Browsing by study line "Yleinen ja aikuiskasvatustiede"
Now showing items 1-20 of 207
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(2020)In 2020, the government of Juha Sipilä implemented a reform in higher education. The meaning of the reform was to bring forward the starting of university studies as well as remove the need to participate in preparatory courses. The ideals of the competitive society were influencing in the backround of the reform. Instead of disappearing, the preparatory course markets will presumably transform into courses offered for even younger students at earlier stage, thus causing extra pressure to younger students. The aim of this thesis was to study high school seniors who applied to universities under the new reform. The aim was to examine how the competitive ethos affected their transition as well as how they reasoned the need to participate in preparatory courses as a part of the transition. This topic has not been researched before in this research frame, however similar studies have been conducted of students participating in preparatory courses. Former studies show that preparatory courses are perceived as a normal part of transitioning from secondary education to tertiary education. Studies also show that successful transition seems to require entrepreneurial characteristics. The research data was collected in the winter of 2020 through semi-structured interviews. Altogether five senior students, who participated in preparatory courses in Helsinki Summer University, were interviewed. The data was analysed with discourse analysis. The competitive ethos affected the transitioning strongly. The impact is evident in the notion of entrepreneurial self as well as in emphasizing the instrumental value of education. The preparatory courses give important support in the application to universities thus it’s viewed as a natural part of the transition. As a conclusion, the preparatory course market will not disappear, only transform into courses offered for even younger students. As a result of the reform, students are required to act as an entrepreneurial self in order to secure a successful transition.
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(2022)The aim of this study was to examine and describe how principles, student counsellors and other school administrators in comprehensive school represent the school paths of immi-grant children in Finland. The aim is to analyse the challenges described by authorities that immigrant students face in the transition between comprehensive school and upper second-ary level, and to contemplate how immigrant backgrounds and class positions are connect-ed to each other. In addition, the aim is to consider how social mobility of immigrants should be improved through different ways of support and guidance. Previous studies show that people with immigration backgrounds are still often excluded from secondary education and especially from high school in Finland. The expansion of compulsory school age obliges every child to move on to the secondary level, but especially with poor Finnish knowledge and weak social and cultural capital it is challenging coping with secondary level studies. In the centre of the theoretical framework of this study are Pierre Bourdieau’s forms of capital. The study was conducted as a qualitative content analysis and the data for the study con-sisted of interviews with eight authorities working in Finnish primary schools with pupils with immigration backgrounds. The data was analyzed and classified by means of thematic con-tent analysis. According to the findings, the challenges of school paths and transitions among students with immigration backgrounds include the extensive lack of cultural and social capital in fami-lies in relation to the context of the Finnish middle-class school system. Furthermore, the views of the families and of the school on realistic school options often differ. The joint appli-cation system does not encourage the student to change school after the first choice and experiment, and therefore people with immigration backgrounds are particularly challenged by choice and unknown educational opportunities. According to the results, Finland does not yet have a clear tailored system for immigrant children who move to Finland and who have passed the primary school age. They are ex-pected a quicker takeover of language and syllabus than other children. In addition, high school education appears to be inaccessible to many people with immigration backgrounds, according to authorities. In vocational training, resources for specific language and integra-tion support are insufficient, leading to the fact that after finishing vocational studies, they are moving to employment with low capacity.
