Browsing by Subject "Mind the Gap"

Previous studies have confirmed that educational practices have not changed with the digitalization of society. The use of ICT in teaching is mainly low and there is an ongoing public debate regarding the Finnish students well-being. This study tried to find out is there a hypothesized gap between the technology-mediated practices of adolescents and school. The aim of this study was to investigate how and how much ICT is used for learning and what kind of technological attitudes and school well-being experiences students have. It was also examined how the use of technology, attitudes and well-being are interrelated and which factors of these phenomena can explain academic achievement, schoolwork engagement, school value, happiness and school burnout. Finally it was investigated what kind of profiles of ICT use and attitudes could be found among the participants. The study was part of the Mind the Gap -project. The data was collected by questionnaire in the 2013. The participants (n = 735) were sixth graders from Helsinki. The use of digital technology, technology attitudes and school well-being were examined by mean values and gender differences by t-test. Correlational analysis and stepwise regression analysis were carried out to find out the factors that were related to academic achievement, schoolwork engagement, school value, happiness and school burnout. Students were grouped into profiles that represented their technological attitudes and use of ICT using SPSS two-step cluster analysis. One-way ANOVA and cross-tabulations were used to examine group and gender differences. The results indicated that the technology is not used on a regular basis to support learning, even though the students felt quite high ICT enthusiasm (the use of technology was seen as a positive contribution to the schoolwork engagement). Information-orientated use was reported most common. Mechanical technology use (eg. writing) was the next most common, producing technology use (eg. projects, multimedia) came in the third. Communicative technology use (online discussion about schoolwork) was the least common. The majority of the sixth graders felt relatively high schoolwork engagement, happiness and school value. Further, students reacted positively towards the teacher's activity and the conditions of the school. ICT enthusiasm was associated with lower experience of school value, schoolwork engagement as well as negative experiences of teacher's activities. Technology-related problem-solving predicted schoolwork engagement positively. Information-orientated use, and fear of failure using technology were repeatedly negative predictors for school well-being and positive predictors for school burnout. Four different groups (actives, slackers, passives, enthusiastics) showed clear differences in the use of technology, attitudes, school well-being and the associations between these phenomena. To conclude, teacher's role and how the technology is used in schools appears essential. It's important to understand students' predispositions towards using digital technologies and support adolescents' natural ways of utilizing ICT. Students need guidance to understand the possibilities of digital technologies as collaborative and creative learning tools. This, however, does not happen by chance. Therefore, I argue, that there is a need in basic education to build new support systems for national, municipal, school and grade levels to minimize the gap between the technology-mediated practices of adolescents and school.

The new Finnish curriculum (FNBE, 2014) calls for active and engaging learning that supports students' agency and active role in their own learning. It emphasizes creating meaningful contexts that interrelate also with students' out-of-school interests. Research shows participating with organized out-of-school activities has a positive relation to school grades. In addition, it seems that school engagement is low among Finnish 6th graders (Salmela-Aro et al., 2016). However, little is known of what currently interests Finnish pupils and how their topics of interest are related to academic well-being. This study explores the topics of interest and interest-driven participation and further, their relation to school engagement, school burnout and grades (GPA) of 6th graders. The study was part of Mind the Gap project (Academy of Finland #265528) and the participants (n=735) were 6th graders from Helsinki. I conducted content categorization of the whole sample that showed a rich variation of interests, largest categories being sports (43.8%) and arts (27.9%). The quantitative analyses looked at the intensity and form of the activities. I identified three interest profiles with two-step cluster analysis: Organized team participators, Informal individualistic participators and Intensive participators. The Organized team participators were most interested in team sports. They reported high school engagement, low burnout and high GPA whereas Informal individualistic participators had lower school engagement, high GPA and moderate school burnout. They were the most interested in music and arts. Intensive participators, who were especially interested in social interaction, were engaged to school, but had higher levels of burnout and the lowest GPA. The results indicate lack of supporting interest-driven participation in schools: only Intensive participators were almost as active inside as outside of school. It may be difficult for teachers to adopt new practices that call for supporting interest-driven participation. However, it would be important to use students' personal interests to bridge between school world and students' lives and to promote student agency and support school engagement.