Browsing by study line "Klasslärare (pedagogik)"
Now showing items 1-20 of 126
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(2020)Aims. In the context of computing education, the vast majority of prior research examining achievement goal orientations has been conducted using variable-centred methods. In order to deepen understanding of the student population and achievement motivation, this Master’s Thesis employed person-oriented perspectives. The interplay of different goal orientations was explored by identifying prevalent motivational profiles and investigating profile differences in performance. Normative and appearance performance goals were handled as separate clustering variables in addition to mastery goals for the first time. Methods. The participants were 2059 introductory programming MOOC students. Data were collected by a questionnaire and from automatically assessed programming assignments and final exam. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted for the achievement goal orientation items to examine the factor structure. Using TwoStep cluster analysis, the students were classified into clusters according to their achievement goal orientations. Cross tabulations and analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to investigate profile characteristics and differences in performance. Results and Conclusions. Five distinct achievement goal orientation profiles were identified: Approach-Oriented (31.2%), Performance-Oriented (18.9%), Combined Mastery and Performance Goals (18.0%), Low Goals (17.6.%) and Mastery-Oriented (14.3.%). Students with Combined Mastery and Performance Goals performed significantly better than students with Low Goals regarding two metrics. Consistent with previous findings, the results highlight the positive link between multiple goal pursuit and performance. Further studies are needed to investigate motivational profiles in relation to other educational outcomes in the context of computing education. This kind of knowledge is valuable for designing interventions and new courses. The article ‘Achievement Goal Orientation Profiles and Performance in a Programming MOOC’, which is based on the present thesis, will be presented at ITiCSE 2020 (Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education) conference and published in conference proceedings.
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(2021)Aims. Student’s participation is one of the most important aspects in primary school. Participation means that students’ views and opinions are being heard and considered, and that they have a say in matters concerning them. Students should also be involved in matters and choices in their schools. Student participation should be encouraged and supported. Student’s participation has been researched in regular classroom setting but not in distance education. Due to the Covid-19 situation in March 2020 schools were closed and studying in classrooms changed to distance learning at homes. The aim of this study is to research teachers’ views on student participation in distance education. Harry Shier’s and Johanna Kiili’s theories of children and student participation are being used in this study. Methods. This study is a qualitative research made with the theory-based analysis of the content method. The research data was collected from teachers who participated in distance teaching during school years ¬2019–2020 and 2020–2021. The data was collected from February to April in 2021 using e-forms, which asked teachers to describe their views on student participation during distance education. 19 teachers participated in this study. Results and conclusions. The participation in distance education did not differ much from classroom learning. Teacher’s saw the importance of taking student’s views into account and their freedom to make choices during both distance learning and classroom learning. The sense of community in participation was decreased during distance education. The use of information and communication technology provided new ways to participate. The students who were less likely to speak in classroom had more chances to have their voice heard during distance education. There were different kinds of learning environments for students during distance education since studying did not happen in classrooms. Those students’ who were self-determined were able to benefit from the participation in distance education. Those who needed more support during studying faced more challenges during distance education. The teachers utilized their knowledge and information about their students in different ways during distance education.
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(2021)Objectives. The goal of this thesis is to examine what kind of mathematical identity the groups of third, fourth and fifth grade students have. In addition, the study aims to decipher, through drawings produced by students, what kind of positive methods teacher use in math lesson, and considers whether positive pedagogy has an effect on students’ mathematical identities. Methods. The research method for this thesis was a qualitative case study of pupils’ drawings and writings. The research material comprised of 44 drawings and 44 writings. The research group consisted of three school classes from Uusimaa. The teaching methods of the class teachers were largely in line with positive pedagogy. The drawings were analyzed through drawing analysis and the writings by using classifications. Results and conclusions. The mathematical identities of the data were defined into four different categories: positive mathematical identity, conflicting mathematical identity, neutral mathematical identity, and negative mathematical identity. In the studied groups, over half of the students had a positive mathematical identity. Negative mathematical identities occurred the least. The majority of students described positive means in teacher action. The postive means of teachers manifested themselves in three different ways: encouraging and positive precence, support for learning, and encouraging and positive words. Based on the data, the teachers had the most encouraging precence and support for learning. Although the various words of encouragement were not very much present, the students for the most part described their relationship with the teacher positively. The research findings the encourages the use of positive pedagogy because it has the potential to positively influence a learner’s mathematical identity. The research also shows that drawing research, especially with combined with students’ writings, is a good method of research in analyzing mathematical identity.
