Browsing by discipline "Education"

Jag har valt att skriva om barnens rörelsemönster, eftersom det är ett aktuellt ämne då barn rör sig allt mindre nuförtiden. Fysisk aktivitet ser även annorlunda ut på olika daghem och genom att lyfta fram detta kan man inspireras av andras sätt att röra på sig. Syftet med studien är att ta reda på hur små barns rörelseaktiviteter ser ut på daghem. Jag vill få reda på om barnen rör sig tillräckligt under daghems dagen och i vilka aktiviteter barnen rör på sig. I studien fokuserar jag på barn i åldrarna tre till fem, eftersom de oftast har utvecklade grundmotoriska färdigheter. Baserat på studiens syfte, är mina forskningsfrågor följande; 1. Hur mycket rör barn på sig under vardagen på daghem? 2. Hurdana rörelseaktiviteter tar barnen del av under vardagen på daghem? Studien är utförd med hjälp av frågeformulär med fasta och öppna svarsalternativ. Studien har både en både kvalitativ och kvantitativ forskningsansats. Infomanterna för studien är 10 stycken lärare inom småbarnspedagogik i en kommun. Resultatet visar att barnen i allmänhet rör sig tillräckligt samt mångsidigt. Det framkom att de flesta pedagoger ansåg att barnen i deras grupp rör sig i enlighet med Ubildniningssty-relsens rörelse rekommendationer, medan några lärare påpekade att barnen kunde röra sig mer. Alla barn ges möjligheten att leka fysiskt aktiva lekar både inomhus och utomhus samt i olika miljöer, som skogen och parker. Barn har rätt till att röra på sig och ska upp-muntras att göra det oavsett miljö.

The main goal of this study was to investigate what kinds of beliefs higly intelligence persons have about intelligence itself; do they consider intelligence as a fixed trait that people are born with or something in what they can affect themselves. In the light of the previous studies, I argue that people with higher intelligence would consider intelligence as something they can self make a difference in. Secondly I’m investigating how these beliefs correlate with beliefs about other aspects of intelligence. Finaly I’m investigating does person’s sex or educational backround affect their beliefs about intelligence. This study’s target group, the higly intelligence persons, were all official members of Finland’s Mensa. The data for this study was collected by electrical questionnare, on Finland’s Mensa’s official Facebook-page and on their own web site. In february 2016 alltogether 148 people answered to this questionnare, 88 of them were males, 58 of them were females. The results of this study indicate, that my targer group’s epistemological beliefs are very heterogeneous. One’s high intelligence quotient doesn’t necessarely correlate with person’s higher level thinking. The beliefs of the nature of intelligence correlated most with beliefs of musicality. Person’s sex or educational backround showed no statistical significance to their epistemological beliefs.

Studies have shown us, that factors influencing our career choices are based on the lifelong development of identity and self-perception. These have great importance on what kind of career starts to interest person and what kind of professional identity he or she may develop. On the top of interior motivation, there are many external factors, that effect on person’s choices. For example, does person feel the job valuable and relevant? Students ponder these themes before graduation. The goal of this research is to resolve, how kindergarten teacher students evaluate their own education at Helsinki university. The research aims to bring up the reasons why students change their education after or during the early childhood education program, and on the other hand, why students chose to become a kindergarten teacher, even it was not his or hers primary choice of career. Furthermore the aim is to find out, why the students chose to apply for early childhood education and how they evaluate the working field, so the education can support the development of person’s professional identity and provide the needed knowledge and skills. In this research eight students, who had started their studies at 2013, were interviewed. Half of the interviewee had applied to change career during the early childhood education and half of the interviewee had decided to stay in the program, even it was not their primary choice of career. The method of research was half-structured interview with some features of theme interview. Only relevant material collected by interview was retained, and the remaining material was categorized and split into themes. In one theme was placed all the material with common features. No matter, if the student was about to change the education, or had decided to work as kindergarten teacher, the evaluation of the education program was excellent. Negative comments were mostly related to the working field. The students experienced the education to be interesting and inspiring, but they were worried of the challenging situation of the kindergartens in Helsinki metropolitan area: lack of resources, growing group of children and low salary don’t necessarily lure students to become a kindergarten teacher.

