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Objective. The goal of the study was to examine, interpret and analyze how the Reggio Emilia approach is realized in a Finnish daycare center where such an approach is implemented. This research problem was approached by examining the pedagogical fields in light of the social-constructivist theory and the perspectives of Reggio Emilia approach values and pedagogical principles. The goal of the study was also to produce information for the development of action in the studied daycare center as well as provide general and professional benefits from this application of Reggio Emilia approach to the early childhood education field. Methods. The research method was qualitative study, in which theoretical background information, interviews and observation were used to interpret the implementation of the Reggio Emilia approach in the work and activity of the studied daycare center. The research data was collected via interviews at the studied daycare center between December 2010 and May 2011, and by observing the project activities of a child group in June 2011. The interviews were used to obtain information on what kind of values and attitudes guide education and teaching in the daycare center, how these values and attitudes are realized in action, or whether they are realized at all. At the same time, the interviews were used to determine whether the educational and teaching values and principles of the daycare center differ from those of the kindergarten teachers, and if so, how they affect the actions of the kindergarten teachers. In addition, answers were sought to questions concerning the concepts of child-centeredness and the role of adults in the daycare center as well as the opinions of the kindergarten teachers on how the Reggio Emilia approach was realized in everyday actions. Observation was used to determine whether practical activities were implemented in accordance with the social-constructivist theoretical frame of reference and the results of the interviews. The collected data was transcribed and then analyzed using contents analysis. The analysis was based on the data but the conclusions also took into consideration ideas and observations based on theory. Results and conclusions. The study found that the Italian Reggio Emilia approach was applied in the studied daycare center to suit the Finnish culture and way of life. The Reggio Emilia approach was realized in the daycare center by child-centeredness actions according to the educational and teaching values and pedagogical principles. The results showed that the kindergarten teachers supported and motivated the children for independent actions and learning, they took into consideration the interests, ideas and thoughts of the children when planning activities, as well as they encourage the children to participate in interactive relationships. In the realization of Reggio Emilia approach played important role learning and thinking of children, supporting the human agency of children as well as the actions in the zone of proximal development. In addition the learning and educational environment were identified as being important. Based on the results, the kindergarten teachers in the studied daycare center considered the Reggio Emilia approach to be a comprehensive outlook on life. The results also showed clearly that this Finnish application of the approach was strongly highlighted - through the Reggio Emilia values and attitude world as well as the pedagogical principles - child-centeredness, permanent small groups, permanent responsible educators and educational partnership. As a conclusion, this study strengthens the conception of the Finnish application of the approach in the studied daycare center as child-favorable and child-centeredness, creative and open attitude world.

The increase in changes and demands related to the management of the education sector during the last decades has clearly correlated with an increased workload for the principal's profession. The work is diversified and fragmented into a wide range of areas. With this, it has become clear that the principal is not able to lead an educational institution alone and management practices have had to be developed in such a way that they better serve the needs of educational institutions and communities. The aim of this study has been to find out how the principals experience and understand the concept of shared leadership in practice and what kind of shared leadership models they have in use in educational institutions, as well as what possible obstacles they see to the implementation of shared leadership in the school. There are some similar studies on principals' views on shared leadership. In general, principals' perceptions of shared leadership are mainly related to the division and delegation of work tasks. However, according to the theoretical background, the deeper idea of shared leadership is related to interactive leadership. Previous studies have found that principals' views on shared leadership as delegation become stronger when interaction decreases in leadership situations. Correspondingly, when the view of shared leadership as delegation decreases, the view of shared leadership as interaction in situations becomes stronger. In a broader sense, management is an interpersonal activity that arises in interaction between individuals. This is how management develops and takes shape during the interaction, and the parties can influence its development. In this study, the research method was qualitative, and the material of the thesis consisted of interviews with seven principals. The data was collected with a semi-structured thematic interview and analyzed with a theory-driven content analysis. The results section of the thesis is based on the theme classifications created in the analysis. As a conclusion of the results of the study, it could be stated that the principals felt that shared leadership was mainly about dividing and delegating tasks, although shared leadership structures aimed at both formal and informal interaction were in use in all schools. All principals considered interactive management to be important and desirable. The principals also strongly connected trust and sharing of expertise and know-how to shared management. Team organization models were used the most as models of shared leadership, of which management teams were used in all schools, in some schools various development teams and grade level groups were used. Six of the organizations that participated in the study used an assistant principal or a vice principal system. The principals saw factors related to the working culture as obstacles to the implementation of shared management, such as not getting used to the operating model of shared management, resource, and human factors, as well as the increase in the workload of the employees and thus the deterioration of work well-being.

