Browsing by Author "Aalto, Liina"

Goals. The aim of this thesis was to examine how Finnish curriculums of 2004 and 2014 differ from each other in relation to thinking skills, learning to learn and multidisciplinary learning sets. These three themes were selected as subjects for research, as they are an integral part of the concept of broad-based competence introduced in the new curriculum. Broad-based competence is defined as the skills that the learner is expected to need in order to cope with future challenges. The purpose of this thesis was to find out whether these themes are also present in the Finnish curriculum of 2004 and if so, how their discourse may differ from the 2014 curriculum. This type of systematic comparison has not been made between these curricula before and also not with these themes. Thinking skills and learning to learn were studied separately from the multidisciplinary learning sets, as they are areas of broad-based competence, whereas multidisciplinary learning sets are more of its method. Thinking skills and learning to learn were dealt with, in particular, Robert Sternberg's theories of intelligence and its sub-areas. Methods. The data of the thesis are therefore the Finnish curriculums of 2004 and 2014. However, only the general parts were included in this thesis, as the goal was to get a picture of the underlying ideas and perspectives of each curriculum. The study was carried out using two mutually supportive analytical methods. The analysis started with a computer-based, instrumental thematic text analysis, which aims to find references to certain themes from the texts using a dictionary built by the researcher. This method was chosen because it was a clear and simple way to visualize the differences between the references in the texts. Another analytical method was a content analysis in which theory-based and data-based methods were used. Concerning thinking skills and learning to learn, content analysis was made by using the theory-based method with Sternberg's theories as a basis. Data-based analysis was used when studying multidisciplinary learning sets. Results and conclusions. The thinking skills were referred to equally as much in the general parts of the curricula of 2004 and 2014, but the content of the curriculum for 2014 was more comprehensive and could easily be categorized using Sternberg's theories. The same was true of learning to learn, although it was apparent that in relation to the curriculum of 2004, there were more references to learning to learn than in the curriculum of 2014. In the case of multidisciplinary learning sets, the result again indicated that the curriculum of 2014 was broader both in terms of content and text. Based on these results, it can be generally interpreted that although these same themes have been dealt with in the previous curriculum, the new curriculum has really become substantively centralized and sought to find a wide range of these perspectives.