Browsing by Author "Koivunen, Suvi"

Observing children’s point of view has recently become more essential in the development of services that they use. The aim to participate children in the development process has generated a new educational need for professionals. Online training program Katsele palveluita lapsen silmin by the Finnish branch of organisation Save the Children International aspired to supply this need by offering knowledge and tools for implementing service design that takes children and their views and opinions into consideration. The training was designed to suit the needs of professionals who work with services used by children. This study aims to examine how the online training program supports learning and helps participants develop their skills that are essential when working towards participatory design with children. A training evaluation model is used to examine the research problem. This study was conducted with qualitative methods. The research data was collected by a questionnaire and thematic interviews. 35 participants who had enrolled with the training program answered the questionnaire and five of them were interviewed. The data was analysed using the principles of thematic analysis within a theoretical framework. The participants had a positive reaction towards the training program. They were mainly satisfied with the training program because it took their own educational needs well into consideration in the content and the implementation parts of the training program. Changes in the participants’ attitudes toward the use of participatory design methods were observable. In addition, the participants expressed personal development in their knowledge and skills concerning the training’s topics. Training transfer emerged both in thought and in action, and showed up in changes regarding participants’ work, especially through experiments carried out during the training. This improved the quality of their work and increased the level of taking children’s view into account. Finally, the effectiveness of the training is seen as strengthening participation and agency of children using the services as a part of service design.