Browsing by Title

Goals: The purpose of this study was to find out how to ethically sensitively persons working in the financial business self-evaluate themselves. The study also wanted to find out if there are any differences between men and women in their ethical sensitivity. The theoretical background for the thesis is about four moral components by James Rest, Muriel Bebeau and Darcia Narvaez (1999), of which an ethical sensitivity was studied in this work in more detail. Methods: The study was conducted by quantitative research method, and the data were collected in August 2015 from a metropolitan area banking group. Offices located in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen. The responses were collected through a e-form, which was answered by 183 people. 77.6% of respondents were women (N = 142) and men 22.4% (N = 41). Ethical sensitivity was measured by ESSQ - meter (Tirri, Nokelainen 2007, 2011), which consisted of 28 statements, which were answered by a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree ... 5 = strongly agree). From these 28 ESSQ - meter statements were formed by seven different factors, whose reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha. The averages of the results were examined with the T-test. Results and conclusions: Bank employees have been assessed by the highest ethical sensitivity areas ESSQ_2 and ESSQ_3, those averages are ESSQ_2 = 4.2199 and ESSQ_3 = 4.1680. The lowest average received ESSQ_7 = 3.4781. Between the sexes, there was in the average differences, but they did not differ from each other statistically significant, as only in the two areas. Generally speaking the ethical sensitivity of the financial business could be slightly higher, although the results are not very disturbing.

Children and adolescents have a high rate of participation in organized sports and physical activities. Participation in contact sports has been shown to be related to an elevated risk of suffering a concussion, which makes the management of concussions in child and adolescent athletes an important public health concern. Most of the research on concussion has been conducted on adults and the management protocols of concussions in both adult and youth athletes is based on this research. In this thesis I aim to provide an overview of the common symptoms and consequences of sports-related concussions, the effect of recurring concussions, and the special concerns relating to sports-related concussions in child and adolescent athletes. Research suggests that despite significant overlap, clinical and neuropsychological symptoms of a concussion may resolve at a different rate. In addition, neurophysiological functions appear to be altered for a far longer period than either clinical or neuropsychological symptoms. This is a cause for concern, as return-to-play (RTP) policy of concussed athletes is often based on clinical symptoms alone. A conservative RTP policy should be considered especially in concussed child and adolescent athletes, as they seem to recover slower than adults. Supervision is essential in concussion management, as youth athletes are often unaware of previously sustained concussions, premature RTP may expose the athlete to an elevated risk of suffering a second injury, and recurring concussions have been shown to have accumulating effects on neurocognitive functions.

Aims. The new national core curriculum for basic education that defines aims for learning came into effect on 2016. That curriculum directs schools to use integrative teaching methods by foregrounding multidisciplinary themes. Though curriculum binds schools to use integrative approaches, the ways of implementation are left for every school to decide. Phenomena of integrative teaching have been described in the research literature with several terms depending on the era of research. Terms are not equivalent with each other that makes it difficult to compare researches of different times. In this thesis, the problem is solved by using the term phenomena of integrative teaching. It is used to describe all such methods of organizing teaching that lowers the borders between traditional school subjects. The aim of this study is to investigate how the phenomena of integrative teaching have been presented in Finnish national curriculums for basic education and how it is treated in research from the 1980s to the 2010s. Methods. This thesis is descriptive review and chosen articles are published either by the peer reviewed journals, the compilations of articles or state’s bureau of education. Most of the articles used were research reports on pedagogical experiments where researchers implemented the integrative methods of teaching between different school subjects or themes. Those articles were sorted by their topic when it was possible to compare them with different theories of integrative teaching methods. Results and conclusions. When gathering data for the thesis, it was noticed that it was difficult to find articles from the 1994 curriculum and it was also noticed that it didn’t have on chapter for integrative teaching methods. By the articles used, it can be observed that the most common way of implementing integrative teaching methods is to handle the same theme in two or more school subjects at the same time. However, the curriculum in use encourages teachers to take the integrative teaching even deeper and lower the barriers between different school subjects. Nevertheless, there is not yet research to be found on that kind of teaching and especially teachers experience, and conceptions should be studied more.