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(2020)This study will focus on news about the higher education reform that was conducted by Sipilä’s government (2015-2019), and their relations to the changes and reforms of educational politics. In theory part, I will discuss about the trends of educational politics and their relations to employability and neoliberalism. Studies have shown that Finnish education politics has adopted policy of competitivity, heading towards individualistic, evaluative and number-based policy. In my study I will answer two research question: What kind of arguments are represented for enhancing and objecting the higher education reform in media? Are there any paradoxes standing out in the higher education reform news? My study consisted of 53 the higher education reform news from Helsingin Sanomat and YLE, published between 2015-2019. I approached the news with a discursive practice, following Foucault’s ideology of power, seeing discourses as practices rather than speech. My aim was to point out what was possible to say or do in the created media discourse and find out what kind of discursive practice the news created. This study was also discussing the different subject positions given to the youth by the media in regard to this reform. Analysis showed that competitivity was established as a natural part of educational politics in media. The universities autonomy was seen as threatened when the government controls the universities with funding. The youth talked about their increased mental health problems while the individualistic responsibility increased. Education was described as free-will -based path with countless opportunities, but on the other hand people were governed to the same path. Media seemed to create the picture of the ideal consumer citizen: efficient, responsible, self-governed, young high school boy. Education was seen as a responsibility that youth should aim towards in order to maximise their own value. Media’s discursive practice emphasized the freedom and rights, still governing the youth to the path that was seen as ‘the right choice’. The results are in line with the previous research on marketized education and individualistic responsibility.
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(2021)Proficiency in English is necessary for university students to graduate and it is also useful in their future. Previous research has shown that students experience a wide range of emotions that can have an impact on their academic performance. Emotions and cognition are strongly connected and therefore can have an effect on academic performance. The aim of this Master’s Thesis was to study the variety of academic emotions and find out whether the type of the course influences them. In autumn 2020 students from several faculties at the University of Helsinki took part in this study. The data was collected through a questionnaire that measures academic emotions. A total of 76 students answered the questionnaire. The research material consisted of quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS software. The analyzes included an exploratory factor analysis that yielded six sum variables to describe the academic emotions experienced by students. Open-ended responses were analyzed using data-driven content analysis. The six sum variables describing emotions were named irritability, boredom, teacher support, dissatisfaction, enjoyment, and hope. University students experienced boredom and irritation the least, and support from the teacher and hope the strongest. When comparing Alms and lecture course participants, there was more variation in the boredom sum variable among lecture course participants. However, there were no statistical differences between the two groups. Open-ended answers showed more negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety. Based on the results of this study, academic emotions should be taken into consideration when teaching, for instance by supporting students’ positive emotions. The teacher can play an important role by providing support and encouragement. Understanding academic emotions may also benefit students, as it can affect academic achievements.
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(2023)All people who are involved in teaching or tutoring of some sort need to update their competences every now and then. This also applies to teachers. According to a report conducted by Gun Oker-Blom, Swedish- speaking teachers participate to a lower degree in in-service training than Finnish-speaking teachers. In international comparisons, Finnish teachers’ participation in in-service training is lower compared to other countries. Finnish teachers also report that they are less satisfied with the in-service training they participate in than teachers in other countries. Research has also shown that teachers feel that the in-service training offered does not meet the needs of the teachers and that the in-service training does not contribute to their professional development. The aim of this study is to examine Swedish-speaking teachers experiences of in-service training. The goal for this study was therefor to describe teachers’ participation in in-service training by answering three research questions. The study used qualitative methods. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with seven teachers. The teachers had worked between three and thirty years and they were all qualified teachers. The teachers worked in grades 1-6. To analyze the transcribed interviews, inductive content analysis was used. The results of the study showed that teachers viewed participation in in-service training as a way to develop as a teacher. Personal interest to learn new things and peer support were weighing factors for teachers to participate in in-service training. The teachers felt that participation in in-service and developing their skills is something that is a part of their job. When it came to the school leader’s role in teachers’ participation in in-service training, the teachers believed that it should be the principal’s job to encourage teachers to participate in training. Teachers also believed that the principal should have a clear picture of which kind of training individual teachers need but also what kind of in-service training the school needs as a whole
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(2023)The use of smartphones in a school context involves two intertwined social realities, official and unofficial, that are often at odds with each other. In a formal context, school is about taking care of social educational responsibilities related to education and upbringing. On the other hand, school is also an important social world between young people, largely consisting of informal activities. Teachers best see the struggle between these opposing social realities and the importance of students' smartphones as part of it. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to describe, analyse and interpret teachers' experiences of smartphones and their different uses in the classroom environment. The study examines teachers' experiences of the formal and informal use of smartphones and the way schools approach the use of phones. In addition, teachers' different attitudes towards smartphone use will be examined. The thesis is qualitative in nature and its research material consists of interviews with six secondary school teachers. The study utilises phenomenographic research orientation, which makes it possible to study variation in teachers' perceptions. As a key result of the study, four types of attitudes were found in teacher interviews that reflect their different attitudes towards smartphones in the classroom. The types of attitudes were smartphone favourable, -unfavourable, -indifferent and -uncertain. Different attitudes were found towards the official and unofficial use of smartphones, the monitoring of smartphones and the future vision of smartphones. In addition, the material revealed different ways in which teachers relate to the general guidelines concerning smartphones in schools.