Objectives. Previous studies on teachers being cross-peer abused and harassed by students and parents are scarce and mostly all but one is over ten years old. Previous studies point out that students inappropriate behavior was more common than parents inappropriate behavior and most common form of inappropriate behavior was verbal harassment. In addition, studies have shown that inappropriate behavior is more common than systematic bullying and physical violence differs in primary and secondary school. The subject has been studied by Kivivuori, Tuominen and Aromaa (1999), Salmi and Kivivuori (2009), Rantala (Rantala & Keskinen, 2005) as well as by Kauppi and Pörhölä (2010). This thesis investigates comprehensive school headmasters vision of teachers being bullied and harrassed. The aim is to find out how the headmasters experience this phenomenon and how the conflicts are being solved. The theory of conflict management is being used to study this phenomenon. Conflict management has not been previously studied in the school context and therefore the templates applied are originally designed for private sector companies. Methods. The material was collected by semi-structured interviews and there were eight interviewees, all of them were comprehensive schools headmasters in Helsinki. Phenomenography was used as a research orientation and as an analysis method. The analysis of the data was four-step and conformed to Niiko’s (2003) description of phenomenographic analysis. Results and Conclusion. According to the headmasters bullying of teachers was a marginal phenomenon and inappropriate behavior confronted by teachers was more common than systematic bullying. Headmasters thought that situations were a matter of interaction and the causes of bullying and harassment were manifold. Students and parents who were harassing teacher might felt bad and they might had contacts with health care or child welfare. In resolving the situation the headmasters underlined presence of multiple adults, transparence, good interaction and rapid communication. Headmasters saw the teachers primarily as an civil servant and they considered it important that teachers followed the law and other instructions. The headmasters felt that they had not received training for the situations and their functions were guided by previous experience and self-acquired knowledge.

Well-being at work is challenged by problems in employee–working environment fit. Therefore job stress can occur. Employees can use several strategies to adjust the fit and gain better well-being. If the job-stress is prolonged, it may eventually cause burnout. Previous studies indicate that burnout is related to problems in working community, individual well-being and turnover. In the educational field employees experience more job stress and burnout symptoms than in other fields. Only a few studies have been done about school principals' well-being. Therefore the aims of the research were to analyze school principals' well-being and to investigate if proactive strategies, principal–working environment fit and turnover intentions relate to challenges of well-being. Research data was gathered as a part of a wider, national research project called Learning, agency and pedagogical well-being in comprehensive school (Pyhältö, Pietarinen & Soini, 2014). The participants were selected with random sampling method (N=6000). Altogether 2310 teachers and principals completed the questionnaire. Principals and assistant principals (from now on: principals, n=420) were selected for this research. Principals were clustered into different groups based on the challenges of well-being they reported. Those challenges were measured in terms of job stress and burnout symptoms. The clusters that represented burnout symptoms and job stress were formed through hierarchical cluster analysis, K-Means cluster analysis and discriminant function analysis. One-way analysis of variance and crosstabs were conducted to see, whether principals in different clusters varied in terms of proactive strategies, principal–working environment fit, turnover intentions and background variables. Results indicate that on average the principals are doing quite well. Even so, quite a lot of them reported turnover intentions. It was possible to cluster principals into four groups: 1) principals, who experience well-being, 2) cynical principals, 3) principals, who experience burnout and 4) principals in danger of burn out. The cluster membership was related to proactive self-regulating strategies, principal–working environment fit and turnover intentions. Principals who experience well-being reported the best principal–working environment fit, strongest proactive self-regulating strategies and less turnover intentions. Cynical principals reported quite strong proactive self-regulating strategies, second worst principal–working environment fit and some turnover intentions. Principals who experience burnout reported weakest proactive self-regulating strategies, worst principal–working environment fit and most turnover intentions. Principals in danger of burn out reported quite good principal–working environment fit, quite weak proactive strategies and lots of turnover intentions. In future there is a need to better understand the development of school principal burnout and the motives behind school principals' turnover intentions.

