Browsing by Subject "autonomia"

Goals. Deci and Ryan's (2000) self determination theory has been researched in the context of schools. The significance of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relat-edness on learning, motivation and well being has been proven through much research. This re-search aims to find out how these basic psychological needs are found in the memories of pris-oners, what kind of strengthening or weakening aspects of motivation and well being can be found in the memories and to take a look at the weaknesses and strengths of school systems that can be found in the memories of the prisoners. Method. The material used, VASORA, which was collected from 11 Finnish prisons. 243 pris-oners answered an open questionnaire in which they were asked to depict their school memo-ries, more specifically, their memories of peer relationships, teacher relationships and coping in different studies. The research is qualitative in nature and the data analysis method used in this study was content analysis. Results and conclusions. The key finding was that basic psychological needs were not suffi-ciently met during the prisoners' school period. Bullying, loneliness, learning difficulties, prob-lems of concentration and hyperactivity, absence and other factors that weaken the well be-ing were highlighted in the data. For developing schools, it is key to note these weak spots of the system in which the student is in danger of sliding towards exclusion.

Goals. The main goal of this study is to find out, how the autonomy supportive pedagogy (ASP, Reeve 2006) suits in Finnish elementary school. Research questions: 1) what challenges and benefits will ASP bring for classroom teacher, 2) how do the applications of ASP differ between the age groups in elementary school, 3) how does ASP look out from colleagues point of view and 4) how do the students sense the autonomy support. Theoretical framework of the study is self-determination theory, which has its base in motivational studies by Deci and Ryan (1985). Methods. The design of the study was case study (Yin 2009) using data- and methodological triangulation. The actual case was a class room teacher applying ASP in his work. The data was collected from that teacher and also from his colleagues, from the school's principal and from the students. Case-teacher's data consists of two focused interviews from 2013 and 2015. Three of his colleagues and the principal had also been focused interviewed during 2015. The student data was collected with a quantitative Learning Climate Questionnaire -survey (n=48). The qualitative data was analysed by theory-based analysis (teorialähtöinen sisällönanalyysi) and the quantitative data by Kruskal-Wallis' non-parametric analysis. Results and conclusions. Main benefits of ASP were the increasing autonomous thinking and responsibility of own tasks. On the contrary, the main challenges were the noise in class and a long period of running the ASP in for the students. For the sixth-graders it can be possible to create an independent environment of "studying" but for the first-graders the main application of ASP was children's play. From the colleagues point of view ASP may increase student's adaptability for changes and also create difficulties for obeying the school rules. The sense of autonomy among the students was not dependent from teachers practical theory with this data.

Introduction. The aim of the present study is to examine using the framework of the self-determination theory to what extent autonomy, competence and relatedness are associated with middle school students' grit. In addition, possible gender differences in grit and basic psychological needs were examined. This study is part of the Growing Mind project, which aims to create ways to develop schools as well as teachers and students at the personal, social and institutional level. The study may help finding ways to increase middle school students’ grit. It is important to support the grit of middle school students since it is associated with better school engagement and academic performance. Methods. The data was collected using online questionnaires from 8th grade students at the Helsinki metropolitan area in the fall of 2022. The data (N=1342, of which 46.1% females, 46.1% males and non-binarity 7.8%) was examined using regression analysis and two independent samples t-test. Gender differences were examined between girls and boys. Results. According to the results, basic psychological needs were positively associated with to students' grit. Basic psychological needs explained 26% of the variation in grit. Gender differences were observed in autonomy, competence, relatedness and grit. Boys reported higher values than girls in all basic psychological needs and grit. Based on the results, we can assume that supporting basic psychological needs is relevant in terms of supporting student’s grit. The national core curriculum for basic education has been assembled according to a learning concept that emphasizes active agency, promoting activities that support basic psychological needs. Thereby the results support the use of the practices of the national core curriculum for basic education, which emphasize the students' active agency and aspirations and skills to improve and learn together with others.

