Browsing by master's degree program "Magisterprogrammet i pedagogik"

The purpose of this studie was to research what kind of practical tools the pedagogic staff in one unit of early childhood education feel they have to meet the needs of children with externalizing behaviors. The study also looked at what kind of tools the ECE-staff used in daily interaction with these children and how the children's needs were taken into consideration in the daily activities. Recent studies have shown that externalizing behaviors has become more common among children in early childhood education, and therefore the subject is current. According to Ahonen (2017) the children who show externalizing behaviors are at risk of later challenges in life and it would therefore be important to support these children at an early age. To adequately support the children the ECE-staff needs to have a good understanding of the background factors to the behaviors and also awareness of the central tools to support the children. The data in this studie consist of five individual interviews, two group interviews and 17 hours of observations of the ECE-staff in the groups. The studie was conducted in two ECE-groups in one Swedish speaking Finnish ECE-unit during the fall of 2021. The data were analyzed with the method qualitative content analysis. The result of the study shows that the ECE-staff experience the children's externalizing behavior difficult when they do not know the cause of the behavior or when the behavior is unexpected. They felt it was easier once they had found methods and tools that worked for the child. Another challenging factor was if there were many children with externalizing behavior or if there were shortages of staff. The ECE-staff in this study all met the children with warm interaction and were all aware of the importance of warm interaction. They also divided the children into smaller groups and used visual aids to support the children's executive functions. The ECE-staff mainly worked by handling the situation after it occurred and by forming the activities and environment so that the behavior decreased. In the data there was little that indicated that the personnel actively worked to strengthen the children's skills and competencies to give the children a chance to learn to handle the situations. The ECE-staff mentioned that they felt that the teaching material they had to support socioemotional development was not adequate to their needs. The ECE-staff in this study did not feel they had gotten enough information about the subject or tools in their own education programs. The main source of information about tools and methods had been collegially support and mentorship between colleagues.

Previous studies have shown that school fatigue and school related burnout has increased among upper secondary school students, furthermore psychological wellbeing in general has decreased among youths. Top level athletes who seek to combine studies with sports are also at a high risk of burning out in school or in sport. Earlier studies have shown that interventions based on positive psychology can support both studies and sports and thus help prevent burnout. The purpose of this study is to explore how top-level athletes in Finnish upper secondary school experience that an intervention course based on positive psychology can support them in their sport, studies and well-being in general. The research material was composed of seven (7) semi-structured interviews with top-level athletes currently studying at a general upper secondary school in Finland. All participants had completed the course “Studera starkt” during the schoolyear 2020-2021. The interviews were conducted during the spring of 2021 by videocall and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. All participants expressed that the course had supported them in their athletic career in some way. All participants except one also experienced that the course had helped them with their schoolwork. On top of this all participants expressed that the course had improved their well-being in general. The conclusion was that the course “Studera starkt” effectively supported top-level athletes who also studied at a general upper secondary school with their athletic career, schoolwork and well-being.

Education is of central importance in our society. It not only ensures economic growth, but also contributes to democratic decision-making, social inclusion, and equity. Teachers there fore play a vital role in society and to ensure that there are competent, talented and committed teachers in the future, the teaching profession needs to be respected and teachers´ well being taken seriously. Previous studies show that the workload is increasing and that the well-being of teachers is declining. Some teachers feel so exhausted that they choose to leave the teaching profession. This tendency is alarming and is seen not only in Finland but in several parts of the world. The aim of this study is to identify factors that increase workload and to understand which factors have a negative impact on teachers ́ well-being. In addition, by allowing teachers to highlight suggestions for improvement, the study can contribute with knowledge about how the teaching profession could develop so that well-being could increase, and workload could be reduced. The following research questions have been posed: 1. Which factors contribute to increased workload among teachers? 2. Which factors in the teaching profession contribute to reduced well-being? 3. What changes do teachers consider essential to promote their well-being and reduce workload? This study was conducted using a qualitative method where the material was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. A total of five teachers who teach in grades 1–6 participated. Qualitative content analysis is used to analyze the interviews. The results show that factors that increase workload are linked to the overall increase in work load. The teachers feel that the increased bureaucracy is stressful, as is the lack of resources in the classroom. When it comes to well-being, it is mainly friction in social relations that con tributes to poorer well-being. Mistrust and lack of support in leadership are also contributing factors. Teachers emphasize that it is important to keep teaching groups small and that they need better opportunities to deal with students who disrupt teaching. Greater clarity in policy documents and more effective collaboration are also important to counteract workload. In addition, teachers would like to be more involved in decision-making processes, they want to be taken seriously and be treated with respect.