In this special education bachelor thesis I explored educational motivation and influences related to prison education by using qualitative analysis method. The material consisted of four half-structured theme interviews recorded and transcribed. The people interviewed were men aged between 26 and 42. They had educational experiences from vocational school, high school or university studies while incarcerated. When collecting the data the interviewees were no longer incarcerated or they were on parole, so the experiences of prison education were shared as tales from the past. Themes were gathered from the material and analysed against area’s theoretical framework. The theoretical framework shows that study on prison education’s area has traditionally had interest on employment and cost-effectiveness. Recently there have also been interest to explore prison education’s effect on self-image, cognitive and social skills on the person studying. Prison education correlates with lower recidivism. Finnish prison education seems not to be on the same level with the other Nordic countries. Prisoners are statistically low-educated, they have a lot of learning difficulties and prison as a learning environment has its own unique features. Agreements concerning human rights point clearly that all people must have possibility for life-long learning. It’s meaningful to develop prison education also by gathering experiences from people who have studied incarcerated. The educational motives discovered in the interview material of this study were viewed through the motivational categories structured by Manger, Eikeland and Asbjørnsen (2012): 1) future planning, 2) social reasons and escapism and 3) competence building (learning for the sake of learning). In the interview material of this bachelor thesis future planning and escapism were the most shown factors. Competence building was discovered indirectly in the material and social reasons were shown only slightly. In the analysis prison education’s influences were related both to sentence time and life after release. The themes formed in earlier studies and discovered also in this bachelor study’s interview material were getting a degree, better employment and stronger self-image. The new theme found was getting rid of the fear for school.

Tutkimuksessa kehitetään alle kolmevuotiaiden matematiikan pedagogiikkaa pukemistilanteissa. Teoriaosan ensimmäisessä vaiheessa syvennytään pienten lasten pedagogiikan piirteisiin, painottaen etenkin perushoidon tilanteita ja niihin kuuluvia pukemistilanteita. Aikaisemmat tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet, että vanhempien lasten pedagogiikkaa sekä matematiikkaa painotetaan vahvemmin kuin alle kolmevuotiaiden lasten. Pienten lasten pukemistilanteesta aikaisempi tutkimustieto oli vähäistä. Teoreettisen viitekehyksen toisessa osassa käsitellään matematiikkaa varhaiskasvatuksessa, sen opettamisen ja alle kolmevuotiaiden matematiikan sisältöjen avulla. Tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet, että matemaattinen ajattelu kehittyy jo varhaiskasvatusiässä, ja silloin painottuvat ympäristössä esiintyvät matematiikan piirteet sekä vuorovaikutus. Tutkimus on kvalitatiivinen toiminnallinen tapaustutkimus, joka toteutettiin yhteiskehittämistyöpajan avulla. Siihen osallistui neljä varhaiskasvatuksen opettajaa ideoimalla ja suunnittelemalla matematiikan konkreettisia menetelmiä pienten lasten pukemistilanteisiin. Työpajassa ideointi tapahtui yhdessä keskustelemalla matematiikan osa-alueista sekä pukemistilanteen käytännöistä. Tulosten mukaan matematiikkaa on mahdollista yhdistää alle kolmevuotiaiden pukemistilanteisiin monipuolisesti ja konkreettisesti. Tuloksissa korostuivat yhtenevät teemat teoriaosan tutkimusten kanssa, kuten menetelmien konkreettisuus, ympäristön hyödyntäminen ja havainnointi, sekä pienryhmätoiminta. Työpajassa syntyneet ideat liittyivät monipuolisesti matematiikan eri osa-alueisiin. Niissä otettiin huomioon lapsen havainnot ja taidot. Ideoita olivat esimerkiksi esineiden ominaisuuksien havainnoiminen niiden materiaalin, kuvion tai värin mukaan. Voitiin myös vertailla havaittuja ominaisuuksia keskenään, esimerkiksi vaatteiden avulla. Muutosta havainnoitiin lasten kasvamisella ja vaatteiden pieneksi jäämisellä, mutta myös erilaisten sääolosuhteiden muutoksella. Tällöin täytyi myös pukeutua eri tavalla. Lukumäärää havainnoitiin lasten tai vaatteiden lukumäärällä ja omaa kehoa voitiin hahmottaa vaatteiden muotojen ja niiden paikan avulla. Pedagogiikan kehittäminen vaatii pienten ryhmissä suunnittelua ja lasten ikätason huomiointia. Kuitenkin kaikkeen toimintaan vaikuttavat kasvattajien sitoutuminen ja reagointi lasten mielenkiinnon kohteisiin sekä tarttuminen omiin ja lasten havaintoihin.

