Browsing by study line "Yleinen ja aikuiskasvatustiede"

Objective of the study. Assessment is a central part of academic teacher education studies and supporting the development of professional agency a key objective of assessment in tertiary education. Therefore, understanding students’ experiences of being assessed and the development of professional agency in assessment situations is important. Teachers’ professional agency is an integrative concept consisting of three dimensions: motivation, self-efficacy and classroom strategies. Previous studies have shown that the teaching practice periods and social interaction situations during teacher education are important in the development of student teachers’ professional agency. Furthermore, previous studies have suggested that assessment practices are related to students’ motivation, self-efficacy and learning. Previous studies have not explored students’ assessment experiences in relation to the development of their professional agency. The purpose of the present study is to find out what kind of assessment situations student teachers identify as important, and how these assessment situations are related to the development of teachers’ professional agency. Methods. The data consisted of eight individual interviews, collected from student teachers who were at the final phase of their studies. The Critical Incident method was applied when carrying out the interviews. The participants were asked to recall assessment situations during their teacher education studies which they found important for their professional development. The interview data were analyzed using the abductive content analysis approach. Results and conclusions. The results suggested that assessment situations were related to the development of student teachers’ professional agency. The clearest relation was found between assessment situations and students’ self-efficacy. The students considered formative, timely, dialogical and well-founded assessment as the most beneficial in supporting the development of their professional agency. Assessment as its best can enhance students’ experiences of being on the right track, capability for teacher profession and having the sufficient skills for teacher’s work in the future. Poorly executed assessment can impede the development of professional agency. Based on the results the use of dialogical feedback practices and interactive peer assessment practices can be particularly beneficial in supporting the development of students’ motivation, self-efficacy and classroom strategies. It is important to consider the development of students’ professional agency in developing the assessment practices of the academic teacher education.

The transition from teacher education to working life can be a very demanding time. Early career teachers often experience uncertainty about their own skills and an inability to carry out teaching in accordance with their goals. Previous research has shown that teachers’ perceptions of their own ability to deliver teaching affects, among other things, the quality of teaching and student learning. The aim of this master's thesis is to increase the understanding of the practices of the induction in the school community that support the building of the professional self-efficacy of early career teachers. The research questions were: What kind of key experiences of the construction of the concept of self-efficacy are described by class teachers in the induction phase? What factors in everyday school life have strengthened the self-efficacy? What factors in everyday school life have impaired the self-efficacy? The data consisted of interviews with 9 class teachers at the beginning of their careers. The Journey Plot interview method was used to collect the interview data. The data for my study were collected as part of a larger joint research project of the Universities of Helsinki, Tampere and Eastern Finland entitled “Early career Teachers’ Professional Agency across four European countries -Key for Sustainable Educational Change?” funded by the Academy of Finland. The interview data were qualitatively content analyzed by applying an abductive strategy. The key experiences of professional self-efficacy were both positive and negative. The key experiences were especially related to the teaching and the challenges and changes in work. According to the results, the support of colleagues and the principal strengthened the professional self-efficacy of classroom teachers. Correspondingly, the lack of support and guidance in the induction phase weakened the professional self-efficacy experienced by class teachers. The lack of support especially in challenging situations and changes in work had a detrimental effect on teachers' professional self-efficacy. The results reinforce the notion that the professional self-efficacy of class teachers can be strengthened in everyday school life through diverse support and guidance.

In this thesis I inquire into young people’s stories about disability activism. This thesis aims to contribute to current discussions in the field of disability studies and youth studies concerning young disabled people’s societal influencing and participation. As it has been acknowledged in youth studies, young peoples’ political agency shouldn’t be seen only as an involvement in official politics, but more diversified and concerning also the different aspects of everyday life. In this thesis I ask how and in which ways young disability activists aim to influence societal practices and what opportunities for agency are available in these processes. I draw my analysis from five semi-structured interviews which I conducted with young disability activists aged between 22–26. The purpose of the interview was to produce accounts and descriptions about the research topic. I analysed the data using qualitative narrative method. Different disability and human rights organisations had an important role in enabling interviewees’ political agency. The organisations had opened a way to influence for many young people, nevertheless there were different contradictions attached to their narration. These contradictions were connected to the organisational practices effecting the limits and possibilities to be heard. Also the themes and topics young people consider important can be interpreted as apolitical from the organisational perspective. Some interviewees stated that for example sexual diversity was often bypassed. For some young people the political agency took the form of more mundane practices. These involved blogging and different social media activities, doing music with a disability politics twist and taking part in different demonstrations and marches. I interpreted these practices to be more spontaneous and not limited by organisational practices and thus they have the possibility to bring new topics and themes to the sphere of political. This thesis suggests that instead of seeing young people as politically passive, we should pay attention to their political agency and the different forms it might take.

