Browsing by Subject "Laaja-alainen osaaminen"

Aims. The aim of this study is to examine teacher students’ perceived competence to teach 21st century skills and phenomenon-based learning and their connection to their epistemic beliefs, that formed two epistemic theories. Epistemic beliefs refer to our theories and beliefs that we hold about knowledge and learning. The aim is also to find out whether there were differences between the means of subject teacher students, classroom teacher students, or participants in the “21st Century Skills and Phenomenon-Based Projects” course in the perceived competence to teach 21st century skills and phenomenon-based learning. Methodology. The data (N = 274) was gathered from teacher students at the University of Helsinki in autumn 2019. The questionnaire used in the study is based on an assessment tool developed to assess the 21st century skills of the Finnish curricula. First, I used exploratory factor analysis to examine what kind of entities 21st century skills in this material were formed into. In addition, I formed two epistemic theories (reflective-collaborative theory and knowledge transmission theory) from the data using sum variables and used correlation coefficients to examine how respondents’ perceived competence to teach 21st century skills as well as phenomenon-based learning was related to their epistemic beliefs. Finally, I used the one-way analysis of variance to examine whether there were differences between the means of the subject teacher students, the classroom teacher students, and the averages of those who took the elective course. Results and conclusions. 21st century skills were formed into seven dimensions, but mainly in a different way than in the curriculum. The theory emphasizing collaborative knowledge building was statistically significantly related to the perceived competence to teach both 21st century skills and phenomenon-based learning. Knowledge transmission theory had almost nothing to do with perceived competence to teach these skills. There were very few differences between the groups when looking at the means of the responses. The only statistically significant difference was found between classroom teachers and subject teachers in the perceived competence in teaching “collaborative skills and performance”. Based on the expectation value theory, perceived competence predicts success in the task, so supporting an epistemic theory that emphasizes collaborative knowledge building in teacher education can improve students’ competence to teach 21st century skills and phenomenon-based learning in the future.