The aim of this study is to examine online volunteers views and experiences about online volunteering. The purpose is to investigate how interaction and presence based online volunteering is defined, how it is operated and what kind of requirements it sets for volunteers. In addition my interest is to examine how social inclusion and virtual communality reflects in the context of online volunteering and how it can be studied in the field of traditional volunteering. Previous studies suggest that many people are active to volunteer and volunteering can be considered to be very meaningful not only to the individual who volunteers but to the society as well. Volunteering is also suggested to increase the feeling of social inclusion. It has been said that online volunteering is a new trend of traditional volunteering which opens a new context of action; virtual world. There are many stereotypical images about online volunteers such as the image of them being young of age and technologically advanced. In reality online volunteers come from all age groups and possess very varied technical skills. Online volunteering is strongly linked with societal changes and technological development, which opens a great diversity how online volunteering can be operated. The data of this study consists of four interviews. All of the interviewees were from the Pelastakaa Lapset (Save the Children) organization. Interviews were conducted as theme interviews and they were transcribed and analyzed according to the principles of content analysis. Based on this research online volunteering in Pelastakaa Lapset organization could be defined somewhere between the “complete” and “ traditional / virtual” definition types. Online volunteering was conducted partly via the internet from home via computer and partly on site. The main operating model was two-on-two or group discussions in virtual world. Since online volunteering in this concept was based on interaction and presence it set some requirements for the volunteers. The volunteers were required to be able to act in visual virtual forums but mostly they were required to know how to listen, support, to be present and offer guidance to the youth they were dealing with. There was evidence that online-volunteering can increase social inclusion and that an online-volunteer can be part of a virtual and media community. It was also shown that despite the different operating context online volunteering reflects elements from traditional volunteering field and it is fitting to study it under the same research paradigms that guide the traditional volunteering research.

Tässä kandidaatintutkielmassa on arvioitu vuosina 1921–1944 vaikuttaneen naisten vapaaehtoisen ja aseettoman maanpuolustustyötä tehneen Lotta Svärd -järjestön roolia sukupuolten tasa-arvon edistämisessä tai hidastamisessa. Järjestöllä on hiljaisen merkittävä rooli Suomen sotahistoriassa, mutta sen syvempi ymmärrys on jäänyt suurelle yleisölle hämärään. Järjestöstä tehtyä kattavaa aiempaa tutkimusta selkeästi feministisestä lähtökohdasta ei tätä tutkielmaa varten löydetty. Taustatutkimuksen perusteella hypoteesina arvioitiin, että järjestöllä nähtiin olevan konservatiiviset lähtökohdat, mutta se rakenteellisesti naisjohtoisena antoi aihetta odottaa, ettei se ollut suoranaisesti myöskään antifeministinen. Tutkielmassa vastataan seuraaviin tutkimuskysymyksiin. Kenellä oli tosiallinen päätös- ja ohjausvalta järjestössä? Missä määrin järjestössä tehty työ oli tai ei ollut sukupuolittunutta? Minkälaista naisen mallia järjestö oli luomassa ja edistämässä? Minkälainen suhde järjestöllä oli naisasia liikkeeseen? Tutkielman aineistona käytettiin Lotta Svärd -järjestön sääntöjä sekä järjestön toimittamaa erillisjulkaisua Naisliike ja Lottatyö. Aineiston analyysissä sovelletaan teoriaohjaavaa sisällönanalyysiä. Käytetyt feministisen historiantutkimuksen mallit perustuivat patriarkaaliseen feministiseen teoriaan, erillisten alueiden eli sfääriteoriaan, sukupuolentutkimuksen perinteeseen, sekä feministiseen poststrukturalismiin. Tutkimustulokset antavat viitteitä siitä, että järjestö ei ollut erityisen progressiivinen tasa- arvoasioiden edistämisessä, mutta toiminnan sivutuotteena voidaan tulkita ollen useita naisia voimauttavia elementtejä. Loppupohdinnassa tuodaan näkökulmia maanpuolustuksen piirin tasa-arvoisuuteen sekä tämänhetkisten vapaaehtoisuuteen perustuvien naisten maanpuolustusjärjestöjen ja Suomen kokonaisturvallisuuden tulevaisuuteen.

