Browsing by study line "Special Education"

Competence-based orientation guides secondary vocational education. An important tool for implementing competence-based education is personal competence development plan (PCDP). At PCDP a learning path is planned for each student that meets her/his needs. The purpose of this study was to expand the understanding of PCDP: to explore the guiding legislation governing PCDP and the experiences of teachers and education organizers. The empirical part of this thesis was carried out as qualitative research in June-September 2023 in Finland. Totally 19 teachers and representatives of education organizers were interviewed. In addition, educational institution’s forms and guidelines were analysed. The main purpose of PCDP is to guide the student. Through PCDP the fulfilment of compulsory education is monitored, information is collected for the funding of the institutions and for different feedback. The whole PCDP process is guided by several laws, regulations, and binding instructions. PCDP is seen as an important tool for student counselling. But in its current form it does not fully meet its main goal - to help the student to reach for her/his best. PCDP is seen as a bureaucratic process that takes too much time. The reason for this is that a lot of detailed information about the student must be recorded in PCDP. New regulations and claims have increased the amount of information recorded to PCDP. In addition, the educations institutions collect also other information in PCDP. There is also variation in the extend of the collected data. As a result, it is suggested that due to the strong regulation, heavy student administrations systems and various further data transfer needs from PCDP to eHOKS (ePCDP) and KOSKI-services, make the process heavy and guide PCDP to wrong direction – away from student guidance and counselling. The process currently takes a significant number of resources: time and attention from meeting the student. Time pressure and responsibility also burden teachers and educational institutions. Based on the results, is recommended that PCDP must be simplified to the information that is essential in terms of teaching and counselling. For example, data collected for educational institution´s funding could be partly separated from PCDP-process. Data transfers to eHOKS and KOSKI-services must be streamlined and the cooperations between supervising authorities and study administration system producers must be increased. In addition, the educational institutions must reserve sufficient resources for PCDP work and review the other data collected at the educational institutions. By clarifying the PCDP-process the quality of guidance can be further improved and free up time for teaching and student counselling.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how the basic psychological needs of students are met in integration training. The target group of the thesis were Finnish language teachers of integration training, from whose interview speech I looked for descriptions of factors promoting or limiting students' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The data was collected in May-June 2023. Six Finnish language teachers participated in the individual interviews. The transcribed material was analyzed using theory-driven content analysis. Student autonomy may not always be realized during the stage of guiding them into integration training. This is apparent to teachers, for example, in the student's lack of awareness about the reasons for being guided into a group and about their own opportunities. Some students would prioritize more vocationally-focused education or entering the workforce. Teachers strive to consider students' interests and opinions in planning educational content and methods. How-ever, this is challenging without a common language and interpreters are not always an option. Not all students are accustomed to expressing their opinions in a school context. Workplace learning provides a structural opportunity to influence one’s own education. OPAL feedback surveys were also mentioned as a way for students to have an impact. Teachers described the employment and language skill goals of integration training as unrealistic for students in slower groups. The personal goals of students were also sometimes seen as unrealistic. Students' sense of competence is primarily fostered through diverse study methods and learning environments. Integration training groups were described as heterogeneous. It was considered important that a student is guided to a group that matches their level. Challenges have been experienced in differentiation and in utilizing special education resources. Some-times it has been necessary to suggest a group change for a student during a course. Teachers reported trying to create a personal relationship with students. Some students' disrespectful attitudes towards female teachers have sometimes been challenging. The promotion of a relatedness among students in integration training was described briefly. A few teachers mentioned methods of group building. Students' need for relatedness has been limited by the extensive use of their mother tongue, cultural conflicts, and student absences.

