Browsing by Author "Tuominen, Lotta"

Aims. This Master of Education thesis investigates the learning materials primary school teachers use in their daily work. The aim is to understand what kind of learning materials are being used in the Finnish primary school environment as well as to find out if are there any school subject related differences in which materials are being utilised in teaching. Currently there are very limited previous research into the prevalence of learning materials being used in the Finnish primary school environment. Methods. This research is based on the research data of the Lukuklaani -research project. The aim of the project is to promote leisure reading of primary school students as well as to develop school libraries. In the research project an online survey was developed and used to survey the current state of literacy education in Finnish primary schools. The survey was answered in November-December 2017. Data were gathered from 885 teachers working in 310 different schools. There were in total of 58 questions in the survey, including both closed- and open-ended questions. The current research is based on the closed-ended question of which considered the learning materials used in different school subjects. The question was: “In the following school subjects, the learning material being used is:”. The answer options were: 1. Printed textbook with supplementary material, 2. Digital ready-made learning material, 3. Other material, 4. I do not teach the topical subject. The teachers were asked to report the used learning material by school subjects. If the teacher responded using other material, they were asked to describe what other material was used and in which subjects through an open-ended question. All in all, 701 teacher responses were gathered from this section of the survey. The answers to this part of the questionnaire formed the research data of the present research and were analysed quantitatively. Answers to the open-ended question were categorised and themed, as well as analysed with quantitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. The printed textbook with supplementary material is still the most significant material used by teachers in their daily work. In teaching many school subjects, the printed text- books with their supplementary materials are reported as the only learning material being used. About half of the teachers reported using digital learning material in their teaching. The results suggest, however, that digital learning materials still have a role as supplementing textbooks rather than being used independently. Utilising textbooks and digital learning material was most frequent in the subjects of mathematics and Finnish language and literature. Many teachers also use other material in their teaching, especially material they have made themselves or sourced from the Internet. The study concludes that professionally-made learning materials, especially the printed textbook, are in touch with many teachers’ daily work. Nevertheless, how and how often the textbook is used in the classroom cannot be deducted from this data and is a task for future research. According to the present study it is clear however, that the role of textbooks as an institutional influencer should not be dismissed.