Aim. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences of adults on the autism spectrum of being themselves and the factors related to masking in higher education and transitioning to working life. Previous studies have shown that many people on the autism spectrum feel the need to mask their characteristics typical of the autism spectrum. It has been found that masking can have negative effects on the mental health and wellbeing of the person who masks. This study reveals the experiences of adults on the autism spectrum of being themselves and which factors are related to masking. Methods. The data of the study consisted of the interviews collected for the international IMAGE project. The participants were adults on the autism spectrum from Finland (n=7) and the United Kingdom (n=5). The data was analyzed in the phenomenological framework using qualitative, data-driven content analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that the diagnosis of autism spectrum was reported mainly for a specific reason, not spontaneously. Experiences of being accepted ranged from positive to negative, and it was particularly challenging to be oneself in extracurricular activities. Three themes emerged in the factors related to masking. First, masking and openness on the other hand were associated with the concern about their consequences: participants considered possible negative consequences on job search, other people and themselves. Another factor related to masking was social environment. Masking increased when the person on the autism spectrum did not know their company, while knowledge about the autism spectrum and friendly attitude reduced it. What is more, one’s own opinion of the autism spectrum was related to masking. A positive attitude towards the autism spectrum reduced the need for masking, while one's own or others' negative experiences of being open about the autism spectrum increased its hiding. In higher education and workplaces, it would be important to reinforce factors that increase the possibility for the people on the autism spectrum to be themselves and not mask if they wish so.

We live in an increasingly diverse society. Various neurological developmental disorders have become more and more common as awareness and general discussion around them has increased. One of the most important tasks of basic education is to support the student's growth in humanity and become a membership of society. Teaching and education must promote, for example, respect for other people, human rights and equality. It is also important to support the student's growth into a balanced person with a healthy self-esteem. Literary education is the right way to deal with these skills of growing as a person. Reading fiction allows you to understand both yourself and the world around you better. The meaning of identification is also crucial because every child should have the opportunity to read relatable works which they can use to mirror themselves. In the current literature for young adults, all types of autism are already covered quite extensively, but the autism spectrum still appears as a relatively rare theme. The purpose of this thesis was to study the spectrum of autism in two books for young people from the 21st centu-ry. The study was carried out as a qualitative study. The research method was data-based content analysis, which was used to analyze two books for young adults dealing with autism. The research was carried out more precisely as a theory-driven SI content analysis. The theoretical basis was Murray's (2008) publication on fictional autistic people. In the young adult books I selected, the portrayal of the autism spectrum was in line with Murray`s (2008) defined archetypes of fictional autistic characters. “The Curios Incident of the dog in the night-time” (Yöllisen koiran merkillinen tapaus, 2003) exhibited the savant archetype as well as a stereotypical description of autism. “The Shadow Garden” (Varjopuutarha, 2014) displayed a very subtle idiot-archetype. Both books also featured the core characteristics outlined by the Autism Society (Autismiliitto, 2023). However, despite the precence of Murray`s (2008) archetypes in both works, they offered a deeper portrayal than merely relying on stereotypes.

Aims. Accoring to the Self-Determination Theory all human beings have fundamental psychological needs to be competent, autonomous, and related to others. Satisfying all these basic needs is essential to motivation and also affects the psychological well-being of people. The concept of motivation can be examined also from the perspective of social psychology and cognitive science. Combining several theoretical models enables a more in-depth analysis of the phenomenon. This study focuses on reading motivation. The first research question of this thesis is, how much autonomy Finnish primary school teachers provided their pupils when choosing the latest novel to be read in class.Teachers’ arguments for using this particular way of choosing the book will be analyzed in the second research question. The aim was to find out what kind of thoughts about motivation guide teachers’ pedagogical choices when teaching literature. Additionally, the aim was to find out if all the psychological needs were mentioned equally when the term motivation was used in an answer or was one of them highlighted more than the others? Methods. This study is a part of the Lukuklaani research project and it’s data was collected by an online survey in Finnish primary schools during November-December 2017. The total number of answers was 885. This thesis is based on two questions from the questionnaire. One of the questions was closed and the other question was open. The data of this study includes only the Finnish-speaking answers from the research project schools and sample schools. The research method was theory driven analysis, which was based on the quantitative data of the first research question. As a qualitative research the corpus was wide including 583 answers. Results and conclusions. Teachers’ arguments hold a lot of understanding of motivational psychology. Also the fundamental psychological needs of The Self-Determination Theory appear widely in the whole data. Interestingly, the concept of autonomy appeared more than the other aspects of the SDT when teachers were referring to motivation in their answers. According to this study it is relevant to consider how the term motivation differs from the terms of enthusiasm or interest in teachers’ minds.

