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Football club activities play an important role in the physical education of Finnish children. The educational impacts of the activities depend largely on the club’s guidelines and the coaches’ educational skills. The role of the coach as an educator is unavoidable, as sports creates educational situations where it is possible to influence children’s actions and thinking directly or through their parents. The research assignment of this study is to describe the views of football coaches involved in childhood sports on their role in children’s physical education. The objective is to research how children’s coaches view their role as an educator, and the factors influencing their role in the football club. The study was carried out as a qualitative case study, in which the research material consisted of semi-structured thematic interviews with five children’s football coaches. Two full-time and two part-time coaches, and one volunteer coach from different football clubs in the Helsinki metropolitan area were selected for interview by quota sampling. The analysis of the material was carried out using theory-guided content analysis, where the coaches' views on the research topic were described. The coaches described that their role is significant as part of children’s physical education. With their actions, the coaches offered a role model to children, for instance in behavior and attitude to competition. Enjoying football was raised as the most important educational goal. Collaboration with children’s parents and members of the coaching staff influenced the role of the coach as an educator. The clubs guided the coaches in different ways and team sizes defined by the clubs impacted the role of the coaches. Based on the literature and my research, a competent coach enables high-quality physical education in football clubs. The skills of coaches should be developed and means to do so should be further studied. Based on the research, it can be recommended that clubs use team sizes small enough to allow the coach to consider children’s individual needs.

Goals. The goal of this thesis is to find out the motives for following three different food blogs. The research focuses on readers of the blogs 52 weeks of deliciousness, Lunni leipoo and Perinneruokaa prkl, all of which are located at the website maku.fi. The selection of the research subject was influenced partly by the fact that blog readers and their following motives have yet been researched only little. Blogs are associated with communality and therefore it's interesting to know whether readers participate in commenting the blog posts and how do they do it. Methods. The data was acquired with an online questionnaire that contained open and multiple-choice questions. The online questionnaire was an appropriate method for reaching the target group. The theoretic focus was on qualitative methods, but quantitative methods were utilized as well. The results of the questionnaire were processed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Multiple-choice questions were presented graphically, open questions in turn were analysed by defining types and themes. At first every blog was examined individually, after which the whole material was subjected to analysis in order to define different reader types. Results and conclusions. The questionnaire gathered answers from 132 readers. Blog 52 weeks of deliciousness was interesting due to recipes, food ideas and the atmosphere created by the blogger. The blog was also a source for daily inspiration and restaurant tips. Blog Lunni leipoo was followed particularly for its visuality, but the entirety, recipes and stories were also felt important. The readers of blog Perinneruokaa prkl were interested in the blog's theme of traditional food. Although the blog was mainly a source for recipes, the funny and narrative writing style was part of the blog's charm. The reader types defined from the material were information seekers, inspiration hunters and self-entertainers. These types were divided into two types by purposes of use: blogs are either idea banks or entertainment platforms. As an idea bank the blog functions as a source for ideas and information. The information seeker values accessibility and searches the blog for recipes or cooking-related information. The inspiration hunter seeks inspiration, which is basically related to all aspects of the blog, such as the recipes, pictures and the blogger's persona. Both inspiration hunter and self-entertainer use the food blog as an entertainment platform. The self-entertainer is after the blog's atmosphere, looking for fun or just passing time. The blog's visuality, stories and attitude gratify the reader. Commenting in the blogs was scarce. The readers didn't comment, because they didn't find their own thoughts important enough, they didn't feel commenting was appropriate for their behaviour, they felt comments had to have value to other readers and the blogger or they wanted to preserve their anonymity. The readers felt that reasons good enough for commenting were asking a question, sharing an own experience, praising, a particularly interesting or emotive post, testing the recipe at hand and asking for advice.