Goals. The aim of this thesis was to find out how adolescents' perceived learning difficulties are connected to their social participation. Social participation stands for the social dimension of inclusion. The basic assumption of inclusive education is that it provides better opportunities for social participation for pupils with special educational needs. Previous research has shown that along with inclusion, social participation of pupils with special educational needs is still lower than their classmates without special needs. Social participation of pupils with learning difficulties has been studied in the past mainly on younger pupils. In these studies, learning difficulties have been based on either teacher's assessment or diagnosis. This thesis will provide information on whether the social participation of an adolescent with perceived learning difficulties is lower than other adolescents. Methods. This study is a quantitative Master's thesis. The research is based on data gathered from 8th and 9th graders in the School Health Promotion study (N = 87215) conducted by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare in 2019. The data was collected using a questionnaire during the school day. IBM SPSS Statistics 27 was used for data analysis. The analysis methods of the thesis were Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient and the t-test. Results and conclusions. The results of the thesis showed that adolescents' perceived learning difficulties were linked to their social participation. The strongest connections were measured between perceived learning difficulties and social self-perception. The more adolescents experience difficulties in writing, reading or counting, the more likely they are to have weaker social self-perception. The results also showed that young people with very high levels of perceived learning difficulties differ from other young people in terms of social participation. The findings show that in the future, in comprehensive education teachers should pay attention to adolescents with perceived learning difficulties and provide them with support for both perceived learning difficulties and potential challenges with social participation.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine the discourses of disability in the equality plans prepared in primary schools. The aim is to find out the meanings of disability in the material, as well as the positions and possibilities offered to a disabled student in discourses. Although disability is a fairly widely studied phenomenon, previous research on disability in the context of equality plans is not available. In this master's thesis, the construction of disability in inclusive educational documents was examined critically, recognizing that the educational equality of students with disabilities cannot be considered to have been achieved in the Finnish education system. The material used in the dissertation consisted of thirty equality plans drawn up in primary schools. The material was approached using the perspectives of discourse analysis. The concept of discourse refers to the relatively established use of language in a particular field or situation. With the help of discourse analysis, it is possible to study both the organization of the text and the consequences of language use. Disability was constructed in the research material in four different discourses, which were named the discourses of support and need, accessibility, difference, and health status. The discourses describe disability in a predictable and culturally established way. The positions offered to a student with a disability appeared to be limited and narrow. On the other hand, a student with a disability remained in the material as invisible, which appears to be problematic in the documents that are supposed to describe the inclusiveness in the education.

The aim of this study was to provide more understanding and information about school-ing and school support about young people who have experienced out-of-home place-ment. Previous studies have shown that children in foster care face more challenges in school. The aim was to identify, analyse and describe the challenges in school and schooling outcomes of young people who have experienced foster care. In terms of support at school, factors related to effective support and issues where children per-ceived a lack of support where highlighted. The data for the study consisted of six young people who have experienced placement at some point in their lives and who spoke about their experiences in thematic inter-views. The interviewees were reached through the Nuorten turvasatama and the inter-views were conducted anonymously by using the Discord messaging application. The interview data was produced in November 2022. The study is qualitative, and the study design is phenomenographic. The analysis of the data was carried out using a data-driven content analysis. The results of the study implicated that mental health challenges were strongly present and hampered the school performance of youth who have experienced foster care. Mental health challenges impacted young people´s school careers from primary school onwards, with an increase in challenges in secondary school. The results of the study showed that young people had limited access to school-based help for mental challeng-es. Another factor that strongly emerged in the data as a barrier to schooling was school bullying. Bullying was linked to school satisfaction and in addition to school and group changes contributed to poor school adherence. Many of the problem areas identi-fied in the study could be addressed by modifying the school environment to facilitate school attachment. In addition, recourses are needed to ensure that there is time for genuine encounter and for identifying and responding to support needs.

The aim of this study was to identify the challenges that teachers of special education face in their work in a heterogeneous classroom with pupils with special needs and different learning difficulties. The goal was to identify the challenges they experience on a daily basis and what things bring joy to their work as teachers of special needs children. I also wanted to find out how special education teachers justify the need for special education and whether it should be developed or do they think that special needs education should be discontinued entirely and pupils should be transferred to ordinary classes in primary schools. The study selected teachers working in Swedish speaking schools in Finland with pupils in grades 7.–9. in special education. Methods. The study was conducted as both a quantitative and a qualitative study. The quantitative study was conducted using a structured e-questionnaire, which I sent by email to the target respondents. The e-survey form asked at first questions about the background information of the special education teachers, then the form was divided into four sections: (1) the respondents' experiences of their daily work and whether they feel their knowledge and professionalism are sufficient to teach pupils with special needs, (2) what kind of issues are part of their daily work, (3) what are the challenges related to pupils and finally (4) questions related to collaboration. I analyzed the quantitative data using IBM SPSS Statistical data editor version 28 software. In the last two questions of the questionnaire, the respondents were free to write their opinions about what things bring them joy in their work and how special education teachers justify the need for special education.I analysed the responses using qualitative data-driven content analysis. Results. I received 39 responses to the e-questionnaire, of which 61 % had a special education teacher’s qualification and the rest had a special education teacher’s qualification, other pedagogical qualification, or other qualification. The results of the survey showed that special education should be continued but practical changes should be made to ensure that special education is appropriate and that pupils in special education receive the support they are entitled to. The special education teachers provided many suggestions for improvement, many of which were profitable and even feasible without additional financial supp

