Browsing by Author "Peltonen, Jarna"

The aim of this study was to find out what kind of perceptions about three-step support model parents have. Participating families and parents were those whose children got intensified or special support in early childhood education. To clarify parents' perceptions sub-questions in this study were: 1) how well do the parent's know the concept of a three-step support model, 2) what kind of perceptions parents have of the support their child received, 3) what participating parents think of educational partnership and finally 4) what kind of feelings parents have of support. This topic is accurate, because the three-step support model has been used only four years, since 2011. Parents conceptions of this topic hasn't been really surveyed yet. However, strengthening the parental involvement is mentioned more and more in various national documents, f.ex in National core curriculum for Pre-primary and Basic Education which is currently in process. So the need for this study is evident. The theoretical framework of this study reviews development and learning support in early childhood education, the three-step support model as an intervention and educational partnership. Educational partnership is looked especially through the ecological theory of Bronfenbrenner. The data was collected by using semi-structured interviews. Twelve parents, whose children were receiving intensified or special support in early childhood education, were interviewed in this study. The methodological approach in this study was phenomenography and the data was analysed with phenomenografic analysis using Atlas.ti program as a tool. Phenomenographic survey research results can be considered as analysis generated "outcome space". The upper-level categories in outcome space were Parents' varying awareness of three-step support model, Parents' perceptions of the child's support, Many forms of educational partnership and Spectrum of emotions. Based on the results of this survey can be concluded that parents involved know the three-step support model really variously and mostly quite poorly. Parents suggested that the concept of three-step support model should be clarified more to the families, despite the fact that parents were trustworthy that things goes well in practice.