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Ethiopia is Africa's biggest coffee exporter nation with deep history. Coffee discovered in Ethiopia and it continues to be pivotal for the country in many fronts till to date. The coffee linkage with Ethiopia is deep-rooted many historians believe back in 9th century coffee discovered by Kaldi, a goat herder. He discovered it after noticing coffee's energizing effect on his goats. The word coffee itself also derived from place called 'Kaffa' where the trees blossomed. Coffee gradually became a world obsession by spreading from highlands of Ethiopia traveled along spice routes to Yemen, Turkey and Europe. Coffee exporting is a significant portion of Ethiopian economy. It accommodates more than twenty five million peasants which indicate its magnitude for the country. It is one of the leading sources of income for the government and other stakeholders. The establishment of Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) has seen the Ethiopian coffee trade system being transformed. It created a platform of primary, secondary and tertiary market divisions. In a way that the coffee can be traded based on value addition from one division to the other. Unlike the previous centralized warehousing system, it introduced decentralized warehousing and liquoring centers across the country where the coffee quality checked by use of laboratory tasting. It gives a temporary produce storage services until the coffee is sold and ownership of the produce transferred from seller to buyer. The introduction of modernized and transparent system enabled economic gain and helped farmers to enhance their life conditions. The objective of this study was to identify some of the contradictions that are solved in Ethiopian coffee trade activity by the establishment of ECX. In addition, the emerging contradictions and prevailing disturbances at present as well as the overall benefits it brought in relation to farmers' day to day life conditions were analyzed.

Dialogicality is an actual topic in pedagogical studies. Both in theoretical and ordinary speech, the term is often used as a synonym of discussion and interaction. The use of the concept, however, only seldom reveals the equivocal nature of the phenomenon. In pedagogical discourses, it is often difficult to discern the background conceptions or theories determining in each case the concept of dialogue. The aim of the present study is to address this challenge and help to clarify the situation by examining the various ways in which dialogicality has been understood in pedagogical studies in Finland in the 21st century. The research material consisted of 24 international research publications written in English. The material was first studied in relation to the notions and definitions of dialogicality put forward in them, and these were then analysed in the light of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical philosophy. The research questions to be answered were: 1. How is dialogicality defined in the pedagogical research in Finland during the las two decades 2. What do these conceptions reveal of the understanding of dialogicality, when related to Gadamer’s phenomenological-hermeneutical understanding of its nature? The research combines two different approaches: the material was organized with the method of systematic literature review and it was analysed through philosophical research. The study’s vantage point, and the theoretical framework directing its questioning, was constituted by the phenomenological-hermeneutical thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer. According to the results of the study, there are four central theoretical frameworks defining the research of dialogicality in the pedagogical research in Finland in the 21st century. Apparently, the studies are to a certain extent compatible with each other in their thematic content and in their descriptions of interconnected phenomena, but their ways of understanding the nature of dialogicality prove to be incommensurate. When analysed with the help of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, the research also shows itself as internally divided: the decisive differences are, firstly, whether dialogicality is understood as communication of knowledge, and secondly, whether dialogue is understood instrumentally as a method. With the help of Gadamer’s hermeneutical though, the study attempts to clarify the phenomenon of dialogue and to sharpen the required conceptual grasp and so to elaborate pedagogical research of dialogicality.

