Browsing by study line "Lärare i slöjd, design och teknologi"

The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which craft identity is manifested in An adult sewing enthusiast. Handicraft is not only a popular hobby, but also a widely implemented educational practice undertaken in liberal adult education institutions. Leisure activities have a significant impact on a person’s identity. Craft identity forms one part of the identity of a maker. This study investigated the craft identity of sewing enthusiasts who participated in craft classes within a liberal adult education and the role of teaching and the craft group in the formation of the makers’ craft identities. Research on leisure identity shows that individuals are driven to hobbies by certain identity images and social narratives. Crafts are also known to strengthen a person's own identity construction. The data of the study were collected with semi-structured thematic interviews. Seven sewing enthusiasts who had participated in sewing courses in liberal adult education took part in the interviews. Three of the interviewees were from Uusimaa and four from Pirkanmaa. All participants were women, aged between 40 and 69 years. The interview data were analyzed with theoretical content analysis. This study shows that sewing enthusiasts take pride in what they do, are creative and versatile craftspeople and enthusiastic about learning new. They feel empowered by making things with their hands and are happy to share their experiences with others. They are environmentally conscious consumers who want to sew for real needs, both for themselves and for their loved ones. Participation in the liberal educations sewing hobby offered a wide and varied range of benefits for hobbyists. The identity of the sewing enthusiast was developed through the influence of the craft classes and the teaching group. Their self-esteem improved and they became more courageous hobbyists. Social interaction was also important and people described enjoying and experiencing the joy of making crafts andbeing part of a group. Identity is built through social interaction with others and it reinforces a person's own identity, but also forms group identities. The research will help to reveal the diverse craft identities of the sewing enthusiast and the role of liberal education in supporting the identity work of the students. A strong craft identity is reflected in the hobbyist's overall well-being by strengthening the person's self-esteem. The results can be used both in designing and planning teaching in adult education and they also provide groundwork for the field of craft identity research.

The aim of this study was to find out how the creative design process is affected when using material techniques. The data for this study was collected through an online survey. The survey was sent to the students of Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Craft Science students at University of Helsinki and students of University of Lapland’s Faculty of Art and Design. The survey was conducted during the spring semester of 2022. The survey inquired students’ skills in different areas of the creative design process on a 5-point Likert scale, as well as numbers of different material techniques they used to aid their design process. The data was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 28.0.0.0 (190)) software. The research methods used were mainly quantitative. The aspects of design competence were studied using exploratory factor analysis. Three factors were extracted from the data: analysing process, creative design and defining assignment. Together they explain 36,1% of the variance in creative design competence. Material techniques were grouped together to form a sum variable that was divided into five groups to describe the amount of material techniques used by a respondent. Difference in aspects of design competence was compared between bachelor’s and master’s students using the t-test. The relationship between the aspects of design competence and the material techniques used was investigated using a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Respondents were also formed into groups in terms of fields of study, whose use of material technologies was compared with a Mann-Whitney’s U-test. The study revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in aspects of design competence between bachelor’s and master’s students. Using material techniques had a small but statistically significant effect on the analysing process (p=,009 ETA²=,086). There was a difference between the two groups that used material techniques the least. Comparison between different fields of study revealed how the use of material techniques varied in different fields of design.

To recover from a stressful situation and take care of your own well-being, the important thing is to get your thoughts away from these stressful situations. Here you can use various activities that actively take people's thoughts away from stressful situations. Recovery, i.e., relaxation, starts as soon as your thoughts shift away from stressful things. The goal of this qualitative case study was to find out whether a beginner can have positive effects on his own well-being and feelings of relaxation when he is garter stitching. The study examined how emotions appeared during learning to knit and how emotions changed during learning the skill. The research material was produced together with a novice knitter for this study. The material consisted of video materials containing the thinking out loud of a novice knitter, from which the reflections made by the novice knitter were transcribed and analyzed in text form. The research material was produced in 14 consecutive evenings, about 20 minutes/evening, after the novice knitter's working day. Video files were analyzed with the Atlas.ti 23 program through the themes that emerged from the material and the Making-Process-Rug visual video analysis method. The material obtained during knitting and the material transcribed from the reflections were analyzed on the same thematic levels. Based on the research results, a novice knitter can achieve positive emotions that affect his well-being and a feeling of relaxation. The right knitting technique, the right tools for the knitter, and the working environment have a significant impact on the emergence of positive emotions and the encountering and overcoming of negative emotions. The results challenge us to pay more attention to these aspects and to study the meanings of these effects more.