Vuoden 2020 keväällä koronaviruspandemian leviämisen rajoittamiseksi päätettiin muiden toimien ohella keskeyttää lähiopetuksen järjestäminen perusopetuksessa, toisella asteella sekä korkeakoulutuksessa ja opetusta jatkettiin mahdollisuuksien mukaan etänä. Suomessa neljännesmiljoona korkeakoulututkintoa suorittavaa opiskelijaa joutui näiden toimien seurauksena siirtymään etäopiskeluun kesken lukukauden. Pandemia ja etäopiskelu jatkuvat edelleen ja opiskelijoiden tilanteesta on uutisoitu varsin runsaasti. Opiskelijat ovat myös osallistuneet uutisoinnin yhteydessä käytyyn verkkokeskusteluun aktiivisesti. Tässä tutkimuk-sessa selvitetään millaisia kokemuksia korkeakouluopiskelijoilla on koronapandemian myötä lisääntyneestä etäopiskelusta ja sen vaikutuksesta heidän hyvinvointiinsa. Aikaisemmat tutkimukset ovat osoittaneet, että tilanteella on ollut huomattava vaikutus opiskelijoiden hyvinvointiin ja esimerkiksi Helsingin yliopistossa uupuneiden opiskelijoiden määrä on jopa kolminkertaistunut aikaisempiin vuosiin verrattuna. Tutkimuksen aineisto muodostui Yle-uutisten verkkosivuilla vuosina 2020 ja 2021 julkaistujen etäopiskelua käsittelevien uutisartikkelien yhteydessä käydystä verkkokeskustelusta ja etenkin etäopiskelua ja hyvinvointia käsittelevistä kommenteista (N=95). Aineistosta etsittiin kertomuksia etäopiskeluun ja hyvinvointiin liittyvistä kokemuksista narratiivisen analyysin keinoin Ylijoen (2005) käyttämää analyysitapaa mukaillen. Usean lukukerran aikana aineistosta hahmottuvista narratiiveista muodostettiin etäopiskelun vaikutusta hyvinvointiin kuvaavia tyyppikertomuksia. Suurin osa verkkokeskusteluun sisältyvien kommenttien sisältämistä narratiiveista (n=64) kuvasi koronapandemian myötä lisääntyneen etäopiskelun vaikuttaneen hyvinvointiin heikentävästi. Pienempi osa kommenttien sisältämistä narratiiveista (n=32) kuvasi hyvinvoinnin lisääntyneen etäopiskelun myötä. Nämä tulokset vahvistivat aikaisempien tutkimusten tuloksia, joiden mukaan opiskelijoiden hyvinvointi on enimmäkseen heikentynyt lisääntyneen etä-opiskelun myötä. Aikaisemmista tutkimuksista poiketen kommenteista löytyi myös huomattava määrä toisen henkilön asemaan samaistuvia tai näitä asemia havainnoivia narratiiveja (n=47), jotka nimettiin siltoja rakentaviksi kertomuksiksi. Suurin osa korkeakouluopiskelijoista kokee koronapandemian myötä lisääntyneen etäopiskelun vaikuttaneen hyvinvointiinsa negatiivisesti ja harvempi kokee sen vaikuttaneen hyvinvointiinsa positiivisesti. Opiskelijat kuitenkin usein osoittavat ymmärtävänsä omasta kokemuksestaan poikkeavia kokemuksia ja suhteutuvat niihin empaattisesti ja samaistuen.