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(2022)The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine professional agency in self-managing work teams. The developmental processes focusing on work stress the ability to manage own work, therefore assessing these possibilities is essential to comprehend the ability of individuals and organizational structures to enable these demands. The theoretical framework is based on examining flexible and agile organizational structures, which emphasises self-management and self-managing teamwork as a focal part of the way flexible organizations operate. Furthermore, the theoretical framework consists of the theory regarding professional agency. The understanding of professional agency is based on a subject-centered socio-cultural approach. The research questions are 1) how do the interviewees describe their professional agency and 2) what kind of themes occur in self-managing teamwork that support professional agency? This thesis is a qualitative interview study, and the research material consists of eight employees’ interviews who work in self-managing teams. The analysis was carried out as a theoretically guided content analysis, in which the material was categorized as central themes. The results showed how professional agency in self-managing teamwork was described by directional factors, participation and inclusion, as well as the development of work and competence. The results also indicated how self-managing teamwork supported professional agency by the themes of developmental mentality, power structures, and the quality of work community dialogue. The interviewees had good opportunities to influence their work and participate in decision-making, but these were determined by the employees’ unprompted actions. Therefore, self-managing teamwork can be interpreted to support professional agency. However, taking in account the context-specific nature of self-managing teamwork and the complex nature of professional agency, further research is required to consider varying work communities.
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(2022)Aims. The goal of my thesis is to find out how teachers teaching in vocational education and training (VET) understand inclusion in their own practices and how, according to their under- standing, inclusion is realized in different learning environments. For a long time, efforts have been made to introduce the principle of inclusivity into the education system, which is used to try to dismantle the paradigm of special education. However, inclusion is most often studied in the context of basic education, and the discussion about inclusion in the context of VET is not as lively. However, the same international and national obligations also apply to VET, so research would be equally needed in this context as well. Methods. The research data is part of the Governance for Inclusive Vocational Excellence (GIVE) project. The target group of this partial study consisted of 13 teachers from VET, whose thematic interviews formed the data. The themes of the interviews included the definition of inclusion, its appearance in practices and as an object of evaluation, as well as in documents and strategies. The data was analysed using phenomenography and abductive analysis. Results and Conclusions. Teachers understood inclusion through the ideals presented in official documents and through the implementation of laws and degree structures. However, many inclusive practices were found in the teachers' descriptions, especially through the preparation of personal competence development plan (PCDP) and the provision of support. For the most part, the teachers did not know how to verbalize these practices as part of inclusion. This could possibly be because there is not enough discussion about inclusion in VET, or that inclusion is spoken of under some other name, such as personalisation, participation, accessibility or support and guidance. The teachers hoped for a joint time to develop and unify various inclusive practices in both educational institutions and workplaces in order to create a common operating culture and develop inclusive structures. This is also strongly related to the development of the teachers' own competence, for which more support and sharing of competence was hoped for, as well as a stronger link to practical work.
