Browsing by discipline "Educational Psychology"

Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract The purpose of the study was to examine primary school teachers' sense of professional agency in relation to the new Finnish curriculum reform (POPS 2014) and what kind of resources or challenges teachers faced in relation to professional identity and work practices. The study also examined the changes in the new curriculum taken into account by teachers and future scenarios during the first year of the introduction of the curriculum in 2016–2017. The new curriculum differs from previous reforms for example in the emphasis on continuous assessment and learning to learn skills. The role of the teacher is to increasingly act as a guide and evaluator of the student's learning process. The aim of the study is to produce new information about the sense of teachers' professional agency in the face of the challenges and changes of the new curriculum. In this study, professional agency has been seen through a subject-centered sociocultural approach and is defined and understood as teachers perceptions of the ability to influence their sociocultural environment. Professional agency then manifests itself in the interaction of social conditions, such as cultural and material resources, as well as the professional identities and competencies of individuals. Professional agency is seen as intentions to influence and bring change. The study was carried out as a qualitative study. The research material was collected by interviewing nine teachers in grades 1-6 with university education. The research material was collected through open pre-questionnaires and actual interviews. The actual research data of the study were collected in the spring of 2017. The data were processed and analyzed according to Strauss and Corbin's Grounded theory method, which is a highly structured analysis of qualitative data. The results of the study showed that the role of the teacher, professional identity, interaction skills, learning environments, IT skills and leadership were influencing teachers’ professional sense of agency. The new curriculum was seen as both a resource and a threat to the professional agency. Teachers experienced strong sense of agency in the pedagogical implementation of the curriculum, but weak agency if the instructions related to the new curriculum had come from supervisors without discussion or training. Teachers considered the scope of the curriculum, assessment, and student self-direction as challenging. Teachers stated that the requirements for IT skills had increased and they requested more training and resources. The teachers of this study saw themselves as active agents and teachers as well as influencers of society in the future. The study provides a good opportunity to view the primary school teachers’ sense of agency and the related challenges and resources as the new curriculum reform is implemented in schools. The research helps to understand teachers attitudes towards pedagogical reforms and changes in the school context. The study also opens up future scenarios of teaching and being a teacher.

Aims. Recently, the interactional side of teaching has been emphasized in the school environment. At the same time, the aspect of knowledge continues to exist. Combining the dimension of knowledge and the dimension of humane presence, from the point of view of teaching, has not been the topic of the recent discussion in the field of pedagogy. There is still unclarity how these two dimensions merge in practice in teaching. The focus of this research is the dialogue between the dimension of knowledge and the interactional dimension of being a teacher. The aim of this re-search was to find ways how teachers can balance between these dimensions. The framework of this study builds upon a theory of a teacher profession by Malinen (2003) which provides tools for theoretical scrutinizing. There does not exist any further empirical research utilizing on Malinen’s (2003) theory. In the framework of this research, I place the scrutinizing the different dimensions of being a teacher into the context of dialectic. This way I deepen the conceptual understanding of the dialogue between the teacher dimensions. Methods. This research is a qualitative research and the data has been collected with theme inter-views. The subjects of the study were five class teachers who all had different work experience in education and they were from different age groups. All the subjects were in different phases of their careers and they worked in different schools. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis and Malinen’s (2003) theory. The interviews focused on the teachers’ own exper-iments of their professional role. The analysis of this research was a theoretically oriented empirical analysis that used both data-driven analysis and theory-driven analysis. Results and conclusions. The results offer an empirical model of how Malinen’s (2003) theory’s epistemic and existential dimensions manifest in the context of class teacher’s work. Furthermore, the results provide a theoretical model which develops further the theoretical parse of epistemic and existential aspects on the basis of Malinen’s (2003) theory. These results provide concrete tools for teachers to use in practice and how teachers can balance between the different aspects of being a teacher. On the other hand, the results also offer an improvement on the theory a teacher profession in the theoretical research field of pedagogy. The results display and classifies empirically how epistemic and existential dynamics play out in teacher’s profession.

Touching is an important part of everyday interaction between students (Karvonen, ym., 2018a; Tainio, 2016; Herkama, 2012; Goodwin, 2006), but only some of these touches prevail as memories after the school years. In this research my main focus was to find out what kind of touching between students is memorized from the school years: what kind of touches are chosen to be recalled and how gender is visible in the touching memories. Touching memories related to school years have been studied (Karvonen ym., 2018b; Kinnunen, 2013), but no research has earlier focused on touching memories between students. The research data consists of written school memories collected by The Finnish Literature Society (SKS). From the data I analysed the nature of touching described, how the touching roles were divided by gender and how boys and girls were described to touch and being touched. This study was a qualitative study and as a loose methodological approach I applied oral history. The analysis was made by content analysis. The most common ways of touching among student memorized from the shool years were playful touching, touching related to harassment and violent touching. Differences between boys and girls in touching roles and the ways of touching were discovered. A boy touching a girl was the most commonly recalled touching situation, following by a boy touching a boy -situation. Touching among girls was rarely recalled. The most common ways of touching by boys were described as bullying, fighting and teasing. For the girls the most common ways of touching were touching while playing and defending by touching.

