Browsing by Subject "palautuminen"

The research task of this Master's thesis is to describe, analyze and interpret how the principals of Finnish elementary schools and high schools experience their workload and their job satisfaction. These are examined by the workload and resource factors of principal’s job. In addition, the ways of how the workload appears and ways of recovery are discussed. The thesis is a qualitative pilot study for a broader welfare research conducted by the Finnish Principals Association, which will be implemented during 2019. Previous studies on the work of a Finnish principal have shown that his job description is extensive, that the workload is high and job satisfaction is put to the test every day. This research was guided by the following research questions: How do principals experience their workload and work satisfaction? What are the factors that the principals feel stressing them on their work and how does the workload show? What do the principals feel are resource factors in their work and how and by what means do they recover? The material consists of interviews with sixteen Finnish principals of elementary schools and high schools. The interviews were conducted as a semi-structured theme interview. The interview questions related to the principal’s own experience of their job satisfaction, workload, the ways in which the workload appears, their experience of the resources of their work, and how they feel they success to recover, and how do they recover. The material was analyzed phenomenographically because the subject of the research were the subjective perceptions and experiences of the principals. According to the material, the Finnish principals are very satisfied with their work, despite its relatively high workload. The experience of satisfaction arises especially through the independence, significance and influence of the work. The principal's experience and attitude also seemed to be relevant to how the workload was experienced. Generally, the workload was described high and the load was described to appear as typical stress-induced warning signs, but the principals, however, judged the workload as being reasonable. The workload was considered to be a natural part of the principal's work and the respondents tended to have a constructive attitude towards it. The principals also reported that their own recovery was generally successful, which according to respondents was of great importance to coping with work.

Aims. It is important to study factors to manage work-related stress to get more tools to support sustainable ways of doing work and flourishing work environments. The purpose of this study was to examine what extent servant leadership, sense of community and workaholism are associated with burnout and recovery from work. Job Demands-Resources Model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) and Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 2001) were used as a theoretical framework of the study. In this study servant leadership and sense of community were considered as resources and workaholism as a work-related demand. Previous studies have shown that servant leadership and sense of community are negatively associated with burnout, whereas no previous research exist focusing on the associations between servant leadership, sense of community and recovery. According to previous studies, workaholism is positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with recovery. In this study, following the JD-R model, it was hypothesized that servant leadership and sense of community are negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with recovery. In addition, it was also hypothesized that workaholism is associated positively with burnout and negatively with recovery. Methods. This study is a part of an occupational health study, in which three large organizations (N = 1415) were examined by using an e-mail questionnaire. The participants answered questions concerning burnout, recovery, servant leadership, community and workaholism. The data was analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that servant leadership and sense of community were negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with recovery. Workaholism was positively associated with burnout and negatively with recovery. As a conclusion, servant leadership and sense of community can serve as important social resources against burnout and support recovery from work. Thus, promoting servant leadership and employees’ sense of community might serve as advantages for organizations. In addition, it would be important to actively recognize workaholism to reduce its threat for employees’ well-being.

In Helsinki Medical school, half of the students experience lot of stress during their studies. Earlier inter-national research shows that university students wellbeing can be improved with practicing mindfulness skills, but in Finland there are fewer studies in this topic. Research on mindfulness trainings effects on different study programs, age-groups and genders are also missing. The aim of this study was to find out, if practicing mindfulness is linked to better wellbeing in university students in Helsinki Medical school. Other aim was to find out and there some effect concerning study program, gender, age, the amount of mindfulness training or earlier mindfulness background. The study was randomized controlled trial research with intervention- (N=52) and control group (N=35). Intervention group practiced mindfulness skills on different methods and control group had sup-port as usual from the university. The measures were gathered with online questionnaire in the in the baseline and at the end of the study (5-8weeks). T-test was used to analyze changes between baseline and finish measurements. Repeated ANOVA was used to measure intervention effect. The overall wellbeing in the intervention group did not change during the intervention. Whereas in control groups wellbeing decreased statistically significantly in almost every variable. It is possible, that mindfulness training helps to prevent increase of stress levels. There was seen decrease in subjective wellbeing in both groups, but in the intervention group the decrease was significantly less (p= 0.03, η2 =.053). The intervention effect size (η2) was small. In intervention group there was a significant differ-ence between medical and dentistry students and psychology and logopedics student’s subjective wellbe-ing (p=0.037, η2=.084). There was a moderate intervention effect (η2). Medical and dentistry students experienced more effect from the intervention. Due to small amount of the study subjects, results are di-rectional. The results support the earlier findings where mindfulness has effect on wellbeing. Methods based on mindfulness training should be studied more to find out cost effective and preventive ways to support medical student’s wellbeing. More research is also needed to find out the best methods for different genders, age groups and students from different study programs.