The nature and way of working have changed due to changes in society. As result, perceptions of learning and the skills needed in the work are changing. Well-functioning cooperation between educational institutions and working life is seen as integral in competence development. Working life orientation is a term, which refers to the above-mentioned co-operation. Firstly, the aim of this literature review is to focus on the definitions of working life orientation in context of higher vocational education. Secondly, the objective is to describe the real-life cooperation between higher education and professional life and what the future outlook looks like. The study material consists of Finnish academic studies prepared in the 21st century. Based on the literature review, the concept of working life orientation is used in many ways in different contexts. In general, the concept is used in describing the university of applied science, in the justification for its necessity and in the definition of its function in society. Concretely, the concept is used to describe the cooperation and various forms of education and working life. The working life orientation describes the activities of the university of applied science, such as the design and implementation of the curriculum and the content of teaching. At the individual level, the working life orientation is examined from the perspective of the number and quality of the personal working contacts of teachers and students. This also relates to the success of recruiting and employing students. In addition, the working life orientation was also accompanied with the activity of employer representatives in the planning, evaluation and involvement in education. Cooperation between education and working life appears to be useful according to many studies. However, in practice the targets of the co-operation seem not to materialise. The co-operation seems to lack planning, uniform practices and continuity. The solution to this could be to increase the orientation of all parties involved in education and in student and working life to focus on new knowledge-creation. On the other hand, the studies criticize that the economic growth and competitive advantage targets have an adverse effect on the educational politics.

The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to look into Finnish children’s books to see what kind of child main characters the books have and how the characters have changed in the past 50 years. The books studied in this research were published in the 1960s and 2010s, both times with big changes in the Finnish society. Books are a product of their time, which means that the changes in the society affect the literature as well. In the 1960s Finland was going through urbanization as well as other changes in ideology and advancements in technology. In the 2010s the changes involve the development of advanced technology as well as globalization. Because of the nature of books as the product of their time, it can be assumed that books written in the same country during the same time period have some similarities that narrate the society, its values and norms. The books used in the research were chosen from the “Helmet” network of libraries which includes all the libraries in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The number of books was narrowed down to 43 books with 60 different main characters. 26 of the books were published in the 1960s and 17 in the year 2015. The books were analysed using the means of qualitative content analysis, focusing on the inner and outer features of characters based on text as well as pictures. The key results show that there are differences between the two time periods. There are almost as many girls and boys as main characters from both time periods. The main difference considering gender are the two characters from 2015 whose gender is not defined in the book. The literature from the 1960s highlighted personality traits such as honesty and obedience, often in line with Christian values. Girls were shown wearing pretty dresses and described as pretty. Boys were also obedient and respectful. The gender stereotypes are still visible in the books from 2015 to some extent, but especially boys were more likely to show emotion: be lonely and afraid. Generally the characters have become more independent. The literature from 2015 is more visual and the pictures have taken over space from the text. The books from the 1960s are black and white with less frequent pictures. This means that the main way of giving information about the character has changed from text to pictures. When there is more text, the character development is often more profound than in the picture books. Even though the characters are more actively taking action in their lives, they are still mosty stereotypical and one-dimentional.