This study is a part of Learning to be (L2B) project evaluation. L2B project is Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and it is providing practices and methodologies for assessing social emotional and health (SHE) skills at schools. This study is concentrated on the project’s pre-test questionnaire’s section that was used to measure students’ social emotional competence (SEC). The instrument that was used to measure students’ SEC, was the Social and Emotional Competence Questionnaire (SECQ), that is based on the CASEL (as cited in Zhou & Ee, 2012, p. 28) model of social emotional learning (SEL). In the CASEL (2019) model, SEL is used to improve students’ SEC. In a previous study, the SECQ meter has been noticed to be potential instrument to measure SEC, but a follow up research with more versatile sample of respondents from various cultural backgrounds is needed, as well as examining the validity of the meter (Zhou & Ee, 2012). This study is responding to these needs as Learning to be project is examining students’ SEC in five European countries. Additionally, previous study has shown, that the SECQ might not function as well with younger as with older students (Zhou & Ee, 2012). Therefore, in this study, the students’ perceptions of their SEC will be compared between younger and older students. The functionality of the SECQ in both age groups will also be compared. The purpose of this study was to examine, how the students participating in L2B project perceived their SEC in the pre-test phase of the project, how well did the SECQ measure SEC, were there any differences between younger and older students in perceptions of their SEC and whether the SECQ functioned equally in both age groups. In L2B the data was collected from nearly 1500 students aged 8–15 from 20 different schools from each of the five participating countries. In SECQ students responded on a scale 1–6 (1 = completely false, 6 = completely true) to claims describing good social emotional skills. From the descriptive statistics of the SECQ data, conclusions about students’ perceptions of their SEC were made. With the same data, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the functionality of the SECQ and if the different subscales factored complying with an original scale. To compare different age groups, the students were divided into two groups: aged 8–11 and aged 12–15. The perceptions of students’ SEC in these two age groups were compared with independent-samples testing and the functionality of the SECQ with reliability analyses by comparing the SECQ data’s Cronbach’s alpha (α) values in different age groups. In the pre-test phase of L2B project, the students perceived their SEC to be fairly good on average. Consequently, there still is room for improving students’ SEC and it is possible to expect, that the SEL intervention in L2B project will improve students’ SEC. In this study, the SECQ turned out to function quite well and the factoring did comply mostly with the original scale. The result indicates that the SECQ can be used as a valid instrument for measuring SEC. Younger and older students seemed to have somewhat differing perceptions of their SEC, but in this study, it is left unclear, whether the differences were due to the age per se or merely the large sample size. This should be examined with more versatile and accurate methods. The functionality of SECQ measure seemed also to have differences between age groups, in order that the SECQ seemed to function slightly poorer with younger than with older students. Altogether, the measure turned out to be functionable for examining SEC, regardless of the respondents’ age.

The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between socio-digital participation (SDP), sleeping habits and well-being among 6th graders in Helsinki. More specifically, it was examined what kind of sleeping habits 6th graders in Helsinki have and how SDP is associated with 6th graders quality of sleep, amount of sleep, bedtime, and well-being. In addition, the purpose was to find out how the 6th graders' sleeping habits explain the association between SDP and well-being. This research setup was chosen because in previous studies the relationship of these three factors has not been studied in Finland among primary school students. The research setup was also relevant because the importance of adequate amount and quality of sleep for a growing 6th grader child is important from the point of view of learning and well-being. This study increases the understanding of parents and educators on how the use of technology and sleeping habits can affect children's wellbeing. The data (N=696) for this study were acquired from the Mind the Gap -research data which was collected from 33 primary school 6th graders in Helsinki in spring 2013. The respondents' sleeping habits were evaluated based on average values and the relationship between the preliminary variables were analyzed using the Spearman correlation factors. The relationship between socio-digital participation and sleeping habits on well-being as well the mediating effect of sleeping habits on socio-digital participation and well-being were evaluated using path analyses. All of the analyses were made separately for boys and girls. The results suggested that the 6th grader boys in Helsinki slept more and better than girls. Active use of sociodigital participation among girls had a negative effect in the quality and amount of sleep. Socio-digital participation had a similar effect on both girls and boys and was related to going to bed later. The quality of sleep for girls partly mediated the relationship between socio-digital participation, school burnout and satisfaction with life. The amount of sleep also partly explained the correlation between the socio-digital participation and satisfaction with life among girls. There were no mediating effects between the boys' sleeping habits on socio-digital participation and well-being.