The aim of this master’s dissertation was to look into the affective practices that took place and affected the work in the equality work groups at the university. In this study I will explain how through affective practices and layers the affects become entangled into the patterns of equality work shaped historically and culturally. In my theoretical approach I follow Sara Ahmed’s and Margaret Wetherell’s work and their understanding of affect, affective practice and emotion. I was working in an equality project at the University of Helsinki, and it seemed that certain regularities were affecting the equality work. I started to ask how to get a closer look of those regularities and patterns. I noticed that looking for affective practices could be the key to get a closer look into those patterns. I wanted to find out what possibilities the concept of affect could bring into the current research of equality work. I implemented my research by ethnographic observation and interviews in different groups that were working with the themes of equality and diversity in the faculty. I collected data during the semester 2018–2019, and interviewed three university employees. My methodological approach was post structural nomadic ethnography, which first and foremost meant constantly moving in the thought process. Uncertainty was present not only in the observation and interviews but also in the written report. I found that affective practices were present in all those places where equality was promoted. Especially the themes of individual-based expertise, silences, appreciation and goals of equality work collected several affective layers. Those layers had material consequences which I will further explain in this study. Based on my research equality work is rich in affective practices. Affects can be a force of change, but affective layers can also hinder the work with the regularities and patterns that follow affective practices. I have identified and named four affective layers, and studied the effects of those layers in the equality work groups of the university. The results of this study can be utilized in the further research and development of equality work.

In this masters thesis, I examine the presence of the diversity of gender and sexuality in middle school health information textbooks. Drawing mainly on the theories of philosopher and feminist theorist Judith Butler, I analyze the language used in the books to understand how gender and sexuality are constructed and represented. Through a discourse analysis, I am looking to answer to the following questions: What kind of sexualities and genders appear as norms in middle school textbooks? In what ways and in which contexts is the diversity of gender displayed in middle school textbooks? I have selected health information books from three different book series, which have been used in teaching at the same time, as material for the thesis. In my analysis, I found five discourses in the research data. The dichotomous and heteronormative discourse created the assumption of a heterosexual, binary student. Discourses emphasizing similarity and difference described diversity in textbooks. Minority discourse appeared in textual selections where gender and sexual minorities were described as one similar group. My research results show that there is an urgent call for acknowledging equality and diversity in the study materials as a base for teachers and teaching.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the work life experiences of millennial doctors in regards to empathetic and bad leadership. In this thesis, we are interested in examining what kinds of matters millennial doctors link to empathetic leadership and bad leadership based on their own work experiences. This thesis has been carried out as qualitative research, and the data for the thesis was collected from interviewing eight millennial doctors in May-October 2023. Thematic content analysis was used in the analysis of the 76 pages of textual data. The findings of the research are the two main themes, and the eight smaller themes, that have arisen from the interview data in regards to empathetic and bad leadership. The first main theme which is empathetic leadership as an action that empowers, divided into four sub-themes such as caring as a concrete action, psychological safety and being heard, genuine interactions and patient work as well as well-being at work and good leadership. The millennial doctors viewed empathetic leadership as good leadership and they linked it to positive matters and actions in the workplace. The second main theme which is bad leadership as action that weakens the attraction and holding power of a workplace, also divided into four sub-themes such as decline of the well-being at work, indifference and lack of empathy, the role of leadership in the atmosphere of the work community as well as stiffening into old ways. In the experience of the millennial doctors, bad leadership was seen to weaken the attraction power as well as the holding power of a workplace. This led to bad leadership being linked to negative experiences and matters at the workplace. The results of this research shows, that the type of leadership which was executed in the workplace mattered greatly in regards to the well-being at work, work satisfaction and work enjoyment of the millennial doctors. Empathetic leadership was seen as a pleasant way to lead, which increased the chances of having better employee retention at the workplace. Whereas bad leadership was seen as an unwanted way to lead, which was linked to workplace dissatisfaction, shorter employment, and resistance to progress. The results of this research indicate that empathetic leadership fosters better employee well-being whereas bad leadership increases turnover in the workplace.

The purpose of this study was to describe how job demands, job resources, and work engagement are presented in ICT-enabled mobile work in the health technology sector. There are previous studies on job resources, job demands and work engagement in mobile work and this research aims to bring new knowledge to the topic from the perspective of mobile workers in the field of health technology. This study was conducted as a qualitative case study in the field of health technology. The interviewees in the study were all mobile work employees in the same health technology company. All interviewees had several years of mobile work experience. The material was collected through semi-structured thematic interviews and a total of eight interviews were conducted. The interview material was analyzed through theory-guided content analysis. According to this study, mobile work in the field of health technology is associated with demands and resources that are in line with previous research on mobile work, as well as industry-specific factors. According to this study, in the field of health technology, experienced meaningfulness of work, good customer relationships, trust in employees, clear goals and work autonomy were emphasized as work resources. The job demands were poor working conditions, flexibility of working hours, loneliness at work, low feedback, social pressure experienced in client premises, travel for work, communication, variability of work and language skills required at work. Some of the demands of work, such as variability in work and working hours were also perceived as job resources. According to this study, work engagement was enabled best at customer premises. At customer premises were strong feelings of vigor and absorption present. Work in the healthcare sector was perceived as meaningful and the interviewees were proud of their work.

