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This study examines the learning of children aged 0-6 from the perspective of parents. The aim of the study was to explore parents' views on their child's learning and how they perceive their own role in supporting learning. In terms of learning, I focused on parents' views on the importance of different skills. Promoting the learning of preschool-age children typically falls under the responsibility of parents and early childhood education, so the study also surveyed parents' thoughts on the role of early childhood education in their child's learning. Parents' perspectives on learning have been limitedly studied in recent years. However, parents play a significant role as supporters of their child's learning, and early childhood is an important stage for learning. During early childhood, comprehensive development and learning occur rapidly, laying the foundation for future learning pathways. The study was conducted as quantitative research. The data for the study was collected through an online survey in February 2023 via the Norstat research company's consumer panel. The respondents were 410 parents of 0-6-year-old children. The data analysis is descriptive, and the methods used include percentage distributions as descriptive measures. The research is part of a broader customer understanding project by Sanoma Pro. A key finding is that parents consider their child's learning to be highly important and perceived their own role as strong supporters of learning. Supporting learning is seen as a clear part of parents' parenting responsibility. The results show that parents engaged with their children in learning various skills extensively. Socio-emotional skills are perceived as the most important skills regardless of the child's age. Although parents feel responsible for their child's learning, they also recognize the important role of early childhood education. However, the current resource challenges in early childhood education raise concerns among parents that may have impact on a child's learning and well-being, posing new challenges and pressures for parents.

Aims. The aim of my research was to study the use of social media of 15–17 year old Finnish teenagers and what effects social media has on them. Earlier studies have shown that an average Finnish teenager uses social media approximately 15 hours during a week. It has also been studied that the social media has an effect on self-esteem. I chose social media and it’s effects on teenagers as my research subject because as a phenomenom the social media is rather young, which is why there has not been done many Finnish studies focusing on the teenagers’ social media use. My research assignment is to find out what kind of social media users teenagers are and what kind of effects social media has on their self experiences. Methods. The study was qualitative and 45 teenagers from age 15 to 17 participated in it. The data was collected with an internet questionnaire which was shared through social media, and it contained mainly open questions. The data was analysed by using qualitative data-based content analysis. Results and conclusions. Most of the teenagers used social media 3–4 hours daily or more. It was used for entertainment, for finding information, communication, current affairs, sharing one’s own life experiences and for finding inspiration, among other things. Almost half of the teenagers were bullied over social media. Appearance was also essential in the social media. Social media created ideals for appearance for teenagers and set them under critique, gave them false image of reality and made the teenagers look for the acceptance through outlooks. 31 of them had gotten positive comments on their appearance from social media and 13 had gotten negative comments. Those comments had an impact on the teenagers’ self-esteem, mood and feelings. Teenagers had also objects of identification and admiration in social media, such as videobloggers, artists, models and their own friends, and they were influenced by them. They felt that social media had many positive and negative effects on their lives. Positive effects were the rise of self-esteem, being more brave in expressing one’s own opinion, the possibilities of keeping in touch with other people and being the source of inspiration, motivation and information, among other things. The negative effects were the social media taking too much time and creating pressure, its bad effect on physical condition and sleep, distortion of self-image, the mean people and the need to be always within reach, among other things. The results of this study implicate that the social media has a comprehensive effect on the lives of the teenagers and their self experiences.

The aim of this master's thesis was to study the childhood food memories of 67-76-year-olds. In the first theoretical part of my dissertation I deal with food culture, its formation and the factors that shape it. I write about the history of Finnish food culture since 1945 and the journey towards the current state of Finnish food culture. In the second part of the theory, I write about food memories, previous studies of childhood food memories in Finland and childhood eating habits. My dissertation becomes part of home economics food research, because it deals with Finnish food culture, food memories, cooking skills, food service and even the history of Finnish families' daily lives. My research questions were: How childhood food memories are perceived? Who or what is involved? And in what ways do childhood memories appear in a person’s life at a later age? I did not make hypotheses or presuppositions, as I wanted interview material to speak for itself. The study was conducted as a qualitative study. The research material was collected through pair interviews involving people aged 67–76 years. The subjects were siblings and all of the interviewees were born and have spent their childhoods mainly in the cities of southern Finland. The interviewees were selected at discretion. They have lived their childhoods during the greatest food culture changes in Finland in the last hundred years. The interviews were collected as semi-structured thematic interviews, and the collected material was transcribed, themed and analyzed by means of material-based content analysis. The results of the study show that the role of the mother was the most important in childhood food memories, but the father and grandmother also play a major role in them. Food memories strongly reflected the spirit of the period studied, such as the availability of food, the possibilities of choice, the appreciation of food, Finnish food culture and the social situation. Childhood food memories perceived as positive and negative. Negative food memories are often ignored and there are less negative food memories than positive. There are a lot of positive food memories and they evoke nice and warm thoughts and feelings. In addition to the people, the sensory experiences were emphasized in the food memories. Of the sensory memories, the experiences related to the sense of smell and taste were the most pronounced, but the appearance of the food also affected the attractiveness of the food. The results of my research are largely consistent with previous research. The purpose of the study was to store unique and important Finnish food memorabilia that contain valuable information about history, create an understanding of the present and strengthen the field of home economics research.