Aim. During the last decade, there has been a lot of discussion about agency as a part of children’s lives in and out of school. Agency has even become one of the priorities of Finnish education in the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education. Still, the definition of agency remains ambiguous, even contradictory; there is no univocal way to define the phenomenon. One way to conceptualise agency is to view it as an individual’s (or group’s) ability to influence on their life circumstances and practices in which they are involved (Rainio, 2010). Rainio has identified dialectical contradictions in supporting students’ agentive participation in education. One such contradictory dimension is between agency and control in educational relationships. It is important that teachers find ways to balance with this dialectics to enable pupils to practice their agency in the pressures of school’s structure, rules and other educational aims. The aim of this study is to find and specify the ways in which the teacher can, by employing certain interaction and pedagogical techniques, give pupils’ agency an opportunity to be realised in the context of phenomenon based learning in special education (see also Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011; Rainio, 2010). Methodology. Qualitative video research was utilised as the method of research in this study. The data of this research was collected by videotaping phenomenon based learning in class of special education. At the time of taping there were eight pupils and one special education teacher present. In this study 7 h 54 min of videotape was analysed using interaction analysis. The aim of the analysis was to identify all the episodes in which the teachers was enabling pupil agency. These episodes were then compared with each other to identify the common interactional patterns employed by the teacher. Results and conclusion. Five different ways of enabling student agency were identified in this study: making pupils accountable authors, active positioning, recognising and appreciating ideas and contributions, sharing authority and transferring authority. The results were parallel to what Lipponen and Kumpulainen (2011) have reported as empowering agency of pre-service teachers. The results indicate that it is important to enable every pupil to participate in the teaching event in a way that supports the empowerment of their agency by taking into account their own level of development as well. By doing so the teacher is developing pupils’ agency and empowering their ability to make a difference in their own life. This is a particularly significant observation in terms of integrated pupils with special needs. The explicated examples in this study give teachers practical tools to enable and empower pupils’ agency in everyday life at schools.

Epistemic beliefs are somewhat stable conceptions of what knowledge is. On one hand, they have been suggested to be a developmental sequence, and on the other hand, consist of multiple intertwined dimensions. The aim of this study is to research the connections in university students’ epistemic beliefs, and their relation to academic disciplines and academic achievement. Previous studies have suggested that while some disciplinary differences exist, the more relativistic epistemic beliefs have generally been seen as more sophisticated ones. These more relativistic epistemic beliefs have previously been shown to be positively connected to better academic achievement. A person-oriented approach is applied in this study, to provide a tangible perspective to the students’ epistemic beliefs. The sample consisted of 831 first-year students from University of Helsinki from years 2013 and 2014. The data used in the study was part of Mind the Gap –project, and it was collected with a multi-sectioned questionnaire, mainly from large introductory courses. Additional data from the study register was used to examine academic achievement. The data was analyzed statistically with SPSS, using TwoStep cluster analysis, crosstabs, and Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). Three epistemic profiles were found: Non-Reflective Students, Reflective Theorists, and Practical Academics. Some significant differences, supported by earlier research, were found in the representation of the identified epistemic profiles in the faculties. Reflective Theorists were broadly represented in the Faculty of Social Sciences and sparse in the Faculty of Medicine. Additionally, Practical Academics were largely present in the Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, and Non-Reflective Students in the Faculty of Law. In regards to Study Performance, Reflective Theorists had significantly higher Study Performance (GPA) than the two other profiles. This study overall broadened the comprehensive understanding of university students’ epistemic beliefs, and can be useful in planning university studies and student intake locally.