According to the Finnish National Core Curriculum (2014), the goal of craft teaching is to guide pupils’ holistic craft process. The teaching is usually divided between two teachers teaching different areas (technical work and textile work). The purpose of this research is to depict, analyze and intercept the cooperation between the craft teachers. The aim of this research was to examine how craft teachers execute cooperation, how the cooperation appears, what are its goals and how the cooperation could be improved. The subject of this study was the cooperation between craft teachers who work in the same school. This research is a continuation of my bachelor’s thesis in 2019, in which I investigated how schools organize the shared multi-material craft subject according to the curriculum (POP 2014), how teachers understand multi-materiality and how it is reflected in student’s work. The results of the research showed that the teaching was organized in shifts, in which students were alternately under the guidance of the technical work teacher and the textile work teacher. Multi-materiality was understood such that the students could freely choose the materials and techniques used in their own craft projects. The implementation of shared multi-material craft subject requires the cooperation of the teachers. The research was carried out using qualitative methods. Nine teachers from five different schools were interviewed for the data. Four of the interviewees were technical work teachers and five were textile work teachers. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured theme interviews. The final material was gathered from eight interviews. The data was analyzed using theory-based content analysis. Based on the results, the working pairs formed three different type descriptions of co-teaching. The cooperation of the least cooperating work pair was limited to joint evaluation. The students didn’t do a joint project, and the teachers didn’t want to increase co-operation. The cooperation between the other two pairs varied slightly, in both the teachers planned and evaluated the teaching together. There was no joint teaching, but at the end of the school year the students did a holistic craft project supervised by both teachers. The teachers were satisfied with the cooperation and wanted to increase it. Successful co-teaching requires above all the effort of both teachers and the ambition to commit to common goals.

Objectives. Sustainability education is part of the curriculum, so every teacher should implement sustainable development education, accordingly, integrating it into different subjects. With regard to crafts, sustainable education appears in materials, among other things. The aim of this study was to find out what kind of attitudes primary school craft teachers have about sustainable development teaching and how craft teachers perceive the importance of different areas of sustainable development. The study also wants to find out whether any of the teacher's background information has a connection or difference to attitudes towards the teaching of sustainable development or the importance of sustainable development. Methods. The material for the study was a questionnaire based on Fennema and Sherman’s attitude statements, collected from primary school teachers who teach crafts at either elementary or high school, or both. The survey was collected in February 2021 and respondents to the survey were received via social media and email. A total of 50 teachers responded to the survey. The data were analyzed using quantitative methods, of which the statistical connection between teachers' background information and attitudes and importance of sustainability were examined by looking at correlation coefficients. Statistical differences were examined by t-test and one-way ANOVA. Results and conclusions. The attitudes of craft teachers towards teaching sustainable development were mostly positive and they also saw sustainable development as an important topic in school. A connection between teachers' attitudes and background information was found regarding the number of students in the school. The bigger the school was where teachers worked in, the more positive they were about the meaningfulness of sustainable teaching. The differences between related background information, and education for sustainable development and gender attitudes found with regard to age. Women's attitudes towards education for sustainability and the importance of sustainable development were more positive than men's. Teacher’s age had an effect on the self-efficacy of sustainability education and older teachers were more confident about sustainable education. As craft is a material subject, it will certainly facilitate the implementation of sustainable development education, which will also have a more positive attitude towards the topic.

In the most recent national core curriculum for basic education, which came into effect in 2016, the concept of programming is mentioned for first time – for instance, as a part of the objectives of crafts. The goal of this research is to find out which factors influence the way craft teachers in basic education use the tools and softwares of programming and robotics in their teaching. The goal of this research is also to find out how the teachers view their own competence in teaching the aforementioned devices and tools. Previous studies have shown that for instance the teacher’s age and gender have influenced teachers’ competence regarding technology. This multi-method research was conducted as a part of the Growing Mind project. The data consisted of the responses from two semi-structured surveys that were developed in the project. Considering the focus of this research, only the responses of teachers teaching crafts (n=27) were chosen for the present study. The qualitative data was acquired through focused theme interviews (n=4), three of which were conducted via remote video connection and one with email. The data was analyzed and categorizedinto themes in accordance with the research questions. Pearson’s correlation analysis was conducted for the quantitative data to detect possible correlations. The analyses of the data indicated that the teachers have various kinds of experiences of the tools of programming and robotics in their teaching because some of them used those tools all the time and some had never even tested them. However, the teachers who used these tools and programs used them in a versatile way. The craft teachers’ own competence to use these devices varied: some of the teachers thought they were very competent, while some thought they did not have any competence. This also influenced in how often the teacher taught these things for others. In addition to teacher’s competence, other factors such as the work community of the school, resources and the perceived lack of time could have effects on the teaching of programming. The correlation analysis showed that male craft teachers had more competence in programming and building robots and smart products than female craft teachers, and therefore male teachers guided pupils in these things more often.