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(2021)The purpose of this case study was to research the path to employment from graduating from vocational studies to employment of young people with special and demanding special needs. The aim was also to find out how important the vocational education was to the young people researched in this study from their own perspective. The factors that could be conducive to the employment of the young people with special needs were also studied by interviewing four professionals that were attached to the young people in this research. Previous studies have shown that workplace learning is significant when it comes to the employment of young people with special needs in vocational education. It has also been addressed that young people in general are more interested in entrepreneurship than before. Most of the young people also think the future is in their own hands. Previous studies have also shown that employers think financial support is a good way to foster the employment of the young people with special needs. Four young people that were employed during vocational education or after graduation took part in this research. One of them had participated in vocational education for special needs and three for demanding special needs. In addition, four professionals that were connected to the employment of the young people in this study were interviewed. The professionals consisted of two employers, one work coach and one responsible teacher. All in all, eight persons were interviewed in this study. The study was carried out in a project called Tulevaisuuden Työelämän Starat which was financed by social fund of the European Union. The material consists of eight half-structured theme interviews. In addition, some backround information have been collected from a questionnaire that the young people filled as they were graduating from vocational education. The results of this research show that workplace learning has significance for the employment of young people with special needs. At the same time, the need of special education does not necessarily stand out in working life. The young people in this study feel confident about the future being in their own hands and they worry about general subjects regarding to their future such as accidents or being exhausted from work. Two of the young people that were interviewed in this study were interested in entrepreneurship in the future.
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(2023)This master’s thesis explores vocational education students’ experiences of immersive virtual learning environment. The thesis focuses on experiences of learning vocational skills in an immersive virtual learning environment that is designed for the field of profession. The research method of this study was qualitive. Research data was collected by observing the students whilst studying and in semi-structured interview. The observation was to support the interview data. The participants were five vocational students who have been using im-mersive virtual environment as one of the study environment during their vocational studies. Data analysis was done by using content analysis. According the results the students do experience that immersive virtual learning environment supports the development of their vocational skills as a part of students’ individual learning path. Some students experience that immersive virtual learning environment supports their vocational skills transfer to working life and some students experiences that immersive virtual learning environment supports mainly theoretical studies. Students experienced also various challenges, both technical challenges and challenges to use the virtual environment.
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(2021)Teacher burnout has negative consequences on an individual, transactional and organizational levels between teachers and pupils. Compared to other fields, the educational field experiences higher levels of burnout. Previous studies indicate that burnout is connected to turnover, withdrawal, pupils’ motivation, and problems in the working community in addition to the individual’s health. The burnout symptoms have been found to differ in gender, career phase, academic level, socio- economic level of the neighborhood and organization size. Previous research has found that burnout crossover happens from an individual to another across the teacher community. The buffering and exposing attributes concerning the crossover of teacher burnout have been studied rather little. The aim of this research is to discover which individual, transactional and organizational attributes could potentially buffer or expose to the crossover of burnout. Research data was gathered as a part of a wider, national research project called School Matters by the members of the Learning and Development in School research group (Pietarinen, Pyhältö & Soini, 2017). The participants were selected from six different areas. Altogether 1531 teachers from primary, secondary and combined schools completed the questionnaire. The teachers were divided into groups based on their gender, academic level, the level of socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood, career phase and school size. Individual, transactional and organizational factors’ connection to the burnout symptoms were examined through correlations, t-test and One-way analysis of variance. Results indicate that on average the teachers are doing quite well and experience quite moderate levels of burnout. Even so, quite many of them reported higher and lower levels of the symptoms. The symptoms correlate positively with each other. Based on the research findings it can be suggested that individual attributes, including male gender and higher number of years in the profession, buffer from the crossover of burnout. In addition, the higher socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood – a transactional attribute – and smaller school size – an organizational attribute – also act as buffers. On the other hand, exposing attributes include the female gender, less years in the profession, lower socio-economic status of the school neighborhood and large school size. The result may be generalized to the Finnish teaching community as a whole because the research population was large and the geographical distribution of the population was comprehensive.
