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Objectives. In recent years, the legislation and guidance documents on early childhood education (ECE) have undergone substantive changes, which, for the first time in their history, have highlighted the importance of leadership while also imposing new obligations on leadership in ECE. The study examines how leadership in ECE is defined in the speech of ECE centre directors and how pedagogical leadership in ECE is manifested in the speech of the ECE centre directors in the context of focus group discussions. Methods. Part of the material used in the study was from the Discourse of leadership in the diverse field of early childhood education project, an international research project on leadership in ECE led by Elina Fonsén. The qualitative research material consisted of three focus group discussions with ECE centre directors conducted in three Finnish municipalities in winter 2018. A total of 13 ECE centre directors participated in these three focus group discussions. The method used to analyse the material was the phenomenological method, which was also subject to theory-driven content analysis. Results and conclusions. In the study, leadership in ECE was manifested as a kind of distributed leadership, which was expressed through responsibilities linked to the job descriptions of different actors and at different levels, but also by referring to responsibilities independent of job descriptions. Leadership in ECE was described as being in a state of flux due to the reform of guidance documents, legislation and extended supervisory work. In the study, pedagogical leadership in ECE was expressed through five different clusters of meaning: the importance of discussion and interaction, the wellbeing of employees, pedagogical leadership linked to job descriptions, pedagogical development work and recognition of the value of pedagogical leadership through resources. The results show that the municipal context affects both leadership in ECE and pedagogical leadership, as well as their implementation. Leadership in ECE and, in particular, pedagogical leadership, require well-functioning structures and sufficient time for discussion and cooperation between different actors. In addition, various actors are expected to be aware of the objectives of ECE activities and to be willing to work on developing ECE. According to the research findings, however, fulfilling these conditions requires financial and human resources, which were felt to be insufficient.

The purpose of this study is to research the views of kindergarten Directors on pedagogical leadership, the realisation of pedagogical leadership and the challenges of pedagogical lea-dership in everyday life. Pedagogical leadership is a broad concept, and its implementation in everyday life is challenging from time to time. There is a lot of professional discussion about the adequacy of time resources and how the pedagogical leadership is perceived in early childhood education organizations. The pedagogical leadership of the kindergarten Di-rector is relevant to children's learning and well-being. The Director's work is not merely about recording the numbers, but rather more about developing of the work and activities of a kindergarten. The study data was collected with an electronic questionnaire delivered through social me-dia during the autumn of 2019. The survey was shared in a Facebook group called Early Childhood Education Teachers. Nearly all the respondents were Directors of different size kindergartens from the Helsinki metropolitan area. The analysis of the responses was car-ried out by gathering the results into themes. The analysis began by summarising and simp-lifying the received answers. Colour codes were used to tag responses, which helped to find similarities between the responses. After summarising and simplifying the responses, the in-formation was searched for concept keywords that were then charted into a table. During the charting the trending concepts were given common themes. Pedagogical leadership was felt to be about the implementation of Early Childhood Educati-on Plan and making it familiar to people. Pedagogical leadership was also seen to be about having dialogs about the objectives, design and evaluation of pedagogics. Pedagogic lea-dership is also about having the presence of the Director in the unit, providing support to employees, decision-making on a wider scale and visioning of the operations. Pedagogical leadership was achieved in practice through discussions and effective structures, such as meetings and maintaining a pedagogical perspective. The met challenges in pedagogical leadership were related to HR- management topics, such as employee turnover, different levels of competence and substitute arrangements. There were also challenges felt in the time and workload management of Directors. There was a lot of work in relation to the time available.

These days the physical activity of children has been reduced and the research show that most of the children are not active enough to fill the physical activity guidelines. The culture of kindergartens should change along the changes in society. There should be more physical education and children's physical activity should be added in everyday life and kindergarten's learning environments. This study is about how the learning environments inside the kindergarten could be more physically activating, and what the staff thinks about changing the environments physically more activating. This study is based on a qualitative research method, using theme interview. Four people who work in a kindergarten were interviewed. In the kindergarten they were about to start a project in order to develop their learning environments to be physically more activating. These four staff members were interviewed before the project started. They were asked questions about their opinions on physically activating indoor learning environments and how those environments could be improved to encourage children's physical activity. The results of this study show that the physical activity in learning environments depends mostly on the attitude of the staff; do they allow children to be physically active in their everyday life or do they prohibit their physical activity in the interest of safety, and do they offer opportunities for children to be physically active indoors. Other things that effect on increasing children's physical activity indoors are the rooms of kindergarten and the sporting equipment, the timetable of the day and human resources. The overall attitude towards physical education and children's physical activity among staff was positive and enthusiastic, but still until now the children hadn't been allowed to move indoors so that they would become breathless. This is the same result as in the former studies that have been done about children's physical activity; children aren t physically active enough in the kindergarten. All the interviewees thought that the project would be beneficial and could have a lasting impact on the culture of physical activity in their kindergarten. So the most important thing in developing learning environments to be physically more activating is to change the attitudes of adults so that they would allow children to be physically active indoors.