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(2020)Based on the reformations of the National Curriculum (2016; 2020) children start their Swedish studies in Finnish comprehensive school earlier than before, no later than on the sixth grade. However, studies on beliefs of Swedish learning in Finland have been more focused on older students, less on primary school students. Thus, the purpose of this study was to find out where and how children perceive learning Swedish. In addition, by utilizing the Process model of L2 motivation by Dörnyei and Ottó (1998), the choice motivation of children was investigated. Based on the children´s beliefs, this study gives suggestions to improve Swedish education. This study was a qualitative case study performed on a science camp combining mathematics and languages. 26 children participated both the camp and the study. The data was gathered with semi-structured interviews and drawings. The data was analysed with the help of a phenomenographic analysis. The most common belief was that Swedish was learned in school through reading textbooks and completing exercises. On the other hand, a few believed Swedish was learned outside of institutions, from close relatives and by travelling. The majority of the children experienced a positive choice motivation towards learning Swedish in the future. The most common orientation behind the positive choice motivation was communication and being in touch with culture. The children showed interest towards Swedish culture and they wanted to learn to speak Swedish in order to communicate with Swedish-speaking people. Most had positive beliefs towards their capabilities to learn Swedish, and beliefs towards Swedish language and Swedes were neutral. To counterbalance textbook focused education, the study suggests a more functional approach to teaching languages which supports use of the language outside of school. It is also important to discuss in class why Swedish is studied and to use authentic teaching materials. It would be beneficial to expand language learning to include more ordinary life settings outside of school.
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(2019)Objectives. Prior research on educational literature has identified shortcomings in equality in assessment. In addition, prior research has observed that teachers evaluate pupils with respect to other pupils rather than with respect to general learning objectives. Solutions to these challenges have not, however, been proposed. This thesis seeks to examine assessment from perspectives of validity and equality and to offer solutions in increasing the equality in assessment. Increasing the equality of assessment is needed, as varying assessment sets pupils to inequal position with regards to further studies as well as development and growth as learner. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to develop assessment but also to shed light to underlying challenges of equal assessment. Methodology. The data utilized in this thesis was based on a web-based brainstorming session made for teachers and other actors in primary school, and in particular on responses to question on how to increase equality of assessment. The brainstorming session was organized by Fountain Park, and funded by Finnish National Agency for Education. The total number of responses was 2487. The research methodology applied in this thesis was sample-based and inductive qualitative analysis. The responses were first categorized by using Atlas.ti qualitative analysis software due to the large number of responses. As a result of data analysis and conceptualization, eight categories were created. Findings and conclusions. The eight factors increasing equality in assessment found in this research are 1) requirements of collaboration between evaluators, 2) increasing knowledge e.g. through trainings, 3) diverse assessment methods, 4) consideration of individuality in assessment, 5) nationwide assessment system including e.g. exam and assignment library 6) openness of assessment towards pupils, 7) detailed assessment criteria and objectives in the curriculum and 8) resources. Resources are not directly related to increasing equality in assessment, however resources were seen as a barrier or enabler for the other factors. For the identified factors to be realized in practice, different actors on levels of teachers, schools, as well as administration are needed. As a support his/her assessment work, a teacher needs knowledge and trainings provided by the administrative actors, collaboration with colleagues, and sufficient assessment skills.
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(2019)The purpose of the study is to highlight the processes of autism spectrum disorder’s social construction and to construe reality in behalf of more equal and free society. This thesis targets the theoretical framework of social constructionism to specific social contexts that illustrate autism spectrum disorder through real life experience. Material used in this thesis is published by the Finnish Association for Autism as a part of their 100 autisms campaign. Material is interpreted as a political statement by the Finnish Association for Autism that aims to advance positive knowledge of autism spectrum disorder. Analysis of this study is conducted with discourse analysis using Erving Goffman’s sociological perspective to interaction and theory on facework. The theoretical framework of social constructionism showed the social construction of autism spectrum disorder through language based meanings that gave the phenomenon its construed essence. As an element of social interaction autism spectrum disorder was to explain and help, but also something that brought both challenge and joy to other participants of interaction. Autism spectrum disorder was found to be an unnecessary element in certain circumstances.