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(2023)The need for interprofessional collaboration has increased as products and services have become more diverse. According to previous studies, experts can achieve objectives that would be impossible to achieve alone when collaborating. It is also possible to reach the desired outcome quicker, when working in collaboration. The intention of this study was to get information about the collaboration of experts working in a retail company’s Ecom process. Ecom is a process that requires experts from different functions to collaborate with one another. For this reason, this study uses the term cross-functional collaboration, along with the term interprofessional collaboration to the describe the collaboration of the experts. This study aimed to answer the questions, what kind of collaboration do the experts take part in and what characteristics arose as the experts described cross-functional collaboration. The research data was collected via a semi-structured interview. Seven Ecom process experts were individually interviewed. The interviewees were from sales, marketing, and IT. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. It was found that constant cross-functional collaboration was needed in the Ecom process. The experts had different experiences of the collaboration, depending on their job roles, tasks, and individual experiences. It was observed that the collaboration varied in intensity ranging from the transfer of information between functions, essential collaboration for the advancement of the process to ideation, planning and developing together. Relation expertise, collective information and cooperative procedures arose as the results for the second research question. Features related to relation expertise e.g., understanding the expertise of others and the other functions, and also shared information and cooperative procedures, which related to both research questions, suggested that recognizing and understanding boundaries is substantial for cross-functional collaboration. The results of this study are aligned with previous studies of what supports interprofessional collaboration and the significance of relational expertise and boundary crossing for collaboration, combining these research topics.
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(2023)The use of virtual reality learning environments is rapidly expanding in various disciplines. However, there are only a few comparative studies in education. This thesis explores the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) and a physical learning environment on students’ learning outcomes and motivation by comparing the virtual reality and the physical learning environment during one day of studies. The participants were fourth-year mechanical engineering bachelor students (N = 14) at a university of applied sciences in Finland. The intervention was implemented as part of the course module, where students learned the structure and the functioning of the harvester head engine, which was part of a logging machine. A quasi-experimental design was set up, and in the morning, one-half of the students started their studies in virtual reality and the other half in the physical learning environment. In the afternoon, student groups switched learning environments. Motivation and learning outcomes were measured by pre-test and post-test questionnaires. Additionally, students’ learning outcomes were measured by completed study tasks during the interventions and by observing. The teacher assessed the data related to learning as grades. The one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyse the effectiveness of the learning environments on motivation and learning outcomes. The development of learning outcomes was statistically significant (p < .00) in both learning environments during the morning and the afternoon. No difference was observed between the learning outcomes gained in the two learning environments. There was an interaction (p < .01) between intrinsic motivation and learning environments in the morning. While in the afternoon, intrinsic motivation developed positively (p < .01) in both environments. The results suggest that studying in two different learning environments maintains interest and helps to achieve significant learning outcomes during the one-day studies. When studying began in a physical learning environment, intrinsic motivation developed positively throughout the day.
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(2023)This paper focuses on youth in transition by meeting youth making choices regarding their further education as well as whether they stay in or move out of their local community. First, regarding the choices concerning work and education made by the youth, this study aims to explore the growing understanding of the strengths and talents that youth have in light of prominent theories in positive psychology. Second, in terms of the mobility and immobility of the youth, this study explores the concept of “capability to stay” and its relationship with aspirations of youth through the lens of the “aspiration–capability framework”. During the research, I collaborated with a practitioner working for an action-research organization in the Netherlands. The data used in this study is collected through recordings of eight conversations between the collaborator and the youth participating in a program facilitated by the organization. The recordings form a body of naturally occurring data, and narrative analysis was used to examine the data. The analysis supported the need to consider (im)mobility as one process and demonstrated the usefulness of the aspiration-capability framework as an instrument in migration research. Further, the narratives of the youth shed light on how the development of their strengths and talents were very closely tied. The three pillars of positive psychology – experience, individual traits, and institutions –were used to explore the ways in which meaning was given to the development of talents and strengths by youth in their narratives. This paper concludes with a discussion on the concept of good life in relation to the youth and their capacity to stay, and a call to better understand the role community and institution can play in supporting youth as they navigate their educational pathways.