This study examines how Day Care personnel can develop together they work and skills with this research project. This study was part of VKK-Metros research project 2009. The research included inquiries in all research day cares and in addition there was a discussion the in the beginning and in the end of process. The development process was successful. Personnel.s professional.s skills increased and they got new methods and ways to do they work. The day care personnel discussed and thought more professional subjects than before. The collaboration increased also among day care personnel.

Child needs physically active movement and play in their everyday life. Study has shown that physical activity compensates fort the functioning of the stress system and strengthen the learning preconditions. Aim of this study was to increase awareness of the relation between stress management and physical activity in young children. There were three research problems: (1) How physically active children are, (2) what is the connection between the environment and the physical activity and (3) what is the connection between physical activity and stress hormone levels? The study is quantitative and there has been used observation as a research method. One observation component was the physical activity of the child, which the teachers observed for seven days, by evaluating the activity of the child eigther low, moderate, or high. In addition, children's stress hormone levels are measured on two days for a saliva sample; before lunch, in the middle of the day and also in the afternoon. The study is part of The Helsinki University orientation project which 162 children, from different kindergartens in Vantaa, has took part with. As a analysis methods there has been used cross-tabulation, correlation and regression analysis. This study shows that average child does the most lowest physical activity. Physical activity was at its highest in outdoor activities and education and at its lowest in basic care. The child's sex was not statistically linked to physical activity, but the age of the child was also important for physical activity. The least physically active were 1–2 years old and the most active were 6–7 years of age. According to the study, low physical activity was associated with higher levels of stress hormone and instead high physical activity decreased the stress hormone level.

In the last few years, no extensive research has been done on schools' morning assembly practices. The last larger study was done in 1989. Since then, the Finnish school legislation and the Finnish National Curriculum have both changed significantly. The Basic Education Decree obligates the Finnish schools to have morning assemblies as a part of every school day. It states: "A day's work must be started with a brief morning assembly." This study had two main goals. The first goal of this study was to gather specific and intensive information on three schools' morning assembly practices. The tradition in Finland is to have both shared morning assemblies where the whole school gathers together, and each class' own morning assemblies. This study focuses on both types of morning assemblies. The second goal was to examine what the teachers of these three schools found to be the main purpose of morning assemblies, how meaningful they found morning assemblies, and what they thought about religious morning assemblies. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was conducted in two schools ("school 1" and "school 2") in November-December 2015 using questionnaires to examine the morning assembly practices. In the second phase of this study, in October 2016, the material was gathered from "school 3" also using questionnaires. Two teachers were interviewed from each school; six teachers in total. The respondents to the questionnaires were teachers and classroom assistants. A mixed methods –strategy was used to analyse the results of this study. The material gathered by questionnaires was organized in Microsoft Excel; percentages were used to express the results. The interview material was analysed using thematic analysis. According to the results, in all three schools it was usually the teacher who organized the class' own morning assemblies. In "school 1" morning assemblies were usually held in the class room every day. In "school 2" only 66,7% of respondents answered that they had morning assemblies every day in the classroom, and in "school 3", only 60 % of the respondents answered that they held morning assemblies every day. According to the respondents, shared morning assemblies were held at least once a month in "school 1". In "school 2", shared morning assemblies were not held as often. In "school 3", shared morning assemblies were held multiple times in a month, but some of them were held via the tannoy. In all the schools the Evangelical Lutheran Church had a significant role in the shared morning assemblies; more so in schools 1 and 2. The teachers found the class' own morning assemblies to have a lot of social importance. According to the teachers, both them and especially their pupils liked to share things about their lives during the morning assemblies. The teachers also stated that morning assemblies were especially important for pupils with special needs; they need a lot of structure in their schooldays, and that is what morning assemblies can provide. According to the interviewed teachers, the shared morning assemblies helped to create a sense of community in the schools. Most interviewees had positive or neutral reactions towards religious morning assemblies, although some teachers were worried about the pupils who don't participate in the religious morning assemblies; the interviewees thought that those pupils miss out on the sense of community. The religious morning assemblies were also thought to be too difficult to understand for the pupils. Most of the interviewees were somewhat open to the idea of other religions' (than the Evangelical Lutheran Church) representatives to hold morning assemblies, but none of the interviewees had themselves considered that option before the interview.