This research focuses on the children's clothing of the 1950's. Especially this research has its focus on the meanings of children's clothes. Children's clothes had not been researched widely before, and there was no research of Finnish children's clothes from the 1950's. The decade was remarkable in the lives of families and children, there was some big changes in society, which had a direct effect on both families and children. Costume research has proven that people use clothes to communicate to one another. This is why it is interesting to research how we can see the changed position of the children in her clothes. I studied 12 clothes from Satakunnan Museo's collections. My aim was to choose clothes that would represent as good as possible the children's fashion of the 1950's. I chose not to research underwear, pyjamas, or accessories like shoes or hats. I created an analyse for this research, where I utilized semiotics, artefacts studies and earlier costume research. Children's position could be seen in many ways in her clothes. Urbanization, school systems generalization, could be seen as formality in the clothes. Also the conservative perspective on families and gender could be seen as differences in the clothes of boys and girls. As medicine and psychology as well as behavioural sciences, developed their theories, started the emphasizing of outdoor activities and playing for children's health. These matters could be seen as loose clothes and material choices. On the other hand no elastic materials were used in the clothes of matter, even though the guide books of raising children up, did recommend elastic materials. This research indicated that the society's and adult's aspects on children, could be seen in her clothes in the 1950's.

The purpose of this study was to research patients with Type 1 diabetes and (of) their experiences and perceptions of supportive communication, as well as (and) social support received from the diabetes doctor and the diabetes nurse. The aim was to understand supportive communication at doctor or diabetes nurse's office, (as well as) what kind of social support for Type 1 diabetes was typically received from doctor or nurse, and (as well as) what kind of support would be desired. In the field of speech communication, interest has been a particular aspect of interaction. Supportive communication is described as verbal or nonverbal communication, which aims to provide assistance or support to another person. At it(')s best, supportive communication can have positive effects on both the physical and psychological well-being of a person. In this study the subjects of the review have been instrumental in regards to emotional support for self-esteem and informational support. In this research, the data was collected interviewing nine people with Type 1 diabetes, five of whom were men and four women. Based on the results of this study, a number of Type 1 diabetes patients have experienced supportive communication and social support from their diabetes doctor and nurse. There are many factors that influence of the possibility to get support. These factors are related to sender, message, recipient or context. This study shows that doctor offers most of the instrumental and informational support. From the nurse, in some situations, it is possible to get the emotional support. Support that patients have been receiving from their doctor or nurse has help related to blood sugar values and in terms of writing a referral to another specialist. Support has also been defined as listening and comforting, or encouragement with disease-related problems. One of the major factors related to social support and supportive communication is that the doctor and the nurse has to be aware of the patient's individuality and the fact that patients want and need different types of support. When interacting with a patient, it is important for the doctor and the nurse to use person-centered messages as much as possible. When person-centered messages are used, the support seems more real and focused. Supportive communication and social support needs from doctor and nurse also vary depending on (related to that) how much support is obtained from elsewhere. Peer group support is important for many Type 1 diabetics and it has at least partly replaced the need for support from diabetes doctor and a nurse. Despite this, many still consider that help from doctor and nurse could be useful.