Aims. The present research examines care workers’ motivation and work commitment in a Finnish social and health care organization. The aim of the study was to investigate the current state of the employees’ motivation, work commitment and the self-determination theory’s basic psychological needs, and their relation to effort in work and to the intention of leaving the organization. Moreover, the study also examined the relationships between motivation, commitment and basic psychological needs. Motivation was divided to intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation based on intangible rewards. Work commitment included affective and normative professional commitment, colleague commitment, customer commitment and affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment. Method. This investigation was carried out with a survey which was composed using several former inquiries developed to measure motivation and dimensions of work commitment. The voluntary survey was sent to the target group employees by email. In total, the survey collected 600 answers which meant that the response rate was 30%. The data was analyzed using correlation, cluster analyses and structural equation modeling. Results. The care workers intrinsic motivation and professional commitment, colleague commitment and customer commitment were quite strong. All the dimensions of the organizational commitment and extrinsic motivation were in turn quite weak. The effort on work was evaluated to be strong and especially the sense of competence, intrinsic motivation, affective professional commitment as well as customer commitment played a meaningful role in it. In addition, there was some intention to leave the organization among the employees and according to the results the sense of autonomy, affective professional commitment and affective and normative organizational commitment reduced the intention to leave. The study clarified that the basic psychological needs of the self-determination theory are interconnected, not only to intrinsic motivation, but also to affective work commitment. The sense of autonomy was quite strong but because it had a direct as well as an indirect effect on the intention to leave, it was suggested that the organization should work on strengthening it more. Furthermore, the sense of competence can explain the conclusion made from the analyses of the study that extrinsic motivation based on intangible rewards supports intrinsic motivation. The results showed that care workers’ motivation and work commitment can be strengthened with diverse possibilities to influence and with positive feedback.

This master’s thesis explores what kind of ideals guide music education in Finland in our time. The substantial societal changes of the past few decades have inevitably had an influence on music education. The main goal of the thesis is to define these changes and make visible the patterns of thought behind them. The data for this thesis consists of two documents that create guidelines for music education. These documents are Strategy for Cultural Policy 2025 by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and Vision 2030 for Finnish Music Education, which has been created by professionals in the field of music education. Rhetoric discourse analysis is used to discover how these documents express the neoliberal rationality that dominates thinking and decision-making in the present day, as well as how this rationality affects the goals set for music education. The analysis also examines whether these documents include goals with a different basis. Moreover, the analysis identifies tensions formed in the documents due to inner contradictions or the realities of current society. The results of the analysis show that neoliberal rationality forms three discourses: benefit, market correspondence and cost effectiveness, and individualisation. The new public management also creates responsibility relocation discourse in which nobody is assigned responsible for the changes that have to be made. The desired goals for music education are creating benefits for other areas of life, cost effectiveness, individuality, accessibility, better digitalisation readiness, increasing co-operation and wider knowledge of culture. Tensions are caused by diverging interests, the methods for developing the field and the actualisation of accessibility. In the future, it would be pertinent to find out more about the guiding effects of financial decisions in the music education field as well as how these kinds of guiding documents influence the work of teachers in everyday education.

Objectives. Earlier research has identified the potential of compassion in enhancing the ethical and socioemotional competences of individuals. A framework grounded in compassion has been proposed to integrate pedagogical approaches supporting well-being. Furthermore, earlier research suggests that recognition of the significance of compassion in university pedagogy impacts beliefs defining teaching, student-teacher interaction, grading and pedagogical practices. However, valuation and interpretation of compassion in university pedagogy by teachers and pedagogical developers has remained a grey zone in research. This study seeks to contribute to filling this gap. The objective of the study was to investigate what kind of meanings compassion is given in university pedagogy, and what kind of promoting and impeding factors exist for demonstrating compassion. The research questions were: 1) How do the university teachers and pedagogical developers perceive the significance of compassion in university pedagogy? 2) What kind of factors promote compassion in university pedagogy according to university lecturers and pedagogical developers? 3) What kind of factors impede compassion in university pedagogy according to university lecturers and pedagogical developers? Methodology. Data consisted of ten semi-structured thematic interviews with participants that had a minimum of five years of pedagogical experience. The participants’ target audience of teaching included university staff, graduates, and undergraduates. The participants were asked e.g. how compassion was demonstrated in teaching, the benefits and disadvantages of compassion, and the role of the teacher as a proponent of compassion. The interviews were analysed using an abductive content analysis. Results and conclusions. The study identified compassion in university pedagogy as a strategic, implicitly transmitting social phenomenon realizing proximally. The pedagogical meanings of compassion were conceptualised as compassion strategies that were divided into well-being -centric, learning-centric, community-centric and structure-centric strategy. Factors inhibiting compassion were mainly linked to teaching structures, leadership, and organizational culture. Factors promoting compassion were especially linked to collective awareness and organizational values. The distal, societal, and planetary impacts of compassion were evident in the case of individual interviewees. This outcome, together with the identified holistic significance of compassion, raise the question about awareness and need for targeted cultivation of compassion as an integral part of pedagogical and societal mission of higher education.