Objects. In my Bachelor’s thesis I executed a descriptive literatute review about dialogic teaching and collected a table of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. In this research I observed lessons and used the grouping I had created in order to identify the methods of dialogic teaching. The objective of the study was to examine in what extent dialogue appeared in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students. My research questions were: 1. Which methods of a dialogic teacher can be identified from the observed teachers’ lessons? 2. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students? and 3. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of different subjects? In this study I created information about the practices of dialogic teaching. Methods. I examined the topic with the methods of qualitative study with videotaped lessons as my research material. Three class teachers and three teacher students participated in the study. I collected my research data from one school located in the metropolitan area with the help of video observation. As a base for my analysis, I used the grouping from my Bachelor’s Thesis. I analysed my research material by creating different groups of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. Results and Conclusions. All of the class teachers and teacher students observed in this study used dialogic methods in their teaching. For example dialogue appeared in a conversational tone of voice, leaving space for the students’ voices and showing the importance of their claims. The dialogic methods used by the teachers observed could be placed in four groups: building of subject matter, teachers approach, teachers’ feedback and supporting students’ autonomy. From all of the lessons observed, it was possible to identify the most dialogic methods in the Finnish language lessons. It is possible to utilise these research results when teachers want to add dialogue in to their teaching. Concrete ways in which dialogue appears were listed in the study.

Action video games have been found to improve many cognitive skills. Most established findings are related to faster information processing speed and improved attentional capabilities. Many of the same cognitive processes are better on elite athletes of interceptive sports compared to non-elites. This study aimed to find some preliminary evidence whether the improvements in cognitive processes gained from action video gaming might be beneficial in ball sports. This was done by comparing the performance of action video game players and nonaction-video players on an anticipation of coincidence test. Anticipation of coincidence is a laboratory test, where the task is to anticipate when a moving object arrives at a certain point and to coincide a button press with it. Performance on the task is thought to depend on information processing speed and attentional capabilities. When the speeds and possible speed changes are similar to those encountered in real ball sports, elite athletes of these sports are generally more accurate in the task compared to non-elites. Elite athletes differ from non-elites in their gaze patterns as well. For example, athletes fixate to the target quicker and their quiet eye, meaning the last fixation or tracking gaze before a motor action on a specific target lasting at least 100 ms, is longer. Thus, it was studied whether action video gamers fare better on the anticipation of coincidence task in different constant speeds and in deceleration conditions, and whether their gaze patterns are different compared to non-gamers. 10 action video game players and 9 nonaction-video game players participated in the experiment. The results show that action video game players are more accurate in the task in most constant speed conditions and in a deceleration condition with slow speeds. There was some variation in gaze patters, including that action video gamers had quiet eye more often in fast speeds. The results suggest that action video game players can program more accurate motor responses based on the speed of the target and reprogram wrong motor actions better than nonaction-video game players. In addition action video game players are better able to track fast moving targets. As these skills are important in ball sports, this possible linkage between action video games and ball sports performance should be studied further.

Previous studies have confirmed that educational practices have not changed with the digitalization of society. The use of ICT in teaching is mainly low and there is an ongoing public debate regarding the Finnish students well-being. This study tried to find out is there a hypothesized gap between the technology-mediated practices of adolescents and school. The aim of this study was to investigate how and how much ICT is used for learning and what kind of technological attitudes and school well-being experiences students have. It was also examined how the use of technology, attitudes and well-being are interrelated and which factors of these phenomena can explain academic achievement, schoolwork engagement, school value, happiness and school burnout. Finally it was investigated what kind of profiles of ICT use and attitudes could be found among the participants. The study was part of the Mind the Gap -project. The data was collected by questionnaire in the 2013. The participants (n = 735) were sixth graders from Helsinki. The use of digital technology, technology attitudes and school well-being were examined by mean values and gender differences by t-test. Correlational analysis and stepwise regression analysis were carried out to find out the factors that were related to academic achievement, schoolwork engagement, school value, happiness and school burnout. Students were grouped into profiles that represented their technological attitudes and use of ICT using SPSS two-step cluster analysis. One-way ANOVA and cross-tabulations were used to examine group and gender differences. The results indicated that the technology is not used on a regular basis to support learning, even though the students felt quite high ICT enthusiasm (the use of technology was seen as a positive contribution to the schoolwork engagement). Information-orientated use was reported most common. Mechanical technology use (eg. writing) was the next most common, producing technology use (eg. projects, multimedia) came in the third. Communicative technology use (online discussion about schoolwork) was the least common. The majority of the sixth graders felt relatively high schoolwork engagement, happiness and school value. Further, students reacted positively towards the teacher's activity and the conditions of the school. ICT enthusiasm was associated with lower experience of school value, schoolwork engagement as well as negative experiences of teacher's activities. Technology-related problem-solving predicted schoolwork engagement positively. Information-orientated use, and fear of failure using technology were repeatedly negative predictors for school well-being and positive predictors for school burnout. Four different groups (actives, slackers, passives, enthusiastics) showed clear differences in the use of technology, attitudes, school well-being and the associations between these phenomena. To conclude, teacher's role and how the technology is used in schools appears essential. It's important to understand students' predispositions towards using digital technologies and support adolescents' natural ways of utilizing ICT. Students need guidance to understand the possibilities of digital technologies as collaborative and creative learning tools. This, however, does not happen by chance. Therefore, I argue, that there is a need in basic education to build new support systems for national, municipal, school and grade levels to minimize the gap between the technology-mediated practices of adolescents and school.

