural competence and the active role of the language learner. The conclusion in this thesis is that adopting a mediation-perspective towards classroom activities contributes to a more communicative approach to language learning and teaching.

This research aimed to investigate how Arne Trageton's "writing to read" method was incorporated into the reading practices of preschool children and first graders. The research questions were: 1. What kind of actions and collaboration emerged when students used the Trageton method for their reading practice? 2. How did the collaboration between children emerge, and how did it support student work within the Trageton method? The new curriculum for pre-primary education and basic education emphasizes learning by doing, phenomena, play and technological teaching skills. In Finland, we have a long tradition of teaching children to read. The concept of reading is changing, however, and it demands new teaching methods. Many studies (e.g. Fallon & Khoo 2014; Hyun & Davis 2005; Kumpulainen 1996; Lim 2012; Maynard 2010, Yelland 2011) have proven that technological environments can offer a motivating learning setting and may increase collaboration and interaction between students. The video material for this study was filmed in a primary school in Espoo in Spring 2013.Six preschoolers and six first graders were working using Trageton method. They were inventing and writing words with a word-processing program. They worked in pairs. The video material was analyzed through a content analysis. The Trageton method resulted collaborative actions. When pairs discussed, for example, the names or sounds of letters, it helped to find those letters on the keyboard and create words together. Simultaneously, it revealed the children's knowledge about language to themselves and to the teacher. The emerged literacy did came out as students were discussing about writing. Teachers could thus assist students if it was discovered that their ability to hear the sounds of letters or create words differed from that of their partners. As a result, writing via this method led to immerse joy in learning and increased motivation. It can therefore be said that writing to read can be used as a part of a new curriculum. This method enables children to learn at their own level, helping them work together and use technology by their own basis. There were also some weaknesses in the method. The most significant were the lack of spelling in general and the fact that the students weren't so enthusiastic on checking up the spelling independently afterwards.

The theoretical context of this qualitative study are the leadership in early childhood education and the organizational change. The leadership and the change of leadership are studied generally and then the distributed leadership and the distributed organization are studied specifically. This study examines how teachers and leaders view the distributed leadership and what kind of skills the leaders and the workers need in the organization of distributed leadership and how they view the organizational change. This is qualitative phenomenology research. The material of the study was collected at half structured interviews which were taken part in six teachers and two leaders from the city of Hamina during November and December 2017. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The analysis was done with the methods of content analysis. This study shows that the leadership in early childhood education is in change and the leadership meets new challenges. Distributed leadership challenges both the leaders and the workers. The results of the study show that the interviewed teachers and leaders see distributed leadership as teamwork and interactional work custom. The distributed leadership was difficult to execute, because teachers worked as leaders without the status of the leader. The interviewed viewed that the difficulties of distributed organization are indefinite structures and work tasks of leadership and too large entireties of leadership. The interviewed viewed that the organizational change was unsuccessful. The interviewed teachers and the leader felt that they didn't have an opportunity to influence the change and the given reasons for doing the organizational change were incoherent and the results of the change were not estimated. They would like to increase the number of leaders and clear the determinations of work roles and responsibilities. This study suggests that the city of Hamina should increase the competence of the leaders and the personnel. In practice distributed leadership means investing the knowhow of leadership and working community skills. The human resource management and the motivating of the personnel are the main challenges in the future. Qualitative early childhood education is possible only with the motivated workers.

Goal. The aim of this thesis is to study multilingualism and the role of linguistic diversity in teaching in a Finnish-Swedish school context. Previous research has emphasized that multilingualism should be considered as the normal starting point in teaching and seen as a resource. In order to achieve the purpose of the thesis, I have formulated the following research questions. What influences classroom teachers' perception of multilingualism in school? What is the perception of multilingualism as part of teaching by teachers? Methods. The thesis used a qualitative research method with a phenomenographic approach. As a material collection method, semi-structured interviews were used. Five class teachers from three different Swedish-language schools, in two different medium-sized municipalities in southern Finland, participated in the research. During the interviews, the informants worked with grades one to two and five to six. The material was analyzed using qualitative analysis. With the help of the qualitative analysis, the class teachers' voice was highlighted on how multilingualism is perceived in today's school and as part of the teaching. Results and conclusions. The teachers who participated in the thesis perceived multilingualism in school, as something that is influenced by society and the operating culture. Multilingualism was perceived as a positive resource, which increases openness between different actors in the school, and which increases tolerance for differences and diversity. That multilingualism was perceived as a positive resource reduced prejudice in school. Multilingualism as part of teaching was perceived to be related to teacher identity, learning and language awareness. The teachers described that multilingualism can be a source of knowledge and function as a support for learning. The results showed that it is important to support students' multilingual background in order to strengthen students' self-esteem and cultural identity. The teachers' language awareness was described as a relevant factor, which influenced how multilingualism is perceived in connection with teaching. This shows a broad phenomenon that needs to be examined and made more aware of in the future.

Purpose. There has been a rapid technological development in our society. New inventions have made many jobs easier, but in return there is a demand for educated personnel. This in turn puts higher demands on peoples literacy. In the Pisa surveys the Finnish pupils have shown a high level of reading literacy, but unfortunately the trend has been negative and the number of pupils with low levels of literacy have increased. This development can be observed especially among boys. In Pisa 2018 20% of the boys were weak readers with a literacy not sufficient for further studies. The same survey found a decline in attitudes towards reading and 63% of the boys replied that they read only if they have to. The goal of this thesis is to investigate if the same patterns can be found among pupils in a primary school. The study examines how often the pupils read for enjoyment on their spare time and what motivates their reading behaviour. Furthermore, the study will examine whether there are differences between boys and girls or between pupils at different grades. Methods. The study was conducted in the autumn of 2020 in a Finnish primary school. The data was collected with a survey. The pupils took part in the study during schooltime. The sample consisted of all the pupils from grades 3 to 6 in the investigated school (N=236). The study received 157 responses of which 156 were accepted and analysed. The material was analysed with the statistical program SPSS. Results and conclusions. The results of the study showed big differences in pupils reading behaviour already in the primary school. 79% of the pupils read regularly on their spare time, but 21% read more sporadically or not at all. The result also showed that the girls read more often on their spear time than the boys do. The pupils showed a strong self-efficacy and a positive attitude toward reading There was a tendency for a decline in intrinsic motivation and attitude among older pupils. In this study the reading behaviour could be explained by gender, intrinsic motivation, attitude, and the perception that you read only if you have to.