The aim of this study was to describe the phenomenon of unfinished crafts, the reasons why crafts are unfinished, when crafts can be considered unfinished by crafts hobbyists, what crafts hobbyists have done with their unfinished crafts and what crafts hobbyists think about the future of unfinished crafts. There is little previous research on unfinished crafts and no more extensive research on unfinished crafts made by craft hobbyists using a variety of craft techniques is available. The data for the survey was collected through an electronic questionnaire in Käsityön ystävien vinkkipankki group on Facebook, on my own Facebook page and on Instagram. 212 craft hobbyists participated in the survey and the data was analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. 195 responses were included in the qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions. ATLAS.ti was used in the theory-based content analysis. The reasons why crafts hobbyists did not complete their crafts were varied and intertwined and interlinked. There was rarely only one single reason for not doing crafts. The reasons for not completing a craft project were most often expressed in terms of image, motivation and skill. Other factors were time, life situation, material, need, health and problems. The survey does not provide an unambiguous definition of when a craft can be considered abandoned, but each craft hobbyists has the opportunity to define abandonment from his or her own point of view. However, the idea that the work might still be completed at some point was considered important. The results suggest that, as a rule, the craft hobbyists who participated in the study are interested in either completing their unfinished crafts in the future or in making use of the material by dismantling or reusing it.

Objectives: Teachers' well-being at work has been studied especially from the perspectives of work-related stress factors. However, experts from the field of well-being at work have pointed out that studies should focus more on studying factors that promote well-being than on factors that weaken well-being at work. The self-determination theo-ry (SDT) is part of motivational psychology. The theory considers that the fulfillment of basic psychological needs (BPN) is essential for human well-being. Based on the theory of self-determination this study develops Basic Psy-chological Needs of Teachers Scale (BPNTS) to measure the basic psychological needs of teachers. The scale is used to study the manifestation of basic needs factors related to the work of crafts teachers and teachers. The scale is also used to examine whether there are differences between craft teachers and other teachers in the realisation of basic needs factors, and whether background factors have an impact on the basic needs experiences of craft teach-ers. Methods: To measure the basic psychological needs of teachers a 7-step Likert -scaled survey was created. The survey was distributed through various online channels to craft teachers and teachers in the spring of 2021. 367 responses were received. 229 responses were from craft teachers and 138 from other teachers. The research data was analysed using statistical methods using IBM SPSS Statistics software. The manifestation of basic psychological needs of teachers was studied using exploratory factorial analysis (EFA). The differences between craft teachers and teachers in relation to the manifestation of basic psychological need factors were investigated through descriptive results, correlation examinations, a T-test of independent samples, as well as one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The association of background factors - teachers' age, place of work, gender and job title with teachers' basic needs experiences was investigated using one-way analysis of variance and correlation analysis. Results and conclusions: With the Basic Psychological Needs of Teachers Scale (BPNTS) was managed to measure the dimensions of the initial theory quite well. The scale turned out to be functional and reliable. As a result of the factorial analysis, 4 basic work-related needs dimensions were identified – Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness and Freedom. According to the theory, the results reinforced the assumption of the independent influence of basic psychological need factors. Both groups of teachers estimate that the studied dimensions were realized quite well on average in their work. Craft teachers felt that freedom to work was best realized and that relatedness was realized weakest. Statistically, a very significant difference between the teacher groups appeared in relation to the freedom and empowerment experienced at work. Crafts teachers estimate that these are fulfilled better in their work compared to other teachers. Of the background factors, the workplace was found to have some impact on the fulfillment of the basic needs of craft teachers. It has been noticed that to promote teachers' well-being at work, it would be important to be able to analyse well-being factors at work more effectively. The Basic Psychological Needs of Teachers Scale (BPNTS) provides a useful model for more accurately mapping and studying the basic needs dimensions that affect teachers' well-being at work.