Goals In this study, a week-long digital storytelling project was conducted in a labour market training course in adult education. The study problem was: how collaborative learning was present in the groups in the labour market training course and what it contributed to producing digital storytelling videos? The theoretical background in this study is Global Sharing Pedagogy -model and the collaborative learning aspect of it. For collaboration, the theoretical background are the central concepts of Hakkarainen's studies and the productive agency by Schwartz & Lin. Methods This was a case-study. The subjects in this study consisted of two labour market training groups that were united for the purposes of this study and ages of participants were from 20 to 50 years old. They were split into four smaller groups which were used as cases in this study. The smaller groups had members between four and seven. The project lasted for one week and there was from three to six hours of work each day. At the end of week, the digital stories were reviewed together. The data for this study consists of field diary during the working phase, group interviews with the groups and the finished digital stories. Each group was a separate case and the descriptions from both observation and interviews were searched for signs of collaborative learning. Each case was also compared to other cases to find differences and similarities. Results and conclusions The descriptions of learning in groups had clear aspects of collaborative learning. Each group had some aspects but three of four groups, the dedicated, the independents and the supported had significant collaborative learning present in every part of the project while the wanderers had lesser collaborative learning present. The results reveal that digital storytelling is a good tool to use in adult education to promote both collaborative learning and 20th century skills in students.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how craft teachers in Finnish basic education perceive their digital technology competence, how they integrate digital technology in their teaching and which factors influence the teachers’ experiences of their own competence to integrate digital technology in crafts . The aim is to map the current state of digital technology competence of craft teachers, so that it is possible to become more aware of the factors that promote and prevent it. The research data was collected with a structured questionnaire and interview. 17 craft teachers responded to the research questionnaire, and four craft teachers participated in the interview. The Likert-scale survey was part of a larger Growing Mind research project. The two datasets were analyzed separately. In the questionnaire analysis, the frequencies, medians and standard deviations of the answers were examined. The interview material was analyzed qualitatively combining data-driven and theory-based analysis. The results indicated that craft teachers' experiences of their own digital technology competence varied. However, teachers felt that their technological competence was sufficient, and instead of static competence, they emphasized the importance of maintenance and continuous development of the competence. Digital technology was perceived as supportive to teaching, but its use in teaching remained rather one-sided. Teachers viewed digital technology as a teaching tool. There were numerous factors influencing teachers' technological competence, and in addition to the teacher's own technological know-how, it is also important to consider the context where teachers work. The teachers identified the lack of technological equipment, programs and applications as the biggest obstacle of developing their own technological competence.

