Browsing by Author "Aaltonen, Helinä"

Aims The purpose of this research was to analyze the evaluation of adults' vocational competence and the possibilities of learning partnership in a triangular evaluation discussion between the student, teacher and representatives of work life. The development of evaluation is important in a vocational skills demonstration system, where mature students are aimed to be trained effectively for working life and for the needs of the job market. The starting point of the research was to investigate how the evaluation discussion appears as a multivoiced interaction situation, and how the student's voice is present and heard in a joint evaluation process. The identification of disturbances breaks and innovations and the hearing of the student's voice in the evaluation discussion are important in order to develop the system. The research questions were: 1. What kind of disturbances, breaks and innovations there occur in the evaluation discussion? 2. How is the student's voice heard in the multivoiced evaluation discussion? Methods The research data consisted of five final examination evaluation discussions of social and health sciences basic degree students. The data was collected through recording the evaluation discussions and interviewing the participants separately after the evaluation. The researcher participated as an observer in the evaluation discussion. The methods of Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research were applied to study the disturbances, breaks and innovations in a multivoiced discussion, as well as to study the multivoicedness. The researcher further developed these methods by means of a network perspective to illuminate the different voices in a triangular discussion. Two objects of discussion were differentiated, the work under evaluation and the evaluation discussion. Results The research produced knowledge about the nature of the evaluation discussions and their multivoicedness. The evaluation discussions turned out to be relatively teacher-driven discussions, where various disturbances and breaks were present. Large amount of the disturbances was focused on the evaluation discussion, whereas the breaks and innovations were evenly focused on the evaluation discussion and the work situation under evaluation. The disturbances were already noticed during the evaluation discussion and the participants considered them as a rather natural part of the situation. Instead, the breaks and innovations were missed and only became evident in the researcher's analysis and in the interviews with the participants. Therefore, the development potential of breaks and innovations cannot be utilised unless they are consciously scrutinised. The most important type of breaks was the ambiguities in evaluation during the evaluation discussion. The most important type of innovations was the cooperation effort between the participants of evaluation. The voice of students was partly overridden by the voices of evaluators particularly when the self-evaluation and grade suggestion by the student were discussed. The students' voice was emphasised when the focus of the discussion was one's own work and even the development of the whole work community. On the basis of the research results it could be concluded that the evaluation discussions are still predominantly oriented towards the evaluation situation and the formal evaluation task, which could be expanded towards addressing the work by strengthening the voice of the student. This would also create better prerequisites for a more genuine learning partnership and its further development.