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(2020)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.
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(2021)Aims. A national reform of continuous learning is under way. The reform responds to the continuing need to develop and renew competence. The aim of the government program is to develop the higher education system as a platform for continuous learning, in which both degree students and learners without a place to study could flexibly complete their studies at the offer of all Finnish higher education institutions. The government program encourages the widest possible opening of educational offerings to non-degree students and the organization of teaching in co-operation with other higher education institutions. The University of Helsinki is responding to the national challenge with a project launched in 2019 to develop continuous learning. The main goal of the project is to expand the university's continuous learning offer. The aim of the dissertation is to find out how the faculties of the University of Helsinki justify the expansion or restriction of the open study offer. Underlying this is the theory of continuous learning, which I become familiar with through related concepts such as the concept of lifelong learning. Methods. Two deans of teaching and one head of study affairs from the faculties of the University of Helsinki participated in the study. The faculties studied were the Faculty of Educational Sciences, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Science. The material was obtained through a thematic interview and analyzed by argumentation analysis following Stephen Toulmin's argumentation model. Results and conclusions. In many cases the study offer can be opened. The main target groups to which studies can be opened were young people and those seeking to study, as well as people of working age. The reasons for expanding the study offer included financial resources, an open atmosphere and active teachers, as well as effective cooperation with the Open University. The restriction of the study offer was justified by the fact that there are courses or study units in the degree programs of the faculties that could not be open to everyone, for example due to the production of a qualification. The workload of teachers and the poor scalability of some courses to large numbers were also highlighted. In addition, teachers do not necessarily consider continuous learning as a curriculum activity. The conclusion about the development of continuous learning activities emerged in the interviews of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Educational Sciences.
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(2020)Objects. In my Bachelor’s thesis I executed a descriptive literatute review about dialogic teaching and collected a table of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. In this research I observed lessons and used the grouping I had created in order to identify the methods of dialogic teaching. The objective of the study was to examine in what extent dialogue appeared in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students. My research questions were: 1. Which methods of a dialogic teacher can be identified from the observed teachers’ lessons? 2. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of class teachers and teacher students? and 3. How is dialogue manifested in the teaching of different subjects? In this study I created information about the practices of dialogic teaching. Methods. I examined the topic with the methods of qualitative study with videotaped lessons as my research material. Three class teachers and three teacher students participated in the study. I collected my research data from one school located in the metropolitan area with the help of video observation. As a base for my analysis, I used the grouping from my Bachelor’s Thesis. I analysed my research material by creating different groups of the methods used by a dialogic teacher. Results and Conclusions. All of the class teachers and teacher students observed in this study used dialogic methods in their teaching. For example dialogue appeared in a conversational tone of voice, leaving space for the students’ voices and showing the importance of their claims. The dialogic methods used by the teachers observed could be placed in four groups: building of subject matter, teachers approach, teachers’ feedback and supporting students’ autonomy. From all of the lessons observed, it was possible to identify the most dialogic methods in the Finnish language lessons. It is possible to utilise these research results when teachers want to add dialogue in to their teaching. Concrete ways in which dialogue appears were listed in the study.