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(2021)The purpose of this thesis is to desribe what potrays to be a ’’problem’’ in the political documents of European union which regulate the lifelong learning. The study also focused on the matter how the lifelong learning is used as a technology of government and produces idea of ”normal” through political discourses. What kind of ideal or normality it constructs and how the lifelong learning subjectifies the individual? In the end of the thesis the presumptions and silences which has been left unproblematized or unquestioned in the political documents of the lifelong learning are raised. The research material was collected from EUR-lex, the official database of the juridical documents of European Union. The material consists of six notable documents related to lifelong learning of European Union from the years of 2005-2020. The material was analyzed using Carol Bacchi’s method “What’s problem represented to be (WPR)?”. The concepts of Foucault’s governmentality and discourse theoretical ideas based on post-structuralism has been utilized in this research in the context of lifelong learning. The results of this research showed that the starting point of lifelong learning is based on the discourses of economy, competitiveness and growth. Lifelong learning was seen foremost as the solution to the competitiveness and growth as well as to the constant change of the society and to the questions of social involvement. Ideal lifelong learner was constructed to be more entrepreneurial using competence talk. In addition, the lifelong learning was portrayed to be the responsibility and obligation of the individual more than before.
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(2024)The aim of this study is to find out whether ECEC staff face ethical dilemmas and moral stress in their work and in what kind of situations ethical dilemmas and moral stress arise. In this work, ethical dilemmas refer to situations where a person does not know how they should act or situations where they know how they should act but due to various obstacles the action can’t be carried out. Moral stress, on the other hand, refers to the psychological reaction to the situation. Previous studies indicate that ethical dilemmas are stressors that increase the risk of burnout. Individuals who experience ethical dilemmas frequently have also more turnover intentions. This study seeks to create a deeper understanding of ethical dilemmas in order to better support the well-being of early childhood educators in their work. This study is a qualitative study where interviews were used as a data collection method. A total of nine teachers and practical nurses in ECEC who work with children aged 1–5 years served as informants in the study. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a phenomenographic analysis. The results showed that ECEC staff experience ethical dilemmas and moral stress in their work but to varying degrees. The reasons behind ethical dilemmas were several but it was noticeable that the amount of moral stress varied from person to person. The informants also mentioned several different methods for dealing with ethical dilemmas. The ways mentioned varied depending on the dilemma in question. In order to better support the staff and prevent the occurrence of ethical dilemmas, the informants wished for more staff in the field, open communication and support within the work community or from an external organisation. More research is needed to create a better understanding of the factors that reduce moral stress and to identify whether structural changes in the workplace would be required to increase well-being in the sector.
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(2022)Objectives. This thesis examines the European Union higher education governance. Previous research has shown that political steering of higher education institutions has strengthened over the recent decades, and growing convergence between the education policies of European states. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the kinds of thinking according to which the Union governance seeks to shape the space it governs, and what kind of position the higher education occupies in the picture. The European Union hasn´t got educational policy competences for steering educational institutions, but previous research has shown that the Union nevertheless does practice education policy steering. Methods. In this thesis, the European Union higher education governance was scrutinized by analytics of governing with the data consisting of Higher Education for Smart Specialization manual, produced by the European Commission. The HESS Manual is directed to the Union Member States regional administrators with a higher education policy competence and responsible for regional development. The manual instructs regional administrators to carry out such regional governance and higher education steering model reforms that serve the political objectives of the Union. The analysis of HESS Manual was carried out by Peter Millers and Niklas Roses analytics of government, according to which the HESS Manual was scrutinized as a technology of government, with the aim of specifying characteristic thinking of Manual and therefore of governing. Results and conclusions. The thesis demonstrates that the characteristic thinking of the Union values economic and technological progress and seeks to harness both the governed space and the higher education towards this ambition. The thesis also shows that according to the characteristic thinking of the Union, existence must be earned through contributing to political objectives. The thesis shows the Union governs by setting prerequisites to resources in an environment which requires economic resources.