The purpose of this research is to study how the personnel of early childhood education and care (ECEC) describe the child and learning in the child’s individual ECEC plan and to analyse how well the children’s plans comply with the national core curriculum of ECEC. In 2016, ECEC in Finland changed from daycare to pedagogy when the national core curriculum of ECEC was published and became the national norm. Mansikka and Lundkvist’s (2019) review of the ECEC curriculum from 2005 and the curriculum from 2016 showed that the concept learning is more valued in ECEC today. A Finnish study from the beginning of 2000 indicated that the ECEC personnel had expectations of how the child should behave. A child was expected for example to be social, to follow rules and to play calmly in a way that is considered suitable for the child’s gender (Alasuutari, 2010.) Since the research mentioned above was made, the Finnish ECEC has developed a lot because of the new ECEC law and the national core curriculum. It is interesting to study what kind of impact this development has had on the view of children and learning. The research data consisted of children’s individual ECEC plans. The length of these plans was 1–3 pages and a total of 27 plans were collected. The plans were collected from daycare centers within the same organization. I made a qualitative content analysis of the research data. The analys proceeded in three parts and the research data was compressed in each part. When the first part was done, I had hundreds of words categorized into 18 categories. Finally, four categories of the child view and two categories of the learning view remained. The child view in the children’s individual plans and in the ECEC curriculum were mainly similar. One difference was found in the individual plans. In the children´s individual plans a desire for a compliant child was found. The child was expected to participate in activities and to be compliant in transitions for example when moving from indoors to outdoors. The impact of the physical environment on children's learning was not mentioned in the individual plans, but the ECEC curriculum highlighted the impact of the physical environment. The role of the adults in a child's learning was emphasized in both types of documents, but the child’s role seemed to be forgotten in the children´s individual plans. In the ECEC curriculum the concepts learning and development are used as two separate concepts while the two concepts are used as synonyms in the children’s plans. This study indicates that the two concepts have different meanings. They are used separate in theory but are used as synonyms in practice

The article deals with feelings of belonging and non-belonging in first-year university students. The research material was collected using the empathy based method and analyzed using narrative analysis. Based on the analysis, six different narratives of belonging and non-belonging were identified. The narratives are built on both individual psychological and socially constructed experiences of belonging. Individual psychological dimensions were emphasized in the narratives describing positive experiences of belonging. Personality traits, like introversion, appeared to be very compatible for distance learning in the corona era. Social contexts, where the mentioned feelings of belonging were experienced somewhere other than in studies, appeared to be beneficial for studies. Remote meetings were usually perceived to mitigate the otherwise impossible social situation. Personality, especially the individual's resilience, also played a key role in the narrative of non-belonging. A personal incompatibility with the pandemic restrictions is to challenge personal validity. Remote meetings seem partly unreal and the narratives were plagued by doubt as to whether learning actually took place. The separation from concrete places and face-to-face encounters left the student detached from university as an institution and higher education studies in the narratives. The narratives of belonging and non-belonging are multidimensional and are defined through various intersecting, mutually defining categories.

The Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014 requires the utilization of music technology as well as student-oriented composition. Chrome Music Lab: Song Maker is a free web browser-based music sequencer that allows you to program musical pieces in a piano roll-like graphical user interface. Finnish primary school music teachers have also used the program in their music teaching. I interviewed six teachers who teach Finnish music in elementary school about the topic. The teachers I interviewed found Chrome Music Lab: Song Maker to be relatively easy to use and engaging for students. The program enabled the student-oriented compositions as well as the processing of other contents of the music curriculum. The program had also been helpful for some of the teachers, for example, in evaluation and distance learning. Chrome Music Lab: Song Maker was seen as particularly suitable for the lower grades of elementary school, but some teachers questioned its optimality in the last grades of elementary school. The teachers' attitude towards the students' more visual and cacophonous composition programming varied. In general, teachers' experiences with the program were positive.

The use of virtual reality learning environments is rapidly expanding in various disciplines. However, there are only a few comparative studies in education. This thesis explores the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) and a physical learning environment on students’ learning outcomes and motivation by comparing the virtual reality and the physical learning environment during one day of studies. The participants were fourth-year mechanical engineering bachelor students (N = 14) at a university of applied sciences in Finland. The intervention was implemented as part of the course module, where students learned the structure and the functioning of the harvester head engine, which was part of a logging machine. A quasi-experimental design was set up, and in the morning, one-half of the students started their studies in virtual reality and the other half in the physical learning environment. In the afternoon, student groups switched learning environments. Motivation and learning outcomes were measured by pre-test and post-test questionnaires. Additionally, students’ learning outcomes were measured by completed study tasks during the interventions and by observing. The teacher assessed the data related to learning as grades. The one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyse the effectiveness of the learning environments on motivation and learning outcomes. The development of learning outcomes was statistically significant (p < .00) in both learning environments during the morning and the afternoon. No difference was observed between the learning outcomes gained in the two learning environments. There was an interaction (p < .01) between intrinsic motivation and learning environments in the morning. While in the afternoon, intrinsic motivation developed positively (p < .01) in both environments. The results suggest that studying in two different learning environments maintains interest and helps to achieve significant learning outcomes during the one-day studies. When studying began in a physical learning environment, intrinsic motivation developed positively throughout the day.