Earlier studies have shown that during school transition, the needs of children change and the meaning of peer increases. Transition from elementary school level to secondary school is an important time for young people. Both parents and teachers have trouble in meeting the changing needs of children both inside and outside school context. Changes can be seen in decreased school engagement, increased school burn-out and decreased self-rated health. Physical exercise during spare-time decreases and also quitting hobbies is common. The aim of this study was to find out how much and in what degree 6th and 7th graders in Helsinki are physically active during their spare-time. The research also indicates whether sport is their main interest and how do they rate their health status. The study also examined how physical exercise during spare-time, interest towards sports and self-rated health interrelate and explain the students' school engagement and burn-out. Moreover the aim of this study was to find out, what kind of changes the students experienced during the transition from elementary to secondary school, and are the changes related or explained by the students' interest towards sports, spare-time physical activity or self-rated health. This study is a part of the Mind the Gap - project (2013–2017, no. 265528) funded by the Finnish Academy. The data for this study were collected by questionnaire in two parts; the first time from 6th graders during spring of 2013 and the second time when they moved to 7th grade in fall of 2013. The correlation analysis and paired samples t-test were used to investigate changes in school engagement and burn-out, amount of physical exercise during spare time, self rated health and the form of involvement in hobbies. The participants were divided into groups based on differences in physical activity during spare time, self rated heath and interest toward sports. The differences in physical activity and self-rated health were studied with one-way ANOVA and the interest toward sports with t-test. The changes in physical activity and self-rated health were analyzed with repeated measures ANOVA. The results showed that the 6th graders who rated their health as good exercised more during spare time, were more engaged and felt less burned out in school than the other participants. In 7th grade the self-rated health did not explain engagement in school. The physical activity of 6th graders did not explain school engagement or burn out of students. In 7th grade the students who exercised more felt more engaged and less burned out in school. In 6th grade the students who were interested in sports felt more burned out in school than others. In 7th grade the interest in sports did not show any affect on burn out in school. During transition from 6th to 7th grade, school engagement and spare time physical activity decreased, informal hobby participation increased and formal participation in hobbies decreased nearly significantly (p=.054). Self-rated health and burn-out in school did not change. The research showed that participants, who did not change their habits in physical activity, felt the least decrease in school engagement. The students who did not change their interest towards sports, felt the least changes. According to this study, changing interest towards sport and physical activity has a negative effect on school transition. Adult should converse with adolescent about the attitude towards sports and physical activity during spare-time, in order for adolescent to be conscious of their part of decision-making and reasons to do so.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how the phenomena of agency and control occur in an action research study of school satisfaction. The main focus is on the description about agency and control given by pupils as they contemplated the satisfaction of transitioning to lower secondary school. Another area of interest is action research as a method that supports the agency of the pupils. A sixth grade from a village school that emphasizes the learnercentred pedagogy took part in the research in the spring of 2016. The action research consisted of four stages: introduction and conceptualization, data collection, analysis and individual reflection. In this thesis, the data consisted of a group discussion of the analysis stage and the pupils' individual reflection tests. Content analysis was used in analysing the discussion and texts of the pupils when examining what kinds of occurrences of agency and control could be detected. When finding out what kinds of initiatives of agency the pupils took in interactive situations, the analysis of interaction was used in analysing the group discussion with a focus on initiatives. In the conversation of the pupils, the most essential matters concerning control were the school rules and teachers who made sure that the rules were followed. Control was seen as a restriction to creativity but also as something that brought safety. The talk about breaking the rules together was an essential thought that reflected agency through opposition. Freedom and independence for studying as well as for transport was hoped for. The answers reflected the youth's need for independence and its meaning for each individual's school satisfaction. The initiatives varied and changed quickly in the interactive situation of the action research. For example, the pupils would take initiatives of supporting each other's ideas by repeating the same idea. However, in constructive initiatives they started to modify an idea presented by someone else. In group discussion, dividing and opposing initiatives took place, which occurred, for instance, by focusing too much on the details or rejecting another person's idea. There is a pedagogical contradiction in everyday school life. On the first hand, pupils should be guided to become independent agents but on the other hand, a safe school environment should be maintained for everyone. The purpose of this study was to bring this pedagogical paradox to the fore and to clarify in a concrete way what kind of agency and initiatives concerning it can occur in everyday life, and how all these matters are interwoven into the pupils' school satisfaction.

The new Finnish curriculum (FNBE, 2014) calls for active and engaging learning that supports students' agency and active role in their own learning. It emphasizes creating meaningful contexts that interrelate also with students' out-of-school interests. Research shows participating with organized out-of-school activities has a positive relation to school grades. In addition, it seems that school engagement is low among Finnish 6th graders (Salmela-Aro et al., 2016). However, little is known of what currently interests Finnish pupils and how their topics of interest are related to academic well-being. This study explores the topics of interest and interest-driven participation and further, their relation to school engagement, school burnout and grades (GPA) of 6th graders. The study was part of Mind the Gap project (Academy of Finland #265528) and the participants (n=735) were 6th graders from Helsinki. I conducted content categorization of the whole sample that showed a rich variation of interests, largest categories being sports (43.8%) and arts (27.9%). The quantitative analyses looked at the intensity and form of the activities. I identified three interest profiles with two-step cluster analysis: Organized team participators, Informal individualistic participators and Intensive participators. The Organized team participators were most interested in team sports. They reported high school engagement, low burnout and high GPA whereas Informal individualistic participators had lower school engagement, high GPA and moderate school burnout. They were the most interested in music and arts. Intensive participators, who were especially interested in social interaction, were engaged to school, but had higher levels of burnout and the lowest GPA. The results indicate lack of supporting interest-driven participation in schools: only Intensive participators were almost as active inside as outside of school. It may be difficult for teachers to adopt new practices that call for supporting interest-driven participation. However, it would be important to use students' personal interests to bridge between school world and students' lives and to promote student agency and support school engagement.