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(2020)The purpose of this study is to find out, through the class teachers' own experiences, how differentiation was implemented in the distance education during the exceptional period incurred in spring 2020. This research is focused on finding successes and challenges teachers experienced in distance teachings differentiation. In addition, the study examines the types of support teachers received during this time. Being a fairly topical issue at the moment, the available scientific research, which would specifically address classroom distance learning, is limited. The research approach in this paper is mainly qualitative also utilizing multi-methodological means. The research material has been collected through a questionnaire and four interviews in order to obtain additional qualitative information. A total of 33 primary school classroom teachers from 24 different municipalities responded to the survey. The survey comprised of 26 questions, some of which were Likert-scale questions and some open-ended questions. The respondents were mainly collected from a Facebook community of almost 40,000 teachers and those interested in education. The quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire has been analyzed with Microsoft Excel and the open questions have been coded. Qualitative material was collected through four short semi-structured thematic interviews. The interview questions were based on questions already answered in the questionnaire, that required further qualitative research. The majority of the teachers who responded to the study found distance learning differentiation challenging. However, some found it even easier to implement differentiation than in face-to-face teaching. The most common way to differentiate teaching was the variations in the number and level of schoolwork and the use of implements. The successes of differentiation experienced by the teachers were related to provision of support to pupils who needed it, the usage of new ways of working, such as instructional videos, and more personal communication with students. Majority of teachers felt that the support they received from their colleagues most important form of support. Some would have liked more unified guidance from superiors. Others, on the other hand, found the guidance from their superiors unnecessarily demanding in a situation where support and understanding would have been needed. The challenges faced by teachers in distance learning were mainly due to the rapid transitioning to distance teaching, as well as the unpreparedness.
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(2021)The objective of this study was to find out why adolescents stop taking part in organized sports. The aim of the qualitative study was to understand and get answers from adolescents themselves. The interest was to find out what exercise means to young people and what are the reasons for dropping out from organized sport. Studies show that physical activity declines and participation in organized sports reduces significantly in adolescence. The target group in this study was ten young people who had stopped taking part in organized sports. Participated adolescents were 12–18 years old. The material was collected by themed interviews. The interviews progressed through three themes. These three themes were: 1. the meanings of sports hobbies, 2. quitting sports hobbies and 3. exercise in the future. Due to the corona pandemic situation, most of the interviews were performed remotely. All the interviews were recorded. The material was analyzed using theory-guided content analysis. As a result of the study, doing sports had had different kinds of meanings for young people. There was also found different reasons for dropping out from sports in this study. The reasons were: competing priorities and other leisure activities, decreased motivation, negative experiences, lack of a suitable team or sports club, an injury and a want to change to another hobby. The results of the study confirmed the notion that the meanings and causes of doing sports may change in adolescence. Study showed that disciplined and serious competitive sport activities did not attract adolescents to participate to sports. Young people hoped that doing sports would rather be relaxed than serious leisure activity. The conclusion was that young people`s wishes should be considered when planning sport activities for young people. Also, the low effort sport club activities should be increased in Finland. In addition, the negative experiences of adolescents with sport activities which emerged from the material, are issues that need further research.
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(2021)The challenge of teaching mathematics is to make the student’s mathematical thinking heard and visible. To find out how students mathematical thinking can be supported I familiarized concept of mathematical languaging. Mathematical languaging allows student to express their thinking through the language, orally and in writing. Theoretical background of this study is Joutsenlahti’s and Rättyä’s model of four languages of mathematics, which allows students to express their mathematical thinking. The purpose of this study is to find out which mathematics languages teachers emphasize in their teaching and how teachers guide students to languaging in mathematics lessons. In addition, I also explore which mathematic languages the textbooks tend to use, and how the textbooks support the teacher’s role in guiding students languaging mathematics. The material of my study was based on video material: Oppimaan oppimisen avaimet, which was filmed in fall 2012. It included eight sixth grade math lessons. The videos featured a total of seven teachers, one of whom taught a lesson to two different classes. Mathematics textbooks, which were used in the lessons, from four different book series were also used as research material. The data were analyzed using quantification and sosiosemiotics analysis. The videos showed that the lessons were quite teacher-regulated. Teachers asked questions that students answered briefly and accurately. Teachers guided students to use mainly natural language and symbolic language, and to switch between these languages. The textbooks guided to interpret the text in natural language as well as in symbolic language and to produce only symbolic language. Teachers and textbooks also guided to use pictorial language mainly in connection with the contents of geometry. The content of the subject of mathematics influences the language used by the student to express mathematical thinking. Teachers guided oral languaging in the classroom, while textbooks supported written languaging.
