Browsing by Author "Tuominen, Pinja"

The purpose of this thesis was to search information about different ways of supporting socioemotional skills in the pre-school education groups. Material for this thesis was gathered by interviewing four pre-school teachers from the southern Finland area. The interviews were conducted in 2017. A qualitative research method which utilised half-structured thematic interviews was used. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and the data was analysed thematically by content analysis. The theoretical background of this research consists of socioemotional development, social skills and emotional skills. The purpose of the first research problem was to examine what kind of opinions pre-school teachers have about supporting pre-schoolchildren’s socioemotional skills. The second research problem was to find out how pre-school teachers evaluate the used methods. The results prove that the methods which support the socioemotional skills consist of four different themes: interaction between children and adults, pedagogical methods, pedagogical interventions and co-operation. The most important areas of those themes were; attendance in playing situations, learning environment which included the structure of the pre-school day, drama and co-operation with parents and professionals, respectively. The most important everyday pedagogical methods, per the pre-school teachers, were communality and the structure of the daily life. The premeditated pedagogical interventions, such as the ”Askeleittain”-intervention, was also mentioned.