Browsing by study line "Yleinen ja aikuiskasvatustiede"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to study experiences and impact of racism in the school environment on Finnish, racialized people who identify themselves as men. The thesis recognizes the impact of sex in experiences of racism, and I was interested in knowing what kind of meaning the interviewees gave to their experiences. The thesis follows the theory of hegemonic masculinity by sociologist Raewyn Connell as well as the theory of racialization by Robert Miles. Earlier studies have shown that the Finnish schooling system entertains discriminating practices and racism. The experiences of racism of immigrant boys in schools and learning institutions have also been studied. It is however important to note that racism affects not only immigrant pupils, but also racialized Finnish students. The study is conducted as a group interview. There were five participants and the group interviews organized via Teams took place in the spring of 2023. Themes discussed in the interviews were identity and its formation, the interviewees experiences of racism at school as well as how it was intervened and what kind of antiracist actions the interviewees recognized from schools and learning institutions. The analysis of the interviews was made with thematic methodology. All of the interviewees had experienced racism at school and described that sex mattered in their experiences of racism. According to my results the experiences of racism shaped the young men's conception of themselves, their identity and their inclusion in Finnish society. Operating in a group of racialized men and identifying themselves as part of it defined what kinds of meanings the interviewees gave to racistic situations in school context as well as how and with whom they verbalized their experiences.