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(2020)The objective of this research was to determine what sorts of risks pre-adolescent children are able to recognize on social media and how they act once they have acknowledged these dangers. Additionally, the goal was to study the effects of school and media education on the preadolescents’ social media behavior. In this research social media has mostly been de-fined according to previous studies, as applications favored by children and adolescents. One class of fifth graders from the Helsinki metropolitan area participated in the research. The material was collected through themed small-group interviews. There were a total of 21 participants and seven interview groups. The data was categorized and analyzed by using the content analysis method. Four different content types were identified from the material, and were categorized as social media risks recognized by the pre-adolescents. These labelled risks were bullying, personal information, hoaxes and unpleasant content. Bullying on social media was brought up the most often. The adolescents had been taught media education at school, but they still would have preferred to receive further education especially on the subject of social media har-assment. Some of them felt they were already familiar with the content of the media educa-tion curriculum beforehand, and had not learned any new useful information. The pre-adolescents’ behavior on social media aligned with the risks they had identified and the media education they had received. They valued their own privacy on social media, but were not able to react to bullying otherwise than by blocking the harassers. The pre-adolescents con-sidered bullying to be a substantial part of social media, without any possible solutions.
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(2021)The aim of this master’s thesis is to study disorder in the everyday life of primary school. As an institution, primary school aims at order and the maintaining of order which can be perceived as compulsory education, regulated grade levels and teacher leadership. The formal side of Finnish comprehensive school and its orders have been studied widely in Finland. Instead, disorder in schools and the informal side of the school system have received less attention. Order and disorder are often viewed as a pair of counterparts, with former being desirable and latter avoidable. By looking into disorder, the aim is to understand disorder as a phenomenon that takes place in the everyday life of primary school. This master’s thesis draws its theoretical background from feminist studies, critical education, and sociology. This piece of research is a qualitative study and was conducted through an ethnographic method. The data collected consists of field notes that were produced at a primary school in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The field work lasted from the beginning of August until the end of October 2020. The observation took place in the physical setting of the school. The observational focus was first on calling attention to and naming disorder. In addition, attention was drawn to the power relations of various agents of the school. Also, the relationship between power and disorder was observed. In the examination of the collected data, the events where order and disorder appeared as counterparts were pointed out. Also, the events where order was named were also the situations which indicated disorder. As a result of this research, three main themes were found. First, disorder can be seen to be tangled in the everyday life of primary school and its spaces and time. Second, in the everyday life of primary school disorder and order are constantly being redefined. Third, by the repetitions of different actions, power was accumulated to certain agents of the school. These agents held the power to name disorder. In the everyday life of primary school, disorder can be viewed in multiple ways. This research identifies some of them.
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(2021)The framework for this study comes from Koster’s, Nakken’s, Pijl’s and van Houten’s (2009) theory of a child’s social participation in a peer group. According to Koster and the partners, social participation is built by four dimensions: child's social self-perception, acceptance by classmates, contacts/interactions and friendships/relationships. A lot of research has been conducted of social participation of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, but most of the researches are quantitative or have been examined through the adult perceptive. The aim of this study is to examine social participation of a disabled child from multifaceted perspective. In addition to this, the aim is to find out how the dimensions of contacts/interactions and acceptance by classmates are related to each other’s. This is a qualitative case study of a child with Down syndrome, who has been in a mainstream primary school class. The data of this study consists of a thematic interviews of the child herself and the persons who have been involved through her school path. In addition to this the data consists child’s writing book and a message book of a parent and school counselor from the 6th grade. The analysis was done using a deductive content analysis. The results suggested that the child’s social participation of the peer group had been incomplete. On the eyes of outsiders, the child’s social self-perception had been seen as positive, but the child’s own school satisfaction had been alternately positive and negative. The child didn’t have any actual friendships or two-way play during the primary school. During the school years she had participated a lot to classes activities and especially on these situations there had been strong support from the other classmates. In general, the child was a respected and accepted member by her classmates but the externality became relevant in occasional conflicts or on group work situations. Social participation is a key requirement for inclusion and it needs to be reached more so that the equality of every student can be advanced