The aim of this study was to research the prosocial behavior of children from three to four years old during their playtime at daycare. This subject has links with some current questions concerning the early education. The theoretical background is based on the theories of moral development and play. The earlier research has given different views on young childrens capability to behave prosocially. The latest studies have shown that some forms of prosocial behavior are possible for children during their first year of life. The purpose of this study is to research the forms of childrens prosocial behavior and to find out the most frequent form. The connections between the prosocial behavior and different plays are also considered. The qualitative methods were used in this study. The material was collected through ethnographic observation at a daycare center in Espoo. 13 children were participated in the observation. In the addition of ethnographic methods also conversation analysis was used. The data was litterated and analysed by conversation analysis. The ethnographic notebook based on the observation was utilised over the analysis. Four main classes of prosocial behaviour were found out. They are helping, comforting, pleasing and sharing. The new sub class of prosocial behaviour was composed and named as “predicting one’s desires”. Sharing turned out to be the most frequent form of prosocial behaviour among the observated children. Prosocial behaviour was more frequent during home play compared to other playing situations. All the children were capable to behave prosocially at least in some situations. Based on these results is possible to think that children from 3 to 4 years old already have some capacities to perspective taking and empathy. The connection between home play and prosocial behaviour can be explained partially by the nature of home play. At this age home play includes a lot of features of role play. The information concerning childrens prosocial behaviour can be utilised in the early education and specially in positive pedagogy.

Aims. The beginning point of this research was confusion between studies claiming, that children mature Metalinguistic to read at 6-7 of age, and the fact, that in Montessori playschools children easily start writing and reading at age 3 to 5. Aim was also find out how conception of slow Metalinguistic development has started, and if there is some evidence of phoneme awareness of reading of young children in the field of research of reading. Aim was also seek evidence of the sensitive period of reading as Montessori described it. The research also wanted to turn up, if phoneme awareness only develops in children, who work with graphemes and with reading, or could it be found in children, who do not. The mean was to research how the Montessori reading material supports child's Metalinguistic development, when child begins learning to read. The research plans to represent knowledge about how young children learn to write and read. Methods. Research performed in ordinary kindergarten and in Montessori playschool in Espoo. In kindergarten observed six children, age 3-4, at eight grapheme-rhyme sessions from January to April 2007, and conducting a test based on Chaney's (1992) study of phoneme awareness of young children. In Montessori kindergarten were observed 17 children about their phoneme awareness and reading competition from January 2007 to March 2008. Their developments in reading were also measured three times from 1.9.07 to 20.3.08 with classification constructed for this study, loosely based on Chall's (1983) reading stages. The Montessori reading material was analyzed about the influence they have to a child's Metalinguistic development. This was done based to theory and its concepts from the field of research of reading; phoneme awareness, morphological, syntactical and semantic consciousness. Results and conclusions. Research proved that children 3-5 have naturally developed phoneme awareness. In kindergarten and in Montessori playschool children between 2 and 4 could do phoneme synthesis, and in the latter they also could do phoneme segmentation of words. Montessori reading material guided children gradually, except to read, also to observe and absorb Metalinguistic knowledge. Children learned to write and read. At the last evaluating day almost 50 % of children write and read clauses or stories, and 82 % could read at least words. Children can develop Metalinguistic awareness, while using the Montessori materials for learning to write and read. To reach literacy is easy for children because of their phoneme awareness.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out how five to six year old boys' need for support with their gross motor skills is associated with their other skills, such as cognitive and social skills. The scope of the material also allowed to study the associations between gross motor skills and daily functions of early childhood education. I study these other functions in my third research problem; how does the need for support with gross motor skills impact the daily activities of the child in his early childhood education. Based on earlier research, it is known that motor skills have an impact on the development of the child. My assumption was that my research data would support earlier research. The data used in this thesis was part of the University of Helsinki "Orientaation lähteillä" research project material. The data had been collected from 45 day cares, including both kindergartens and childminders in Central Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. The material had been collected by interviewing and observing the children, and having the teachers evaluate the children's different skills. Background information and information about the learning environment was also collected. This thesis is based on the material's Needs plenty of support with gross motor skills claim, which had been evaluated on a five point scale. The data was delimited to boys aged five to six (N=243). The data was analysed using cross tabulation and correlations from child observations and skills assessments. This thesis is quantitative, and the SPSS software was used to study the associations between gross motor skills and other skills and functions. The results of this thesis show that children who needed support with their gross motor skills, often also needed support with their cognitive and social skills. The need for support with gross motor skills also impacted the child's everyday activities. A child who had a need for support with their gross motor skills played less imaginary games, spent less time in guided outdoor activities, and focused his attention more frequently on non-social targets than other children. The children who needed plenty of support where physically less active and less committed during the kindergarten day. In conclusion, motor development influences many other areas of a child's development, and therefore special attention needs to be paid to promoting motor development in early childhood education.