Objectives. The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to assess the methodological quality of intervention studies examining the effect of digital learning games on the reading skills of children with or at risk of reading difficulties. Learning games can serve as a tool to motivate and engage in learning when a child needs more time and repetition to learn. Learning games are utilized in teaching, but the results for their effectiveness vary. The target groups for special needs education are small and heterogeneous in their skills, which makes it challenging to demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions. Methods. The dissertation was carried out as a systematic literature review using PRISMA guidelines. The studies to be evaluated were retrieved from the databases ERIC (Proquest), PsycINFO (Ovid), SCOPUS (Elsevier), Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) and Web of Science. The studies selected for review (n = 13) were published between years 2011 and 2022, were peer-reviewed and English-language intervention studies. The target group was children with reading difficulties or at a risk of reading difficulties, and the intervention sought to influence reading skills through digital learning games. The evaluation was carried out based on the criteria of the EPHPP framework. Results and conclusions. The majority (8) of the intervention studies were rated as strong, three as moderate and two as weak. For the study design, all were assessed as strong for evaluation, while for selection bias and blinding, all studies were rated as only moderate. For confounders, all but one was rated as moderate. Weak ratings were given to only a few studies for data collection methods and withdrawals and dropouts. Based on the results of this study, there is the most room for improvement in the reporting of these two parts to ensure the reliability of the studies.

Many international organizations have defined the so called 21st century learning skills that students should have in order to be successful in today's society. Digital literary is one of those skills. Experts say that schools do not really have the concrete tools to teach these skills. Research shows that digital storytelling is one way to develop many of the important 21st century skills. The purpose of this study is to analyze how students could develop their digital literacy by creating digital stories. More precisely, what kind of media content production, editing, and sharing skills will they learn by making their own video stories. This study is based on Digital Storytelling Project by the University of Helsinki. The project was a part of Finnable 2020 research funded by Tekes. This study involves all the 6th graders that participated to the Digital storytelling project from Finland, a total of five classes. The research material consists of student and teacher interviews and video stories made by the students. The research material was analyzed with content analysis. The framework for the analysis was based on research on digital literacy, digital storytelling and film narrative. The results of this study show that the students learned many digital literacy skills involving media content production by creating video stories. By making their stories the students learned to plan their own content, to search for relevant information and material to their stories, and to use mobile devices for filming. They also learned about filming, and how to deliver their own message through the video stories. By editing their stories the students practiced how to edit and remix pictures and videos with different video editing tools. By sharing their video stories with others the students learned how to share information, how to evaluate their own work and the work of others, how to consider the audience, and how to interact and influence through video stories.

Background and goal. The aim of this study is to examine which technical challenges teachers in elementary school experience while using digital tools, aswell as how the challenges affect their work. Teachers’ experience with the education for using digital tools is also a focus for this study. Earlier research suggest that network-, storage- and login difficulties are usual in the classroom, while the administrative programmes are difficult to use. These challenges mainly affect the teachers timewise and are a cause for frustration. Studies also suggest that teachers aren´t always properly educated or knowleadgable with the use of digital tools. Methods. This study is of qualitative nature. I have interviewed six elemntary school teachers (year 1-6), from two different schools in southern Finland. The answers have been analyzed with thematical analysis. Results and conclusions. Teachers experience different kinds of technical challenges with digital tools. Network-, storage- and login difficulties were common challgenes. The teachers put more emphasis on the difficulty of using the different administrative programmes, and pointed to several issues with them. Waste of time and frsutration became apparent as two main outcomes of teachers experiencing technical challenges. Regarding teacher education, most of the teachers felt quite comfortable with the use of digital tools, but pointed out some weaknesses in their knowledge, i.e. the Smartboard was a digital tool many teachers felt a bit unfamiliar with. The teachers felt the need for more education. Support was a theme that came up in many oft he interviews, where the teachers pointed out that the supporting network for technical difficulties is a bit lacking. First and foremost it isn´t easy to know who to contact with which problems, which led to the collegial support being the first choice. My study show that teachers still experience different kinds of technical challenges with digital tools. Some of my results confirm earlier studies, which show that things haven´t necessarily improved or changed, while teachers feel the need for a change in the administrative side of the work. Teacher educationwise there is a need for more availible eduaction and courses, that offer learning on different knowledge levels, aswell as the support structures may need a closer look. The support structures may need renewing or changing to reliev the teacher´s work.