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(2021)Objectives. Previous studies have indicated that the perspectives on touching and its naturalness in a school context vary among teachers. However, the significance of positive touch has been acknowledged: positive touch has been found to promote trust between the person touching and the person being touched, also it can be used to help build a positive and warm interaction. The objective of this thesis was to review positive touch between a teacher and a student in school. The objective of the research was to determine the type of touch the teachers describe as positive. The analysis discusses the types of meanings positive touch has in the interaction between a teacher and a student, from the teachers’ point of view. Methods. The research data included semi-structured interviews of 19 teachers, collected in Koskettava koulu -project. The research topic, positive touch, was defined based on the teacher’s assessment, that the student will regard touching as a positive matter. In the interviews, teachers were asked about topics related to touching in school. The study utilized qualitative research methods. The data was analyzed with thematic analysis. Results and conclusions. The teachers’ descriptions of positive touch between a teacher and a student can be divided into five themes: considerate touch, directive touch, encouraging and complimenting touch, soothing touch and comforting touch. In the teacher-student relationship, both teachers and students act as a person touching and as a person being touched. Based on the data, it can be stated that the teachers justify touching from a professional premise as a response to the students’ needs: the teachers interpret the students’ touch initiatives, specifically, as expressions of these types of needs. In the teachers’ descriptions, knowing the student and their history, was emphasized. These types of factors help the teacher to better understand the student and their individual needs. Based on the data, it can be noted that many teachers consider positive touch as a natural way to act. Touch is also being utilized as a tool for the teacher, however the features related to the students, such as age, gender, sensory hypersensitivity, and cultural background, affect the teacher’s touch behavior.
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(2021)Aims. The aim of the study was to find out which elements of the physical learning environment are related to the safety and school comfort experienced by students. The study examined how safe and comfortable students found their physical learning environment in general and what elements of the environment were associated with students perceiving the school building and its yard as safe. Previous studies have found that the comfort of a school building has an impact on student safety. Methods. The study used questionnaire data produced by Anne Konu's School Welfare Profile series, which was collected in the 2017–2018 academic year. 10477 students from grades 4-6 answered the survey. The questions in the material were divided into four themes, one of which dealt with the physical conditions of the school. The study focused on analyzing these issues. The questions related to the safety and comfort of the school building and the yard, the comfort of the canteen, the size and temperature of the classroom, the cleanliness, the toilets, and whether one can play in the schoolyard. The data was analyzed using statistical measures, the Spearman’s correlation coefficient, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results and conclusions. Students were mainly satisfied with the safety and comfort of the school building and yard. They were least satisfied with the cleanliness of the school and the toilet facilities. All of the factors in the physical learning environment studied were related to whether students perceived the school building or its yard as safe. Sixth graders differed from students in other grades in all variables and were more dissatisfied than other respondents. Fourth and fifth graders differed in some of the variables. The biggest difference between the different grade levels was in the comfort of the yard. Girls and boys also differed in some of the variables. The most significant differences were in the class temperature at which the girls were more dissatisfied than the boys. The boys, on the other hand, were more dissatisfied with the toilet facilities. Based on the results, the safety and comfort of students will be increased the most by improving the cleanliness of schools and toilets. In addition, the safety and comfort of older students will be improved by adding more things that interest them to the schoolyard. The safety and comfort of girls will be improved by focusing on classroom temperatures and boys by improving toilet facilities. However, the study found that the correlation and the degree of explanation of the physical structures to the safety experienced by students were generally low.
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(2019)Objectives. The goal of this thesis is to examine various positive methods in which a teacher can confront a challenging student in the classroom and redirect the student’s behaviour to fit the lessons agenda. This thesis will also aim to examine what kinds of challenging behaviour can be found from analysed drama lessons. Previous research has shown that teachers find interactions with challenging students to be often demanding. In the modern classroom teachers must be prepared to face challenging students and therefore there is a need to research teachers already working in the field to see how they confront challenging students in a positive way. Methods. The research for this thesis was done as a case-study based in video observations, where footage from the 2018 KEHU-project was utilized. The research footage contained five filmed lessons, which were taught by five various drama-specialized teachers across Finland. The teachers participating in this project taught grades one through third grade. The nature of this research was based on qualitative methods. The material was processed through content analysis and classification. Results and conclusions. Challenging behaviour was categorized into four distinct categories based off the filmed drama lessons, which were disruptive behaviour, wandering, disobedience and negative verbal or physical interaction. Challenging behaviour filmed during the lessons were often quite mild forms of challenging behaviour. Based on the results the teachers mostly conducted positive confrontations against challenging students and were able to redirect behaviour with efficient and practical methods. This thesis provided promising information in regards that teachers can redirect behaviour towards the lesson’s goals with positive interactions. Having a respective attitude towards students and striving towards dialogical interactions from the teacher appears to improve confronting the student, which has been proven in earlier research to be meaningful in regards to the students behaviour.