The role of vision for a child’s overall development is significant. Visual impairments have an effect on almost every aspect of a child’s early development. It has been estimated that the greatest challenges for children with visual impairments come with interaction and communication. Visual impairments exist in every age group, although only marginal among children. When it comes to children with visual impairments, there is a great need for research in the field of early childhood education, especially for providing ways to support the social skills and peer relationships among these children with special needs. Currently, there is only a meager amount of Finnish research and literature on the subject. The aim for this study is to examine the nature of interaction between a child born blind and his peers. It is as important to regard the ways teachers and other personnel support the children to build and maintain friendships. This study is a qualitative case study. The material of the study has been collected empirically observing and filming moments of interaction between 5-year old Antti, who was born blind, and his peers in daycare. After a month’s observation, each educator working in the child group was then interviewed individually. The material has been analyzed through transcription and classification. The conclusion to the study was, that there were significant challenges to interaction and play between visually impaired Antti and his peers. Adults’ support was in a key role in helping Antti succeed in binding and keeping up friendships with his peers. Over all, many social situations in the daycare’s context seemed specifically challenging for Antti. The educators gave insight to the ways they support Antti and all the other children in the group interacting with each other successfully.

The purpose of this study was to gain a larger insight to how jewelry artists choose the use of textile materials and methods in their artworks. Based on the dissertations on jewelry art by Petteri Ikonen and Päivi Ruutiainen and Dormers theory on craft knowledge, the aim has been to study what has influenced the artists to choose textile materials and methods as a means to produce an artwork and if the choice of material directs the design or if design directs the choice of material. The study has been executed by means of phenomenography. 15 jewelry artist from different countries participated. A survey was sent via e-mail to 147 jewelry artists, three jewelry artist associations and was also put on a jewelry art forum on Facebook. The obtained material was analyzed with phenomenographic methods. The result of the study was the utterances of the jewelry artists could be categorized in three groups which pertain to what is needed to create art, what skills are needed and how these skills are obtained. The result showed the passion is needed to create art, that materials and methods are used because of a thorough knowledge to use them and that thorough knowledge is obtained by extensive experience and practice of said knowledge.

Tutkimuksissa on osoitettu osan perheistä jäävän osittain ilman yhteiskuntamme tukea, sillä perheet ovat monimuotoistuneet ja perheen määrittely laahaa perässä. Yksi näistä perhemuodoista on apilaperheet, jotka on perustettu suunnitelmallisesti kahden tai useamman vanhemman kesken. Kaikkien apilaperheen vanhempien välillä ei ole parisuhdetta. Apilaperheissä on biologista, juridista ja / tai sosiaalista vanhemmuutta, lisäksi lapsella voi olla useampi kuin kaksi huoltajaa. Lapsen hoiva ja kasvattaminen perustuu jaettuun vanhemmuuteen mahdollisen puolison sekä eri kotitalouksissa elävien lapsen vanhempien kanssa. Tässä kandidaatin tutkielmassa tarkasteltiin apilaperheiden vanhemmuuden rooleja sekä vanhemmuuden jakamista perheen muiden vanhempien kanssa. Tutkimuksessa avataan apilaperheiden vanhemmuuden moninaisuutta ja vanhempien yhdenvertaisuutta. Eri perhemuodon tunnetuksi tekeminen on merkittävää, jotta perheet saavat tarvitsemansa hyväksynnän ja tuen. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin verkkokyselylomakkeella ja se sisälsi 13 avointa kysymystä. Tutkimusaineisto koostui kaksi-, kolmi- ja neliapilaperheiden vanhempien vastauksista. Vastaajia oli yhteensä seitsemän, joista kuusi määritteli itsensä äidiksi ja yksi isäksi. Perheissä oli yhdestä kolmeen lasta. Tutkimus tehtiin laadullisin tutkimusmenetelmin ja tutkimusaineisto analysoitiin teoriaohjaavalla sisällönanalyysillä. Apilaperheen vanhempien kuvaillessa vanhemmuutta, he kertovat vanhemman asemasta lapseen, perheen asumisratkaisuista ja vanhemmuuden osallisuudesta. Apilaperheissä vanhempien juridiset oikeudet lapsiin oli ratkaistu perheissä eri tavoin. Yhteistä perheille oli, että juridisella vanhemmalla on myös lapsen huoltajuus. Biologiset äidit olivat kaikissa perheissä myös juridisia vanhempia, mutta ei-biologisten vanhempien ja biologisten isien oikeudelliset asemat vaihtelivat. Kaikissa apilaperheissä jaettiin vanhemmuutta toisen tai useamman vanhemman kanssa ja kaikki perheiden vanhemmat osallistuivat jollain tasolla lapsen elämään. Vanhemmuuden jakautuminen vaihteli perhekohtaisesti. Kaikki vanhemmat eivät ole tyytyväisiä perhettä koskevaan lainsäädäntöön tai vanhemmuuden jakautumiseen perheessään. Biologisen äidin suhde lapseen on joustamattomampi biologisen isään ja ei-biologiseen vanhempaan verrattuna. Suomen perhepolitiikka ja -palveluja tulisi vielä kehittää, jotta ne kohtaavat myös apilaperheiden tarpeisiin.