Objectives. In this study the aim is to examine teacher’s actions from selected perspective. The perspective for observation and examination is teacher as a creative role model –observational instrument. This instrument is created using previous research and studies and it is based on CLASS-observational instrument (Classroom Assessment Scoring System). The idea behind this study and teacher as a creative role model –observational instrument is that teacher’s actions have significant influence in student’s creativity and especially creative pedagogical environment. Teachers actions as a creative role model were divided into three different categories; 1. teacher’s presence and nonverbal communication, 2. teacher’s participation and demonstration during drama lessons and 3. teacher’s flexibility as in use of time and willingness to change the direction of the drama lesson due to student’s offers and ideas. Methods. The study is a qualitative case-study. The research material consists eight process-drama lessons. Lessons were filmed by Larissa Säntti and Riikka-Liisa Salomaa back in 2014. The material was observed and analyzed using teacher as a creative role model –observational instrument. The research material was analyzed together with my research partner Jere Ruohoranta to strengthen and support the validity of this research. Each phase of each lesson got a value for all three categories. These values were then added together and means for each lesson were calculated. Results and conclutions. All of the four teachers we observed got mediocre or high values from every lesson using this observational instrument. Although there were some variance between the values teachers got, the quality of the drama lessons and teacher’s actions were high. Especially teacher D’s actions and lesson structure included significant amount of students’ own perspective to be heard and also active presence and participation on the behalf of Teacher D. The overall quality of the drama lessons we observed is very high from the teacher as a creative role model -point of view. The Teacher as a creative role model –tool is fit for the purpose of observing and analyzing drama lessons.

This case study was designated to look at experiences and feelings that were raised during jewellery making process. In addition, the point of interest was the sensations that were experienced while making jewellery. Handicrafts have been found to have a positive effect to the maker's emotions and handicrafts are also used as part of rehabilitation therapy. Making handicrafts increases satisfaction and raises one's self-image. Craft science has studies of getting into a flow in a variety of craftwork processes. The making of jewellery has not been researched before. The beading event in this case study was attended by six test subjects who were chosen depending on whether they were craft makers (3) or not (3).For all of the subjects jewellery making was a new craft method. My role in the beading event was to act as a teacher and afterwards as a researcher. After the event the subjects were interviewed with str-method by using a video which was recorded and the jewelry which the participants made during the event. The purpose of the interviews was to gather the feelings attached to making jewellery. The result of this study shows that jewellery making was a positive experience to the makers. During the beading event the jewellery makers' sensations ranged from excitement to confusion and enthusiasm. The finished jewelry made the bead makers happy and proud, "I did this". All the participants in the beading event wanted to participate in a similar event again. The beading event was found to activate several senses. Visual perception was an important part of making the handicraft products and hand-eye coordination was highlighted. Jewellery making was experienced to be very visual because of the diversity of the beads. The making of handicrafts and in this case the making of jewellery gives more to the makers than just the finished piece of jewellery. The making process as an experience is at least as valuable as the finished product.

In the early years of independence the Finnish school system went through a major change. Both the Compulsory school attendance act (1921) and the Religious freedom act (1923) were legislated almost simultaneously. Although the legislators were deciding on the whole content of the citizenship education given in the compulsory school, their attention was mainly concentrated on the issue of the religious education. The former study concerning the subject shows that this issue was strongly influenced by the political power struggle between the conservative and the socialist parties. One of the underlying factors was also the Church's decreased authority concerning the elementary school. The aim of this research was to study the Finnish evangelical movement's attitude and opinions on the issue of religious education and on its status and nature. Their opinions on the issue were especially investigated from the point of view of their own evangelical lower elementary school teachers seminar, which was deeply connected with the matter of confessionalism. The source material of this research of educational history consist of documents of the school administration and the Lutheran Evangelical Association as well as of vast collection of educational, Church's and evangelical movement's journals. According to the results of this study, the evangelical movement plead very strongly for denominational religious education. However, the confessionalism they were pursuing differed from the common understanding of the concept at that time. This became evident both because of their demands for increased education on the Christian doctrine and because of their sharp criticism against loosely confessional, generally Christian religious education. The evangelical movement's strict opinion was combined with their effort to emphasize the Lutherian doctrine in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland. The founding of the Evangelical seminar for lower elementary school teachers in Karkku was a significant indication of the evangelical movement's dedication to strive towards school's Christianity. The objective of the evangelical seminar was to change the school by means of training evangelical minded teachers. The seminar was only a part of much larger plans of evangelical education and home missionary work. However, maintaining the seminar proved to be impossible, especially as the National Board of Education was absolutely against it, claiming that it would endanger the unity of the compulsory school. The National Board of Education indicated that the objectivity of citizenship education would be forfeit, if every marginal ideological movement could educate their own teachers.