The symptoms of ADHD can cause many challenges for children and adolescents in school. Today, traditional learning environments are challenged by more open, flexible learning environments. However, there is only little earlier research on classroom experiences in flexible learning environments and classroom experiences comparing traditional and flexible learning environments have not been studied from the perspective of students with ADHD symptoms. In addition, previous research has shown that students with symptoms of ADHD often experience lower self-esteem than their peers. It is also known that girls are more likely to report lower self-esteem than boys. The purpose of this study is to examine how students at risk for ADHD experience their self-esteem, engagement, autonomy, relatedness and competence in traditional and flexible learning environments. In addition, this study examines whether there is a gender difference in the above-mentioned experiences. The theoretical basis of the research is the self-determination theory, to which autonomy, competence, relatedness and engagement are essentially connected. The data was collected from students in grades 7 and 8 who had participated in the Learning, grouping, evaluation and well-being in large learning areas project of the city of Vantaa and the University of Helsinki Education Assessment Center in 2019–2020. Of all 7–8th graders (N 1446), students at risk of ADHD (n 113) were selected for the study. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to examine the connections between attention, self-esteem, and the components of self-determination theory. Next, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine whether there is a difference between traditional and flexible learning environments in self-esteem, autonomy, competence, relatedness and student engagement in students at risk for ADHD. The same method of analysis was used again to examine whether there is a gender difference in self-esteem, autonomy, competence, relatedness and student engagement in students in the risk group of ADHD. The data was analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. The results showed that the experiences of self-esteem and the components of self-determination theory (student engagement, autonomy, relatedness and competence) did not differ depending on the learning environment in students at risk of ADHD between traditional and open plan (flexible) learning environments. However, experiences of self-esteem, autonomy and engagement among at-risk students in ADHD differed between the sexes, with girls having lower self-esteem and experiencing less autonomy and engagement than boys.

The aim of this master's thesis was to find out what kind of promoting and hindering supervisory experiences doctors who have graduated from Aalto University School of Engineering had during their doctoral studies and what kind of differences were found between those experiences. Based on previous research literature it can be stated that the quality of supervision of doctoral studies has an effect on the experiences of doctoral students, their well-being and their graduation. My data consists of 10 theme interviews of doctors who have graduated from Aalto University School of Engineering in 2012-2014. I used qualitative content analysis to analyse my data. Based on my research results, the promoting factors of doctoral studies include high-quality and sufficient supervisory relationships and supervision of the research process. The most significant supervisory relationship was the one with the personal supervisor. Competence, pedagogical know-how, enthusiasm, prioritizing supervising and regularity of the supervisory meetings were valued when the personal supervisor is concerned. Supervision of the research process had promoted doctoral studies if supervision and feedback were received regularly; supervision was supportive and motivating; and it was focused on the content of the doctoral thesis, usage of research methods and the study processes of the doctoral student. Poor-quality and insufficient supervisory relationships and supervision of the research process were experienced as hindering factors of doctoral studies. Personal supervisor who lacked competence, interest and time on academic supervising was a significant hindering factor in doctoral studies. Research group activities did not promote student's own research if the research agenda of the group was remarkably different from the research topic of the student. The lack of peer group activities was also experienced as a hindering factor. Supervision of the research process was experienced hindering one's doctoral studies if the student did not receive enough support on the contents of the doctoral thesis, usage of research methods, planning his or her studies and research, academic writing and publishing or applying for finances. Based on the differences of the supervisory experiences I split the interviewees into four groups: 1) satisfied with supervision, 2) those who described contradictory supervisory experiences, 3) unsatisfied with supervision and, 4) those who extended their supervisory network. Based on my results it can be stated that there were remarkable differences between supervisory experiences of the interviewees. The quantity of supervision varied from daily supervisory discussions to years of lonely work and the quality of supervision varied from productive collaboration with supervisor and other researchers to indifferent and insufficient supervision. To improve the supervisory experiences of doctoral students it is recommended in this master's thesis that supervisory teams could be used, peer group activities could be organized, supervision could be increased especially in the planning stage of studies and research, more research method courses could be organized and postgraduates could be given support in applying for finances.