Mål. Syftet med avhandlingen är att utgående från aktuell forskning kartlägga arbetsrotationens inverkan på den upplevda motivationen och prestationsförmågan i arbetet. Detta för att skapa en djupare förståelse för effekten av arbetsrotation som en metod för kompetensutveckling. Eftersom tidigare forskning inte uttryckligen undersökt arbetsrotationens för- och nackdelar kommer även de att diskuteras i denna avhandling. Teoridelen baserar sig på de för temat mest centrala begreppen, vilka i detta fall är arbetsrotation, motivation och prestationsförmåga. I samband med begreppet motivation kommer även motivationsteorierna Maslows behovshierarki, Vrooms förväntningsteori samt teorin om självbestämmande att behandlas. I analysen behandlas arbetsrotationens påverkan på motivationen även utifrån dessa teoretiska ramverk. Metoder. Studien utfördes i form av en beskrivande litteraturöversikt med en integrerande infallsvinkel. Avsikten med studien var att skapa en bred helhetsuppfattning som även innefattar en kritisk granskning. Materialet, utifrån vilken analysen gjorts, består av 12 vetenskapliga artiklar och en vetenskaplig bok. Resultat och slutsatser. Resultatet av analysen antyder att arbetsrotationen är en betydelsefull kompetensutvecklingsmetod som under rätta omständigheter leder till att anställda upplever en högre grad av både motivation och prestationsförmåga. Resultaten indikerade även att metoden inte används hos alla organisationer i kompetensutvecklingssyfte, utan istället för att omplacera eller markera lågt presterande individer.

In my thesis I study everyday life in families with small children, especially from the mother´s point of view, with three different themes: intimate relationships, physical well-being and social networks. Research question in my thesis is: how everyday life in families with small children is. I am interested in what we really know about life in families with small children and how it is discussed in scientific literature. I examine how intimate relationship, physical well-being and social networks change when a child is born, or do they change. I wonder if mothers themselves can influence the fluency of their everyday life and does the expectations and pressures created by culture affect them. I also examine what are the ways of responding to possible challenges in every-day life and does the child really change everything. I achieve my thesis as a literature review and it is based on versatile sources from many different sciences. There is much comprehensive research from this subject, for example in education theory, social science and in women´s studies. Perceptions about motherhood, intimate relationships and physical well-being has changed a lot during the last decades and IT development has brought new forms of social support. However, the traditional roles, for example in relationships, are also very alive. The key concepts in my thesis are motherhood, everyday life, intimate relation-ship, physical well-being and social networks. With themes I chose I can examine everyday life on families with small children in a versatile and comprehensive way. My the-sis confirmed my belief that even though the everyday life in family with small children can sometimes be challenging and tiring, there can also be many factors that help to maintain well-being. Because everyday life with children is regular, it is easier to place regular exercise and healthy eating moments. In the middle of chaotic child family, it is possible to build new healthier lifestyles for the whole family. Also, the relationship can be strengthened when parenthood unites spouses and brings a new sense of belonging. It is important to note that in everyday life in families with small children, the change is often seen as an opportunity in some positive aspects of life.