The purpose of my research is to describe what is outdoorlife and hiking in nature nearby in “Rain or shine” kindergartens from the view of kindergarten directors. “Rain or shine” is an operating model for environmental education and physical exercise in nature in early childhood education and in schools' afternoon clubs coordinated by Suomen Latu. The study was needed because the operating model was reformed in 2015 with the aim to expand the “Rain or shine” activities. The research problem is approached by considering two of the promises of “Rain or shine” which are "We promise to spend easygoing outdoorlife in rain or shine” and "We promise to hike in nature nearby at least three times a week". The research was qualitative and it was based on semi-structured interviews. I chose three of eight “Rain or shine” kindergartens for the interviews. These kindergartens located in different towns and they had different owners. I interviewed the directors of these three “Rain or shine” kindergartens. The interviews were carried out in March 2016. All the three interviews were recorded. The durations of the interviews varied from 60 minutes to 100 minutes. Afterwards the interviews were transcribed and analysed by temating the material by using the questions of the interviews. I found out that the outdoorlife is a natural and unseparated part of the activity in “Rain or shine” kindergartens' work. The easygoingness of outdoorlife was protected for example with good planning and preparation, limiting the group sizes, the flexibility of kitchen staff and intensive co-operation with the parents. Different seasons and weathers was not found as a problem when everybody had a necessery outdoor equipment. Kindergartens had from three to four different nature places nearby regularly in use. The nearest places were located behind the fence of the kindergarten. The furthest nature places were located 1,5 kilometres away from the kindergarten. Nature places were diverse and they offered variable possibilities for activities and playing. The hikes were organized mostly in the mornings and the duration was 1,5–5 hours. There were often a snack or a lunch also outside. The free and spontaneous play was emphasized during hikes. There occured mostly long-lasting and imaginative plays with the material and equipment found from nature. The regularity of having hikes was regarded important because it guaranteed the possibility to develop the long-lasting plays. It seems that the promises "We promise to spend easygoing outdoorlife in rain or shine" and "We promise to hike in nature nearby at least three times a week" are carried out in a comprehensive and committed way in “Rain or shine” kindergartens.

Objectives. In order to maintain a child’s interest and excitement for learning, development-appropriate differentiated instruction designed to fit the child’s needs and abilities is necessary. Failing to differentiate instruction for a linguistically gifted child may result in frustration, and a negative connotation towards learning altogether may arise. I chose differentiated instruction for gifted children as the subject of my thesis, as I’ve noticed the lack of its implementation in several preschools. The base theory of my thesis is built around the development of children’s linguistic skills, learning reading and writing, gifted children, differentiation and the Finnish preschool curriculum. The objective of this study is to examine how differentiated instruction of language learning is implemented in preschools and how pre-primary teachers view differentiation and its significance. Methods. The study was carried out using qualitative methods. Material was collected by interviewing five pre-primary teachers in Järvenpää in January 2019 and it was then analyzed with a theory-based content analysis. The book Onnistu eriyttämisessä – toimivan opetuksen opas (2018) by Roiha and Polso, and a five-part differentiation model the book contains, was used as the base theory for analyzation. I developed a categorization system for grouping results partly based on said model and partly by gathering information from my interview material. Lastly, I formed an analyzation frame, by which I was able to analyze results. Results and conclusions. Based on my findings, instruction was differentiated for gifted children via various methods. Especially varying difficulty of assignments, modifying learning environments, differentiation of learning material and adaptive situational grouping of children into skill-based groups stood out from the material. Differentiated instruction was thought to be highly significant among all interviewees. Even though differentiating instruction for gifted children was, on level of thought, considered to be as important as differentiation for children with challenges in learning, the latter was emphasized in everyday teaching.