Objectives. There have been multiple studies on the consumption of groceries. However, the studies have mainly focused on changes in the consumption quantities or on the criterion with which consumers make their consumption choices. With time retail outlets have be-come a significant consumption environment. Its significance as a provider of nutrition and as a meeting place of food cultures has strengthened. The objective of this thesis is to study the changes in consumption and available choices in groceries from the early 1990s to this day. The objective is studied from the viewpoint of retail workers working in grocery stores. Attention is also put on their views on the reasons for these changes. Thought is also given to the effect of globalization on the available choices and consumption of groceries. Methodology. The material for the thesis was gathered by interviewing seven people who have worked within the grocery retail sector for over 20 years. Five of the interviewees were men and two were women. The material was gathered with individual interviews using the theme-interview-method during February 2015. The interview themes were constructed by studying earlier studies on consumption and available choices of groceries. Every individual interview was taped and transcribed. The material was analyzed with thematic method and content analysis was used to help categorize it. Results and conclusions. The results of the thesis were compatible with earlier studies. The available choices were seen to have become more diverse. Foreign alternatives have permanently become options for domestic products. This has been made possible by the markets becoming global and freer. Increasing international travel was seen to have a significant effect on the rise of demand for foreign goods. Also consumption habits were seen as starting to favour easiness. The supply of ready-made-products was seen as becoming larger. The reasons for this were thought to be overall culture becoming more hectic and decline of people's know-how to cook. Consumption habits were seen as becoming more fragmented. This has made the service of all different consumers more demanding.

Since the nature of work is constantly changing, many people might have to educate them-selves again or even change their career. Up to 60% of Finland’s working population has changed their profession or branch of industry during their career and about half of those have re-educated themselves. When changing the career or work, one has to acquire a new professional identity. Construction of a new professional identity is a long process and is affected by many different factors. Since the change of career is common and the construction process of professional identity long and complex, it is important to study this topic. The aim for this study is to examine how career changers can acquire a new professional identity. In addition, I will examine how education provider and workplaces can support the development of a new professional identity among career changers. The data was collected by using qualitative research methods and a phenomenographic approach was used. The data was collected between December 2019 and January 2020. The sample consisted of seven interviewees, who all had changed careers and participated in a short training within IT- industry. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and was analyzed through thematic analysis. The results showed that the interviewees could easily acquire their new professional identity after changing their career. Affecting factors were weak engagement with the previous career, motivation for and engagement in the new career as well as support from both the edu-cation provider and workplace. The education provider was able to support the identity pro-cess through offering an education with clear structure and aim, a comfortable atmosphere and activities which prepared the participants for working life. Furthermore, the education provider was able to support participants in recognizing their own strengths and weakness-es, which supported the construction of the new professional identity. Workplaces could support the process by providing opportunities for discussion, a supportive team and a clear structure in the work. Colleagues attitudes played a big part as well.

Objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the quality of feedback in drama lessons. The aim in this study is to analyse and compare the quality of feedback of class teachers and teacher trainees. In addition, the aim is to test and develop The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) observation tool in the context of drama lessons. Methods. The study is defined as a qualitative case study although some quantitative measures were also used. The research material consisted of secondary video data that had been filmed in drama lessons of four class teachers and four teacher trainees. The videos were analysed by using the quality of feedback section of the CLASS. Results and conclusions. The research shows that the quality of feedback on analysed lessons is perfunctory and the amount of feedback is low. On a scale of 1–7 none of the lessons got high grades 6–7. The quality of feedback was low or middle-range on every lesson. The qualified teachers got higher grades than teacher trainees on analysed lessons. CLASS tool is seen suitable for analysing the quality of feedback on drama lessons when also considering the non-verbal feedback. Non-verbal feedback includes teacher's actions, facial expressions and the use of space in the classroom.

Objectives. Online discussion forums are part of extensive interactive network environments known as social media. Large part of the public debate today takes place on its fields. Any search for information on the internet may easily lead to online discussion forums. Speech therapy and issues related to it are also discussed on many discussion forums. The aim of this study was to identify the main themes being discussed about speech therapy and to analyse the forum users' perceptions of speech therapy. The theoretical framework of the study relies on social constructionism and socio-cultural learning theory. Perceptions are constructed by language in social interaction, and are based on one's own and others' experiences. Sharing experiences, peer support and information online are part the cultural change taking place in society. The change affects the ways of learning and retrieving information. Connectivism is a digital age learning theory that is based on the learning online via networks. Methods. The survey was conducted by analysing 88 online discussion chains from a popular Finnish online forum. The discussions had taken place 2005-2014. The data analysis was carried out using content analysis by means of themes and phenomenographic research approach, which focused on the interpretation of the perceptions from the online discussions. The network of perceptions was contemplated by interpreting the expressed cause-and-effect relationships between the themes. Results and discussion. Based on analysis there were a total of 11 themes in discussions. Three main themes were speech therapy resources, differences of municipal and private speech therapy, and speech therapists' role and job description. All the other themes were related to the three main themes. The cause-and-effect relationships between the themes were a basis for a interpreted network of speech therapy perceptions. Online discussions can be considered to partly reflect the situation in society, as well as to follow other media. Lack of resources in speech therapy and many other social and health services has become reality in Finland in recent years. Health care services transfer to the private sector has been a topic of discussion also in traditional media. Information provided by analysing attitudes, opinions and perceptions of speech therapy could help to address the customers' needs and direct the guidance, advice and support in the best possible manner.