The purpose of this research is to find out how irreligiosity is presented in pedagogical material made for pre-primary education’s and early childhood education’s worldview education. Both National Core Curriculum for Pre-primary Education (2014) and National Core Curriculum for ECEC (2022) require that the personnel in Pre-primary education and ECEC discourse on irreligiosity as a part of worldview education. The aim of this thesis is to determine how irreligiosity is externalized as a worldview and how it is to be taught in pedagogical materials. The research questions are: 1. How irreligiosity is externalized in pedagogical materials for worldview education? 2. To what kind of teaching about irreligiosity do the pedagogical materials direct to? The research was conducted as qualitative research using theory-based content analysis. Irreligiosity is an extensive phenomenon and quite abstractive. Therefore, the selected methods were used to find a concrete way to define the irreligious nature of the materials. Michael Grimmitt's (2000) theory of learning about and learning from religious education and Ninian Smart's (1996) dimensions of religion were selected as theories guiding the content analysis as it was possible to describe irreligiosity and learning related to it through those theories. Learning materials that are openly available on the internet and that have dealt with the contents of irreligion in a way that meets the research criteria have been taken into consideration. The learning materials included for example posters, calendars, and theses. A total of nine learning materials meeting the criteria were collected. In the data irreligiosity was presented as a rule simplified. All the dimensions of irreligion were represented in the materials, most common of which were the dimensions of ritual or practical and experiential or emotional. The dimensions of doctrinal or philosophical, mythic or narrative as well as ethical or legal were left to less attention. The materials primarily led to learning about irreligiosity but there was also learning from irreligiosity in four materials in the form of tasks that lead to discussion. Three of the materials included both learning about and from irreligiosity. Only one of the materials relied solely on information from irreligious people.

The objective of this study was to interpret the phenomenon of modern craftsmanship by studying its dimensions As we live in a modern, technologically charged culture many seek for anchor points and meaningful content for life. For many those can be found in the world of craft. The word "craft" bears numerous meanings, maybe as many as there are interpreters, and one of the aims of this study is to find the one that is valid in this precise time and culture. Grounded theory -method was used as a means to collect and to analyse data. Mainly publicly available data, such as magazines, craft research, blogs and books was used as a ground for the analysis. Also the visual dimension of the data was analysed. Grounded theory is evolved by coding data, seeking categories and making comparative analysis of them. In this study the objective was not to create a theory but a model or an interpretation. The dimensions of modern craftsmanship based on data-analysis are responsibility, experience, making, skills and visuality. All of the dimensions are connected to the idea of a better life, of building yourself a good life. It can be seen as the core of the ideology of today's craftsmanship. By making yourself one can take control of the future of the entire globe. The choices one makes, when buying and consuming clothes and other things are not only for themselves, but also for the greater ecological good. The responsible choice also concerns valuing used time and its quality. Responsibility of own life is important. Making by hand represents empowerment and meaningful fulfilment of a busy life. Experiences come through making and especially through making together. By succeeding, learning, sharing and focusing hobbyists experience doing craft as doing well. As a rising economical aspect of craft, experience economy offers craftsmen and crafters new ways and opportunities to experience craft. Referencing to craftsmanship both verbally and visually indicates skills, quality and value. Several separate but equal levels of craft culture can be derived from the data-analysis. Modern craftsmanship and especially the modern craft ideology is one of them.

