Browsing by Author "Pihlajaniemi, Kerttu"

Due to the change in educational legislation in 1999, one of the most important aims of basic education became the goal of developing basic education into a more unified whole. The change in law removed the administrative boundary between primary and secondary school and this was also removed from the curriculum in 2004. This change in legislation and cur-riculum into a unified basic education is the basis of this thesis. The purpose of the thesis was to become familiar with the experiences of students completing basic education, and to analyze the educational experience in its solidity and the safety of their basic education learning experience. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the merging of basic ed-ucation improved the experiences of students and how have the students learning path tran-sitions succeeded. This study was carried out using a qualitative research method of asking the subjects to write material about their basic educational experience. The study was approached from a phenomenological research perspective, where the students own experiences carried great significance. The material was collected in the form of essays from four different Helsinki metropolitan areas comprehensive school's, ninth and tenth grade students (N97). The material was viewed through school path transitions, as they can be seen as a challenge for the good school path. The material was then analyzed using material-based content analy-sis. According to the results of this thesis, students encounter a variety of transitions throughout basic education, which cannot be entirely eliminated. The success of these transitions are impacted by numerous factors; according to the results of this study, these transitions are made easier with the help of good social relationships with peers and the school personnel, high academic performance, and sufficient knowledge and preparation for the educational transitions. Correspondingly, the lack of or poor social relationships with peers, kin and the school personnel, poor academic performance and unexpected changes, harmed the entire-ty of the educational experience's solidity and made the transitions more difficult. Student's educational experiences are very individual and likewise the support needed for different transitions and changes also vary from student to student. Based on results of this study, to build the solidity of a student's educational experience, more emphasis should on placed on the student-teacher interactions as well as those between peers.