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Browsing by Subject "daycare"

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  • Lapsen stressitason yhteys päivähoidon laatuun ja lapsen temperamenttiin 
    Salmi, Saara (2012)
    The aim of this study is to investigate the stress levels of children who attend day care by examining the relations between the quality of the day care centre, child's individual characteristics and stress. This study is a part of a broader study concerning children's stress regulation and learning at the Department of Teacher Education in the University of Helsinki. The participants of the study were 33 day care centres in 5 towns in Southern Finland. The 340 children examined in the study were between the ages 3 and 7. The evaluation of stress levels was completed by stress hormone measurements. These measurements were obtained by saliva samples which were taken from the children (N=340) a total of five (N=5) times during a day. The measuring process was carried out both at home and at the day care centre. The samples were then frozen and analysed at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The quality of the day care centres was explored from several aspects. However, the examination stayed on the micro level – i.e. the quality factors were evaluated empirically. In this process, the structural and process related quality factors in the day care group's learning environment were assessed. To do this, The Learning Environment Assessment Scale (Strain & Joseph 2004) was used as a medium of assessment. In this scale, the observed subjects are multifaceted. They include classroom arrangement, assessment of activity and transition situations, and the working methods of the pedagogues. A child's individual characteristics were assessed by exploring the child's temperament. The parents evaluated their child's temperament with the Children's Behaviour Questionnaire which has been created by Rothbart (2001). The results indicate that the children's stress hormone levels during the day followed the normal everyday cortisol cycle. On average, however, girls were more stressed than boys. High quality evaluations of the pedagogue team's functionality as well as consistency and clarity in the activity and transition situations reduced the children's stress levels. Children who had a tendency to react to the smallest of stimuli were most likely to have higher stress levels. Girls, whose temperament had been evaluated to not show anger and frustration, were more stressed on average. Also, boys whose activity level was evaluated to be high had stress levels above average.
  • Päivähoidon työntekijöiden virheitä koskevat kertomukset 
    Tiainen, Tanja (2012)
    The purpose of this thesis was to describe mistakes occurring in daycare and the emotions they evoke, as well as how these mistakes are reported to outsiders. Mistakes occurring at work have raised internationally steady amounts of attention throughout the entire 2000s. Earlier studies have mainly focused on the best ways to avoid mistakes or to learn from them, as well as on factors that predispose to mistakes and failures. However, there are very few Finnish studies on this topic. Additionally, earlier studies have mainly ignored the individual view; thoughts and emotions in a situation where a worker makes a mistake. This thesis investigates the types of narratives told about mistakes. Further, the emotions perceivable in these stories are mapped together with how these narratives reflect the thoughts of alternatives to reality. In research publications, the latter is called counterfactual thinking. The material was collected and analysed using a narrative research method. For this thesis, six former or present daycare workers were interviewed, each of them twice. The first interview was a narrative one, and the second one a semi-structured one. The actual material comprised 18 narratives, each one describing a particular situation where a mistake was made by the interviewee or his or her coworker. Narrative analysis was used to analyse various reporting styles, the emotional expressions used in them and the counterfactual thinking. Through reporting styles and counterfactual thinking it was possible to detect five different types of narratives the daycare workers used for reporting mistakes. These types of narratives were qualitatively different depending on whether the reported mistake was made by the person himself or herself or by a coworker. The types of narratives were judgmental, evasive, learning, polishing and what if reports.

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