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(2021)It is important to look for new approaches and means to support learning in the constantly changing world. The potential of live-action role-playing games or larps to affect motivation and learning is examined in this study. In the center of the study is a larp called Velhokoulu. The skills taught by role-playing games and their other positive effects has also been studied earlier, but the children's point of view is rarely emphasized. Furthermore, the Velhokoulu-larp is a fairly unique case in a Finnish context. The aim of the study is to empirically find out the effects of larping both from the view of motivation as well as learning. The study was carried out as a case study, which data was collected with both qualitative and quantitative methods. The motivation and the learning were examined through the vision of the designers of Velhokoulu, the assistants’ execution and the players' experience. The material concerning the designers and assistants was collected with semi-structured interviews, while the players' experiences were surveyed with a quantitative questionnaire. The methods for analysis consisted of the qualitative content analysis for the interviews and simple methods of the statistical description for the questionnaire. The results showed that Velhokoulu can support the player's motivation and psychological basic needs in many different ways. Some of the most centered results concerning motivation were influencing one's own character and the action in the game, an optimal level and supporting it and the good and safe atmosphere. These principles were supported by enabling different action, taking the players' different age and experience into consideration and through safe roles and the model of assistants. Some centered results from the point of view of the learning were the development of the imagination, taking others' perspective, cooperative skills and critical thinking and questioning. The learning of the skills was supported by creating atmosphere, assistants' own model and the concrete examples, active encouraging and the challenging of the players. The player’s experience mainly highlighted the fact of Velhokoulu supporting both the basic needs and learning of the skills. On the basis of the results can be said that concepts such as Velhokoulu bring many benefits with it from different points of view. The filling of psychological basic needs is a precondition for the development of inner motivation, in addition to which the skills taught by role-playing games are important for example from the point of view of the wide-ranging skills mentioned in Finnish curriculum. The study indeed offers a viewpoint and example of how the untapped resources of games could be brought into use in practice and could be adapted for example in the context of education.
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(2021)The purpose of this study was to find out how climate change is dealt with in geography textbooks commonly used in grades 7–9 in Finland. The research questions were based on theoretical models of the principles of climate education and misconceptions related to climate education that had been developed based on previous research. The principles of climate education were finally divided into four categories: understanding climate change, mitigation, adaptation to its changes and localization. Misconceptions about climate change were addressed through conceptualization, radiation and the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases. The content of the geography text-books was mirrored to these categories and the theory around them. The aim of this study is to help understand how geography textbooks respond to the principles of climate education and how they address misconceptions typically associated with climate change, particularly by young people. This research will allow textbooks to be developed to respond more effectively to climate education is-sues. The research was made by using qualitative, theory-driven content analysis. The content analysis focused on two sets of geography textbooks commonly used in Finnish secondary schools. In addition to the text contained in the books, the analysis also considered the illustrations printed on the pages of the books and the exercises associated with each chapter. All content on climate change was categorized according to the principles of theory-based content analysis. The study found that the textbooks consider all dimensions related to the principles of climate education. Themes related to understanding climate change were by far the most covered in the text-books, but themes related to mitigation, adaptation and localism were also included in the text-books. It was notable that the means of adaptation presented in the books varied widely between the series. Also, many of the themes that give rise to misconceptions were included in the text-books, with a potential deterrent effect on misconceptions. However, the number of concepts related to climate change introduced in the textbooks was low and concepts related to radiation were missing from the textbooks. This is an important observation, as previous studies have shown that the role of radiation in climate change is the subject of many misconceptions.
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