Browsing by master's degree program "Magisterprogrammet utbildning i förändring"

Some previous findings suggest the effectiveness of physical activity (PA) on children's cognitive outcomes. Studying preschool PA enables to understand children’s considerable part of daily PA and to examine its relation to other skills specifically within preschool context. Early numeracy (EN) refers to young children’s mathematical proficiency, including relational and counting skills, as in understanding and operating with quantities, number relation, classification, and the concept of numbers. EN skills are shown to strongly predict later mathematical competence and academic achievements. Thus, it is important to study and support the development of children’s EN skills. However, previous research has mainly focused on school-age children, while research in early ages is scarce. No previous studies have used device-based measurement of PA with an individual test of EN to understand the associations between young children’s preschool PA and EN performance. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between PA during preschool hours and EN performance in children aged 4 to 5 years. More specifically, the following research questions are addressed: 1) How are PA intensity levels during preschool hours associated with EN performance in 4- to 5-year-old children? 2) What kind of profiles regarding PA intensity levels during preschool hours and EN performance can be identified among 4- to 5-year-old children? The sample consisted of children (N = 95, Mage = 4.6) attending preschools in Helsinki, Finland. PA was measured during 5 consecutive preschool days using hip-worn accelerometers, while EN performance was assessed using Van Luit and colleagues’ (2006) Finnish Early Numeracy Test. The data is analysed using quantitative research analysis. To answer the first research question, correlation matrix is performed to reveal relation between the variables of interest. For the second research question, latent profile analysis is used to identify children’s profiles according to their PA data and EN test scores, while the differences in profiles are compared using ANOVA. The results of the correlation analysis revealed no significant correlation between PA level during preschool hours and EN scores in children of ages 4 to 5 years. Latent profile analysis identified three profiles of children with high, medium, and low PA, whereas EN performance did not significantly differ among the profiles. In conclusion, while the results show significantly different amounts of PA among children during preschool, the main finding of the current study is in line with previous research, suggesting no direct relation between preschool PA and EN performance. Further research controlling for other factors that may influence the results is needed to examine how variation in PA level is related to EN performance in preschool.

In order to follow the principles of sustainable education, the well-being of students should be established as its core factor. In searching to alleviate stress, educators pay attention to students’ self-agency skills and effective study methods in order to regulate learning and maintain a meaningful life. Recent research shows that music is a powerful motor in building young people's identity, and it is consequential that educational stakeholders must create new structures and enable the study of music in a comprehensive way. One of these opportunities is the ongoing reform of the general upper secondary school diplomas, conducted by the Finnish National Agency for Education EDUFI [Opetushallitus, OPH]. This study aims to reveal the current reform process of the upper secondary school diploma in music and its possible effect on the Finnish education system and adolescence well-being. This reform will inevitably affect the educational culture and society in several sectors. For this purpose, experts involved in the reform mentioned were interviewed. The participants of the study were invited to discuss the essential questions of the reform in order to clarify the current status of the process, and its prospects. The data from the interviews draws on experts’ opinion on proposing a reform to the current upper secondary diploma in music. Interviews are analyzed in connection with previous research and the current state of the reform. This paper reinforces insights into how music plays a role in adolescent identity modification. In addition, music diploma reform has the potential to make it visible and appreciated. In connection with the interviews, visions and suggestions for implementing the diplomas in the future will emerge. However, the shared understanding of the meanings of music education for the benefit of young people emerges from the interviews, appearing as the most significant discovery of this study.

This study examines the use of emotional abstract words in conversation between individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Language Development (ASD-TL) and Neurotypical Development (ND). To understand ASD's word application in the daily context, this study evaluates word usage through conversations. In view of the severity differences within ASD, ASD-TL without language delays may provide insight into the impact of social impairment on their use of abstract words. This study employs the concept of embodied theory, and compares word application between two groups based on emotion-referring words. This study applied a mixed-methods approach by conducting ten face-to-face Finnish conversations with Finnish-speaking males (n = 20), each group with an ASD-TL and a ND. First, a quantitative comparison was conducted between the two groups regarding the frequency and variety of the target words, and then a qualitative analysis was conducted to gain further insight into their usage. As a result, ASD-TLs used emotional words 22 times in a total of 12 words variety, while NDs used them 30 times in a total of 10 words variety. ASD-TL applied these words for expressing feelings and desires, as well as for asking questions and clarifying specifics as if the NDs. Therefore, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the frequency and variety of abstract words. In conclusion, this study indicates that people with ASD-TL are capable of communicating abstract language as ND people, which helps to reduce the stigma associated with ASD of having difficulties understanding and expressing feelings. To gain a deeper understanding of ASD's daily language application, future research should examine idiomatic expressions and eye-gazing patterns in between online and face-to-face conversations.

Objectives. Internationally, concern for public health trends, such as the spread of STIs and the prevalence of early and unintended pregnancies, has driven the development of school-based sexuality education programmes. Transnational organisations produce policy recommendations for sexuality education, often published as part of broader documents. Previous research has shown that moralising discourses remain prevalent in health promotion, and that political processes shape the work of transnational organisations. Through a document analysis, I aim to explore the problematisations and discourses that ground normative claims by transnational organisations on school-based sexuality education. Methods. Bacchi’s poststructural What’s the Problem Represented to be? (WPR) approach was used to analyse four documents authored by four transnational organisations (the EC, the EWL, the OECD and UNESCO), by means of a critical discourse analysis approach to document analysis. The WPR approach was complemented with reference to Jones’s sexuality education discourse framework. The documents, published between 2020 and 2021, were freely accessible online in English, and their geographical scope included Europe. Results and conclusions. My analysis found that recommendations are strongly grounded in a preventive ethos that views young people as vulnerable, yet assigns them responsibility over decision making in matters related to their sexuality. While the authoring organisations are aware of a need to diminish the focus of sexuality education on risks and disease, they employ the language of health pervasively. The language of health dominates discussion of not just physical well-being, but also of mental and social dimensions. The analysis found a liberal discourse orientation to be prevalent in the data, despite the presence of some critical discourses in documents by the EWL and the OECD. This range of discourses coincides with the use of cis-heteronormative language. The contribution of this thesis is an invitation to envision sexuality education policy possibilities beyond the dominant discourses.

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.

Rwanda’s national development plans recognize the need to improve the quality of teacher education. Values have an important role in the new national curriculum. The understanding of the explicit role of values in education and the interest towards values education has increased internationally in the current century. The research on ubuntu philosophy has proliferated in recent decades, and it has been suggested as a potential notion that can restructure the philosophical underpinnings of education, especially in sub-Saharan African contexts. This study investigated the role of values and ubuntu in Rwandan teacher education. The aim of the study is to evaluate how teacher educators attach their values and ubuntu philosophy to their descriptions of teaching practices. This qualitative study was based on narrative inquiry. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted in Rwanda with the teacher educators of the University of Rwanda-College of Education. Snowball sampling was utilized to recruit the interviewees. The interview data was analyzed using Riessman’s (2008) thematic narrative analysis approach. The narratives indicated that the teacher educators acknowledge the importance of values in teaching profession, and ubuntu is a relevant teaching philosophy to them, although there are no clear frameworks for its application in Rwanda. The narratives reflected the teacher educators’ personal, interpersonal and professional values. Their perspectives on ubuntu corresponded with the conceptualizations constructed in the literature. Five categories of value-informed teaching practices were established based on the narratives. These categories described the contexts in which the teacher educators aim to actualize their values. Four categories of ubuntu-informed teaching practices were identified. These reflected the different approaches that the teacher educators utilize in teaching the values and attitudes of ubuntu to the students.