Objectives. According to previous research, challenges related to behaviour are connected to teachers’ negative emotions and test the limits of their competence. This thesis approaches behavioural themes through special pedagogy and biopsychosocial, holistic thinking, and looks for perspectives to strengthen teachers' skills. The research consists of a methodological evaluation of peer-reviewed research articles and an analysis of the used models in accordance with the biopsychosocial model. The articles were retrieved from the ERIC, SCOPUS and EBSCO databases in September 2022, and the search was carried out without limiting the date of publication. The target population of the analyzed interventions were 11–18-year-old students who had behavioural challenges in everyday school life. Methods. The research was carried out as a systematic literature review. The reports of the interventions screened through the systematic database search were subjected to a methodological evaluation as a preliminary analysis.Evaluation was conducted with to the MMAT (Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool). Most of the analyzed studies (N=15 altogether) were case studies analyzed with quantitative methods, but the data included also two quantitative and two mixed-method studies. The question was what kind of biopsychosocial factors have been tried to be influenced by the behavioural interventions implemented in the school. The answer was sought by analyzing the articles that passed the quality assessment and their connection to biopsychosocial intervention planning was studied. Results and conclusions. According to the results of the analysis, four studies used a comprehensive assessment of the student's situation to support intervention planning. In two studies, evaluation was not used for planning, but it was used in interpreting the results. In other studies, no evaluation was performed. When the evaluation is not done as part of the intervention planning, the goal of the intervention is to influence the behaviour. When planning uses a biopsychosocial perspective, the goal is to influence the factors that lead to challenges related to behaviour in the student's school life and thereby ease the behaviour related challenges.

Research has shown many evidence-based practices, such as explicit instruction, in teaching mathematics for low-performing students in lower secondary schools. The aim of this study was to find out what evidence-based practices Finnish special education teachers use when teaching mathematics and how often they use them. The study was conducted by a survey developed in the United States and it was translated into Finnish and modified to be suitable for Finnish education system. The surveys were sent to 230 schools to be answered by special education teachers. 114 answers were included in this study. Results showed that Finnish special education teacher use evidence-based practices regularly and often. In future studies different factors affecting the use should be taken into consideration.

Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoituksena on selvittää vapaa-ajan ryhmätoiminnan mahdollisuuksia nuorten hyvinvoinnin ja osallisuuden tukemisessa. Nuoruus on erityinen ajanjakso, johon sisältyy itsenäistymistä, irtaantumista kasvuperheestä ja oman identiteetin etsimistä (Kinnunen, 2011). Vapaa-aika on näiden teemojen kannalta keskeinen toimintakenttä (Tolonen & Määttä, 2011). Erityisesti vapaa-ajan harrastamisessa nähdään valtava potentiaali nykyajan nuorisokysymysten, kuten syrjäytymisen, ratkaisemiseksi (Salasuo & Homi, 2021). Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää Nuorten Akatemian Mahis-hankkeessa toteutettujen nuorten vapaa-ajan projektien vaikuttavuutta nuorten elämään. Tutkimuksen kohteena on Nuorten Akatemian Mahis-hanke. Mahis on haavoittuvassa asemassa oleville nuorille suunnattua ryhmätoimintaa. Aineistona toimii vuosina 2017-2020 toteutuneiden Mahis-projektien loppuraportit. Raportteja saatiin yhteensä 165 kappaletta. Raportit ovat ohjaajien kirjoittamia, ja tutkimuksen näkökulmana onkin ohjaajien näkemykset toiminnan vaikuttavuudesta nuoriin. Tutkimus on toteutettu laadullisena dokumenttianalyysinä. Aineiston luokittelussa ja analysoinnissa on käytetty sisällönanalyysia. Tutkimuksessa ollaan kiinnostuneita nuorten hyvinvoinnista ja osallisuudesta ilmiönä, joten siinä on myös osin fenomenologinen tutkimusote. Mahis-projektit näyttäytyivät nuorten elämään positiivisesti vaikuttavina ajanjaksoina. Ohjaajat havaitsivat positiivisia muutoksia neljällä eri osa-alueella, jotka olivat yksilön kasvu, sosiaaliset suhteet, tulevaisuuden suunnitelmat sekä koulunkäyntiin liittyvät muutokset. Eniten havaintoja tehtiin itsenäistymisestä, itsetunnon kasvusta sekä uusien ystävyyssuhteiden syntymisestä. Tulosten perusteella Mahis-toiminnalla pystytään vastaamaan nuorten osallisuuden ja hyvinvoinnin edistämisen tarpeisiin. Mahis-toimintaa tarkasteltiin myös sosiokulttuurisen innostamisen välineenä. Toiminnasta löydettiin kaikki sosiokulttuurisen innostamisen ulottuvuudet: kasvatuksellinen, kulttuurinen ja sosiaalinen ulottuvuus.