Browsing by Author "Panula, Sini"

The constant stimulation and strong digitalisation of today’s society are considered to have contributed to pupils’ restlessness and reducing well-being among pupils. Previous studies have found that practising mindfulness skills at school promotes pupils’ emotion regulation, attentiveness, social skills and well-being. Practising mindfulness skills is closely related to practising and learning emotional skills. Despite an immense growth in research on mindfulness skills, most studies are focused on adults and utilise quantita-tive methods. As a result, a need for a study investigating the personal experiences of pupils in lower comprehensive education has been identified. The focus of this study is on children’s perspectives, which means that we are interested in hearing children’s per-sonal views and the views of the adults in the children’s lives. Therefore, the purpose is to examine what kinds of experiences pupils in the first year of education gathered from a mindfulness and emotional skills teaching session. A further aim is to explore the views of guardians of the necessity and benefits of a study unit on mindfulness and emotional skills. Research data were collected from one group of first-year pupils in Finland’s capital re-gion; eight pupils were interviewed at the middle point, and nine pupils at the end, of the study unit. Moreover, six guardians were interviewed at the end of the study unit. The obtained data were analysed using data-driven content analysis by forming upper cate-gories based on the data describing the research findings. Based on the results, the pupils associate positive emotions with their experiences of the teaching sessions and found the sessions comforting. The pupils also explained in detail the bodily experiences they had during the practices. The pupils’ experiences also indicated that they had acquired emotional skills, particularly those related to the recog-nition and regulation of emotions. The guardians perceived the mindfulness and emo-tional skill education as necessary and beneficial and has a considerably positive view of the education. They particularly found that today’s world and digitalisation create a need for mindfulness and emotional skills education and found that it was necessary to start it early on. The guardians also found that there were signs that the skills had been reflected in their home. The results of the study strengthen a previous view of the suita-bility of the practices to the education provided at schools as well as their necessity and opportunities for supporting pupils’ well-being and learning. The results also indicate that children are able to share their views from many perspectives, which emphasises the importance of making young pupils’ voices and perspectives heard in research.