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(2021)Purpose. In the context of rapid digitalization and the need to develop students’ 21st century skills, acquiring a growth mindset is essential. A person with a growth mindset believes that, for example, intelligence and creativity are malleable and develop through persistent practice. The purpose of this investigation was to first, explore Finnish 7th grade students’ mindsets related to intelligence and giftedness. Secondly, this study investigated students’ mindsets relation to academic achievement in mathematics and mother tongue, as well as students’ educational aspirations. Thirdly, this investigation examined how the mindsets are related to students’ sociodigital competence beliefs and perceived digital school practices. Finally, findings of a mindset intervention conducted in a Finnish educational context, which targeted mindsets in intelligence, giftedness and creativity, are reported. Method. Data for Study A was collected with a questionnaire, which was answered by 1059 7th grade students in Helsinki. The questionnaire assessed students’ intelligence and giftedness mindsets, educational aspirations, sociodigital competence beliefs and perceived digital school practices. A TwoStep cluster analysis was used to locate natural intelligence and giftedness mindset groups from the data. Next, two-way ANOVA’s were utilized: identified mindset groups and gender were independent variables and academic achievement in mathematics and mother tongue, educational aspirations, as well as sociodigital competence beliefs and perceived digital school practices were dependent variables. In Study B 21 students answered a questionnaire on intelligence, giftedness and creativity mindsets before and after the intervention. Differences between pre- and post-test were analyzed using a paired samples t-test. Results and significance. The results indicated that 7th graders had a strong growth mindset in intelligence and giftedness, yet groups of fixed, mixed and growth mindsets were found. Moreover, a growth mindset in intelligence and giftedness was positively related to students’ academic achievement in both mathematics and mother tongue as well as their educational aspirations. Further, a fixed mindset in giftedness indicated higher technical sociodigital competence beliefs. Similarly, students with a fixed mindset in both intelligence and giftedness perceived there to be more sociodigital school practices. Study B found that only students’ creativity-related mindsets changed significantly. The investigation proposes that schools should more strongly support students’ growth mindsets and their creative and academic sociodigital competences as they are a relevant part of the 21st century skills.
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(2023)This master’s thesis includes two sections: the present summarizing report and the article manuscript. The purpose of the study is to explore the benefits of an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-based intervention course to university students’ well-being, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The COVID-19 pandemic has decreased university students’ well-being and increased their risk of burnout. The declined state of student well-being calls for measures in exploring ways of promoting student well-being and preventing study-related burnout. The intervention course aimed to increase students’ psychological flexibility and organized studying skills, as means to positively impact their well-being and studying. A total of 189 participated in the study in the spring of 2021. Students’ risk of burnout was measured pre- and post-intervention, to statistically define whether students experienced that the course impacted their risk of burnout. To explore the course benefits in depth, students’ written reflective reports post-intervention were analyzed using abductive content analysis. The results were statistically compared according to the risk of burnout group assigned pre-intervention. The results showed that the intervention course led to a positive change in students' risk of burnout. The content analysis revealed seven main categories of benefits of the course: 1. improved general well-being, 2. improved self-knowledge, 3. increased psychological flexibility, 4. improved study practices and study motivation, 5. increased self-compassion, 6. gained peer-support, and 7. improved organized studying. These benefits were experienced by students regardless of their initial risk of burnout. The study highlights the potential of ACT-based intervention courses in improving the well-being and studying skills of university students, suggesting a need for further research on burnout prevention through such measures. The prospective publication channel for the research article manuscript is Research in Higher Education by Springer.
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(2022)Horse enthusiasts have insufficient knowledge about horse behaviour and welfare (BW) and learning and human-horse communication (LC), which poses a risk for both human safety and horse welfare. The main objective of this study was to investigate why riding school pupils participate or do not participate in non-riding education in BW and LC, using Self-determination theory (SDT). SDT posits that the quality of motivation is related to the individual’s basic psychological needs. A convenience sample of 568 riding school pupils from Finland and Sweden completed an online questionnaire. The results show that forty percent of the riding schools offered education in BW, and thirty-two in LC. Twenty-seven percent of the respondents had participated in education in BW, and twenty-five in LC at the riding school. The respondents were autonomously motivated to participate in education, i.e., they would participate because it is interesting and personally important. Perceived needs satisfaction at the riding school predicted autonomous motivation to participate. Education was offered to a greater extent in Swedish riding schools and Swedish participants participated more, experienced more autonomous motivation, and relatedness and competence satisfaction. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore riding school pupils’ motivation towards non-riding education.
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