Leadership and management has been an interest of research for a long time, school princi-pals being no exception. However, there is a substantial need for research about manage-ment of human resources for principals. As previous research shows, this type of research is important as leadership affects work motivation, which in its turn affects work performance. To be able to develop the management of human resources of principals, it is important to understand how principals think around it. The aim of this study is to provide an insight of what the principals of this study thinks about leadership and what they value concerning ma-nagement of human resources. This study is a qualitative study, the methods are a mix of case study and qualitative content analysis. The data consists of six (n=6) interviews with Finnish principals, who work in comprehensive schools and/or upper secondary schools. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews consisting of basic questions regarding their work as principals and five fictional cases. The principals were asked to explain how they would act if the situ-ation would appear in their school. The data was analysed according to the principles of con-tent analysis. The conclusion of this study is that the principals interviewed describe their leadership of human resources as matters and values that can be divided into four themes: 1. Humane centered leadership, 2. Strong leadership, 3. Active leadership and 4. Restricted leadership. All six principals agreed on themes 1-3, but one of the principals did not speak of theme number 4. As a conclusion the principals of this study consider themselves as leaders that solve problems with discussions and empathy, but they use stronger leadership if the situat-ion requires. The principals actively try to create structures and prevent problems, but do not consider their leadership as perfect that can not be developed.

Principals' well-being at work has been researched in Finland in recent years with Principals' Barometer. According to it, principals’ well-being at work has weakened year by year, especially due to the constant rush, lack of free time and increased concern for students and teachers. The goal of this thesis is to bring out the factors that increase and decrease principals' well-being at work in the school's everyday life, so that their own voice is heard. The theoretical background of my study include research literature about well-being at work and educational leadership, as well as the Self-Determination Theory of Ryan and Deci (2000). The research material has been produced with a written assignment for educational leaders about their best and worst working days and analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The factors that increase and decrease principals' well-being at work are often opposites of each other. Well-being is affected by several factors related to work tasks, social and physical aspects and life outside of working hours. In particular, feelings of urgency, meaningfulness and inadequacy, work community, atmosphere, well-being of teachers and students, feedback, challenging situations, physical well-being, own attitude affect well-being at work.

Substantial research has been conducted on recruitment processes within companies, as personnel are such an important component of a company's success. Prior research shows that the recruitment process isn't conducted in a reliable and objective way. Since recruiters trust their intuition throughout the recruitment process, they are in danger of making unfair and biased decisions. Recruiters are therefore being critiqued for not managing the process as recommended, in regards to the objective and fair treatment of all applicants. Yet there is scarce qualitative research that examines the recruitment process from the recruiters' point of view. Thus the aim of this study is to understand what recruiters perceive as challenging within the role, how they approach the requirement to be objective in relation to whether true objectivity is indeed realistic, and what role they give intuition in the recruitment process. This study aims to understand recruitment from the recruiters' perspective in order to gain a better understanding of the issues involved. The research data was gathered in interviews with 16 recruiters from 9 different recruitment consultancy agencies in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland. The interviews were grouped in to themes that addressed challenges, decision-making and intuition. The transcribed interviews were analyzed inductively from a hermeneutic phenomenological scientific standpoint. The study shows that recruiters don't regard the recruitment process as objective. Because the process is partly social, it inherently makes room for subjective interpretation. Also, recruiters believe that the information accumulated from social interaction brings added value to the recruitment process. Hence the study shows that intuition has great significance in the recruitment process, as the majority of recruiters use it regularly. Prior research on intuition shows that it can be a source of wisdom and expertise, if used correctly. The recruiters tried to carry out the recruitment process in an as objective and transparent manner as possible. By reflecting, questioning and critically reviewing their own thoughts, opinions and feelings, they aimed to avoid making decisions and judgments based on feelings. Taking the recruiters' point of view in to account gives new insight in to the recruitment process and the issues therein.