This study is a case study of Taika Kultsu, the cultural education plan for early childhood education and care in Tuusula. The aim of my thesis is to find out whether the staff feels that the new plan is a useful document and tool in their own work, receiving support for the implementation of cultural and art education in the daycare centre's everyday life. Efforts have been made to make the plan easy to use and concrete. Previous studies by the National Centre for The Evaluation of Education (Karvin) have revealed uneven quality of art education (2019) and the fact that the documents guiding the activities of early childhood education and care remain at a very abstract level (2018). In the framework of this thesis, I aim to describe the multidimensionality of art education, reflecting on art education as part of cultural education, and to highlight the importance of art for the child and the comprehensive development of the child. The concreteness of the guiding documents, its need and level have been considered in several studies. In the theory section, I looked at concreteness from the perspective of the individual's sense of autonomy and, more broadly, the realization of common goals. The data was collected in May 2020 using an electronic questionnaire sent to the entire Tuusulas early childhood education and care staff, approximately 310 persons. 42 responses were received. Like theory-controlled content analysis, the analysis was carried out in combination with the qualitative and quantitative data obtained. Quantitative data were at the level of average and type values, as the small number of respondents did not allow comparison between different groups of respondents using statistical methods. The new plan had received a positive reception and was found useful. It had been used as a support for the brainstorming, planning and evaluation of operations. Taika Kultsu could be judged better as a whole from the perspective of cultural education than from the perspective of an individual art species. There were still few things to develop. This was partly caused by the coronavirus epidemic, which affected the number of respondents and the content of the responses. Taika Kultsu's plan was introduced at the beginning of 2020, and the changed conditions in the spring did not allow us to familiarize yourself with the plan or carry out the activities as desired. The results of this thesis will be taken into account in the development and updating of Taika Kultsu. On the basis of the results, it could be said that concreteness and consideration of locality in the document were considered useful and facilitate ideas, planning, evaluation and diversification. The presentation of the plan is easy to use. The plan clarified the concept and goals of cultural education and presented the possibilities of local cultural offerings. However, setting and implementing common goals requires more debate, as it was not always considered sufficient. The bindingity of this new plan must also be further defined. In municipalities that consider the preparation of their own cultural education plan and its form, the results can be used as user experiences from a document that strives to be very concrete and to put its content into practice.

Goals: The purpose of this master thesis is to explore if the self-determination of elderly care workers developed among the users of ITU!-handbook in Toimi-project. The background theory of this master thesis is self-determination theory. Toimi-Project is a project carried out by Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with elderly care cities of Helsinki, Vantaa and Lohja and Senior Care Home Association (Mereo). The aim of Toimi-project is to support readiness of workers to develop and reform their own work, in other words develop the worker's development agency. One of the methods was use of the ITU!-handbook. The data of this study consist of before and after interviews of the users of the ITU!-handbook. The aim is to explore how the data regarding interviews self-determination of the elderly care workers differs between before and after i. Methods: These questions were addressed by a qualitative deductive content analysis. The data were collected by theme interview. These interviews were randomly selected from a bigger interview database. Work-related Basic Need Satisfaction scale was used as an aid to the identification of psychological basic needs of the material. After this, the findings were analyzed by deductive content analysis according to basic psychological needs. The results of the survey were interpreted from the perspective of the theory of self-determination. Results and conclusions: There were no differences in the fulfilment of the need of autonomy between before and after interviews. The fulfilment of the need of competence occurred between before and after interviews in various ways. ITU!-handbook made the informants think of using feedback from the elderly while reforming their work. This gives an indication that using the ITU!-handbook added the fulfilment of the need of competence. The fulfilment of relatedness occurred also in different ways in before and after interviews. The problems which occurred in before interviews seemed to have disappeared with the Toimi-project. Based on the after interviews the ITU!-handbook encouraged the workers' interaction among themselves about different working styles and reminded of the importance of a colleague's appreciation. ITU!-handbook reminded of the importance of working atmosphere and using the ITU!-handbook seemed to contribute positively to work atmosphere based on the interviews. In conclusion, using the ITU!-handbook developed self-determination of the elderly care workers by confirming especially the fulfilment of competence and relatedness.