The objective of this thesis is to study practices of learning and development from the perspective of school visits. In particular I am interested how teachers learn during the visit and how they present their practices to the colleagues. Theoretical background for this study is comparative learning, method of benchmarking as well as change of school administration in Finland from centralized method to decentralized and trust-based. Changes in school administration have released teachers to develop, design and implement their own practices. With benchmarking and comparative learning it is possible to pick up others good practices and to develop their own practices by comparing. The data of this study consist of two school representatives' interviews, the material received from the schools and observation notes. I also interviewed one head of education that is responsible for teacher's continuing education. Two schools are selected as they have developed practices that have attracted interest and invite visitors. For support for interview material and to understand the approaches of the schools I also visited there one day to observe. The data is analyzed by content analysis which allows that the material could be to look for a school requests a phenomenon describing the factors, practices they have built as well as their transit through learning. New practices arise from a desire to develop. Interaction, openness and sharing of information enable that their own practices can be developed in collaboration with colleagues. School visits provide the mirror to help the development as the discussion and seeing the other activity by means of its own operations to reflect on and develop better. Comparative learning acts as an effective development and learning tool.

As the uncertainty in working life increases, a continuous career with a single employer, or even within a single industry is increasingly unlikely. These days it is not uncommon to undertake a career change mid-career, although it often requires further education. According to previous studies, the length of formal education might discourage people from engaging into a career change. The aim of this research was to study motives to participate in a recruiting training program for games industry, RekryKoulutus, and to study how the training program is described. The benefits of training programs have been studied, but mainly from the point of view of employability, while the aspirations of the trainees have been left with less observation. Games industry has traditionally attracted people with strong inner motivation and earlier interest in the field. The theoretical framework of this study is based on modern career theories, in which horizontal career transitions and individual’s self-initiative attitude towards one’s career are viewed as ordinary. Seven people who had participated in RekryKoulutus were interviewed for this research. The participants had taken part in the training program in different years in the 2010s. The participants were interviewed in April and May 2019. At the time of interviews, every participant was employed in the games industry. The data were collected with semi-structured interviews. The interviews were recorded, and they ranged between 35 and 80 minutes in duration. The data were analyzed with theory-directing content analysis, in which the theory guided the analysis, but the theory was also modified throughout the process. The results showed that the participants’ expectations of the training program were fulfilled. The reasons for applying to the program included prior interest to games industry and gaming. The training program was appreciated, and it was seen as a valid means to make a career change into games industry. The shortness of the program was viewed positively. Especially the on-the-job training in a gaming company was considered to be a possibility to build networks and prove one’s skills in the industry. Future prospects were perceived as positive. Results show, that the training program is a good option for making a career change into games industry.

The main aim of this study was to examine the effects of different acoustic features on the perception of clear news speech. Additional goal was to increase knowledge on informational clear speech, more closely the Finnish plain language radio news speech. Plain language news is produced by the national Finnish broadcasting station for listeners with Finnish as a second language. Clear speech in news reading was not previously studied in Finnish and therefore the theoretical aspects were obtained from several studies on clear speech, intelligibility and prosody. Clear speech research has revealed many acoustic-phonetic changes made by speakers attempting to clarify their speech. Features like slower speech rate, wider F0 range, higher mean F0 and increased intensity are said to be characteristic to clear speech. In plain language news slower speech rate and appropriate phrasing are significant. The study consisted of two experiments: a listening experiment and acoustic analysis. The purpose of the listening experiment was to study how speech rate, clarity, pleasantness and intelligibility of different news readers were perceived by listeners with different linguistic background. Ratings of news speech from professional plain news readers were obtained from 15 non-native learners of Finnish and 15 native Finnish listeners. Factors that varied were speech rate (normal versus slow) and speaker (two males and two females). Acoustic analysis was made to study differences between news readers on speech rate, articulation rate, fundamental frequency, prosodic phrasing and voice quality. Measurements were made from news samples with two addressed speaking rates. The relations between the rating results of two subject groups and acoustic features were studied using ordinal logistic regression model. The intelligibility ratings of non-native listeners were affected by linguistic contents and therefore were not reliable for statistical testing. However, results showed that fundamental speech rates and articulation rates affected the perception of clarity. Voice quality had an effect on perceived pleasantness. Methods for measuring intelligibility should be studied further. Also the relations between acoustic features as well as perceived qualities of speech should be studied further. This study can be seen as preliminary study for upcoming research on Finnish clear news speech. The focus of this study was on fundamental acoustic features. In addition to suggested improvements, wider analysis on segmental level acoustics is recommended.