Faculty: Faculty of Educational Sciences Degree programme: Master’s Programme in Education Study track: Craft Teacher Education Author: Susanna Kirvesniemi Title: Colour from a weed – Scentless mayweed as a dye source for cellulose and regener-ated cellulose fiber Level: Master’s Thesis Month and year: March 2023 Number of pages: 58 pp. + 9 appendices Keywords: Scentless mayweed, natural colorant, cellulose and regenerated cellulose fi-bers, protein fiber, alum, aluminium compounds Supervisor or supervisors: Riikka Räisänen Where deposited: Helsinki University Library – Helda / E-thesis (theses) Additional information: Abstract: This empirical experimental study investigated the functionality of the scentless mayweed (Tripleurospermum inodorum) as a source of dye for cellulose and regenerated cellulose fi-bers (flax, bamboo viscose) and wool was used as reference fiber, which as a protein fiber, is best for dyeing with natural dyes. Tannin and aluminum compounds were used as mor-dants. This study was part of a larger study by the BioColour project, which aimed to pro-duce information on mordants residues in dyeing baths. With this study, the research data was produced, and the colour fastness was analyzed from the dyed textile materials. The research data was carried out using two different methods, a separate mordanting and dye-ing method (linen, bamboo viscose and wool) and a combined mordanting and dyeing method (bamboo viscose and wool). The colour fastness was determined according to in-ternational ISO standards. The total colour change (∆ELab*) was largest after washing with an alkaline standard deter-gent on linen (∆ELab* 11.77) extracted with aluminum acetate and bamboo viscose mor-danted with alum (∆E Lab*11.36). The overall change in the colour of the bamboo viscose mordanted with alum was largest (∆ELab* 10.17) also with pH-neutral detergent. On pH-neutral detergent washed linens mordanted with tannin and aluminium acetate (∆ELab* 0,85) and aluminium acetate (∆ELab* 1,32) and bamboo viscose which was mordanted with aluminium acetate (∆ELab* 1,57) had a slight change in overall colour. For wool, samples washed with alkaline standard detergent all had a large overall colour change (∆ELab* 18.99–24.98). For wool washed with a pH-neutral standard detergent, the overall colour change was significantly less (∆ELab* 9.49–15.37). The overall colour change of bamboo viscose dyed with the combined mordanting and dyeing method and washed with an alka-line standard detergent was large (∆ELab* 10.77–17.94) and the overall colour change of those washed with pH-neutral standard detergent was minor (∆ELab* 1.38–7.9). Assessing the colour change on the gray-gray scale gave a rating of 1–4 for linen washed with standard detergent, 1–3 for bamboo viscose and 3–4 for wool. After washing the col-our of the wool was visually brighter than the colour of the unwashed dyed wool. Using the combined method mordanting and dyeing method, the assessment of the colour change of the dyed material on the gray-gray scale gave bamboo viscose a rating of 1 and wool a rat-ing of 3–4. When assessing colour staining on a gray-gray scale, the lowest grade (3–4) came from the bleached cotton of multi-fiber fabric and the highest grade from the wool of the multi-fiber fabric (4–5). Light fastness was best in linen mordanted with tannic and alu-minum lactate/acetate (4). Wool received a rating 2–3, it turned brown during the test, bam-boo viscose had the worst lightfastness, and it received a rating 1. The grades were 3–5 for dry rubbing and 2–5 for wet rubbing. As expected, the dye extracted from the scentless mayweed had a lower dyeing ability for the cellulose and regenerated cellulose fiber than wool. Thus, scentless mayweed can be seen to be more suitable for dyeing protein fibers than cellulose and regenerated cellulose fiber.

Obtaining blue colours from nature has been found to be difficult. The aim of this re-search was to find out the blue colour provided by the three natural dyes as well as the effect of the dyeing method on the blue colour, colour fastness, and the repeatability of the colour following a certain dyeing method. The research began with dyeing methods found on social media, which had been used to create a blue colour from certain natural dyes. As stated by several home dyers, the colour given by blue colours from nature and certain natural dyes could be observed to be formed as a result of chance. The colour fastness of many materials dyed blue is found to be weak, due to flavonoid com-binations contained in the dyes. In this experimental research which blue colour was sought from preselected natural dyes: frozen lupine, black beans and frozen alder buckthorn berries. In the research, two mixed yarn samples with a single natural dye, a total of six samples, were dyed for the actual experiments. For pre-tests, several mixed yarn samples were dyed to find the blue colour. All the mixed yarn samples were pre dissolved with alum and some of them used tartar as an auxiliary. In dyeing vinegar was used to change the pH of some dye broths to a more acidic one. The pH values of all dye broths were tested by meas-uring. The dyeing temperatures were standardized in pre-tests using a digital meter, in actual tests the correct temperature was adjusted to the Linitest device. Colours of the dyed samples was determined by the CIELab device and total colour difference of two samples dyed with the same natural dye was investigated. The dyed samples were subjected to standard tests of color fastness: abrasion resistance test, water wash re-sistance test and light resistance test. Colour fastness tests were only done on the first dyed samples of the actual test, pre-tests colour fastness was not testing. The results of the research were examined quantitatively and qualitatively. It was possible to repeat the blue colour using a certain dyeing method. The pH value and dyeing temperature of the dye broth contributed to the adhesion of the colour to the yarn. All the dyed samples had low to moderate colour resistance. The abrasion re-sistance in almost all samples was good. In the wash resistance test staining was mini-mal, but the washed samples changed colour or the colour was disappeared almost completely. Light fastness in all samples war weak.