The purpose of the present study was to examine relationships between achievement goal orientations and perfectionism, and the possible differences between general and sports program students in upper secondary school with respect to these phenomena. Achievement goal orientations refer to individual's generalized tendencies to favor certain type of goals and outcomes in an achievement context. Perfectionism is a personality characteristic, which as a multidimensional construct consists of both positive (high standards) and negative (dissatisfaction with the attainment of the goal) dimensions. Both achievement goal orientations and perfectionism have been linked to individual's well-being, interpretation of the environment, and achievement. There is only a few previous research that have studied the relationship between achievement goal orientations and perfectionism. The assumption in the present study is that students' achievement goal orientations have an effect on what kind of perfectionistic tendencies they display. Examining differences between athletes and non-athletes with respect to achievement motivation and perfectionism is a relative new study subject. By examining these differences, we might get important information whether young athletes have managed to combine the demands of their sports and upper secondary school studies. Finding the balance between these demands is one notable challenge student-athletes confront. The participants in the present study were 424 general upper secondary school students from different parts of Finland. General program was followed by 211 of students, and 213 of students followed sports program. A person-centred approach was applied to the data-analysis. Five distinct achievement goal orientation profiles were extracted by utilizing the TwoStep Cluster analysis. The profiles were named following the previous research, and according to their most dominant orientations (i.e., mastery-, success-, performance-avoidance- and avoidance-oriented, and indifferent). Differences between the profiles with respect to perfectionism were examined through a series of analyses of variance. Differences between general- and sports program students were examined through a series of analyses of variance, and through Cross Tabulation. As expected, students with different orientations towards studying differed from each other according to perfectionism. The mastery-, success- and performance-avoidance oriented students emphasized adaptive perfectionism. However, the success- and performance-avoidance-oriented students emphasized also maladaptive perfectionism. The indifferent students slightly highlighted maladaptive perfectionism. The avoidance-oriented students did highlight neither of the perfectionism dimensions. The findings suggest that students' motivational patterns have an influence on their perfectionistic tendencies. Maladaptive motivational patterns, as well as, maladaptive perfectionistic tendencies seem to accumulate to same students. It would be important to take these results into consideration at teaching and its design, so that students who need support and counseling would receive them. There were not significant differences between general and sports program students according to achievement motivation and perfectionism. The findings indicate that sport-oriented schools have managed to support young athletes to combine their intensive sports training and upper secondary school studies.

The psychometric properties, validity and reliability, of numeracy assessment have a significant role in identifying students’ special education needs in mathematics. Objective: The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the validity and reliability evidence of numeracy measures used by teachers at the elementary school for children aged 9 through 12 years. Methods: A systematic search of Cinahl, Embase, ERIC, PsychINFO and PudMed abstract databases was completed up to the March, 2020. The abstracts and articles were evaluated independently by two reviewers according to the inclusion criteria. Consensus was reached by discussions. Only peer-reviewed articles reporting psychometric properties of numeracy measures and published in English were included. Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P, 2015) guidelines were applied for reporting. The terminology and classification of psychometric properties followed the Consensus-Based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidelines. Three validity properties and three reliability properties were searched and extracted from the articles. Results: Of the 4763 abstracts 921 full-text articles were screened and 13 studies met the inclusion criteria of this review. Two additional studies were identified through reference search. Half of the psychometric properties of the numeracy measures were not studied and reported in the articles. All the six reliability and validity properties were found for one measure. The evidence on the psychometric properties was limited for most of the measures due to the incomplete or missing psychometric data. Conclusions: The validity and reliability of the measures is limited and further evidence and research is needed.

It has been a common image that Finnish adults dress casually, even yokel-like, influenced primarily other things by weather and sports, but there is no research-based evidence to support this conception. The focus of researches has been on women's clothing and qualitative methods. These were the reasons why I decided to study casual everyday clothing of Finnish adults in different contexts. I took into account comfortable clothing, and I studied definitions of and differences between comfortable and casual clothing. I also studied which environmental matters have an influence on everyday clothing of Finnish adults. I used the mixed methods approach, which integrates quantitative and qualitative research methods. I collected the data with an e-form survey. In the survey there were statements with the focus on quantitative data and open questions with the focus on qualitative data. I spread the survey on different channels of social media 24.2–10.3.2015. I got 521 replies, one of which was empty, so the final data consisted of 520 replies from all around Finland. To analyse the quantitative data, I used cross tabulation, correlation and regression analysis of SPSS-program. For the qualitative content analysis I used Atlas.ti-program. So-called yokel clothing is not mentioned among the respondents. The people who live outside the capital region dress in the same way as the people living inside it. Also the sex does not make a difference to how Finnish adults dress in general. Many of the respondents change their clothes when they come home. Their clothing at home is made of mainly flexible and soft materials, usually college fabric. They favour casual and comfortable clothing, but the definitions differentiate. Casual clothing is represented by the look of clothes, and comfortable clothing is associated to the feeling of clothes and to the moods they put a person into. The most popular dress combination among the respondents is jeans, a t-shirt and a knitted sweater or a cardigan. Thus the idea of Finnish windbreaker folks is a myth. Although there is a little margin of error in the results, they can be considered to cover the Finnish adults.