Search results for "educational sciences"
showing 10 items of 198 documents
Learning about Students’ Receiving Special Educational Support Experiences of Qualification, Socialization and Subjectification in Finnish Vocational…
2022
This paper airs the experiences of eighteen students with special educational needs completing their studies at a Finnish vocational institution, which has a mandate to provide intensive special support for the students. It contributes to the national and international discussion of education’s purposes and elaborates on students’ descriptions. The study frames a research question: To what extent are Biesta’s domains of good education—qualification, socialization, and subjectification—audible in the narratives of Finland’s VET special educational needs students? The paper adopts a narrative approach and uses narrative positioning analysis as a methodical …
Students in higher education with reading and writing difficulties
2015
The aim of this study is to explore adult students’ descriptions and understandings of their reading and writing difficulties, and to describe the ways they are copying with them. In higher level studies, information is typically gained by reading and giving evidence of knowledge acquisition in writing. When students have difficulties with these essential academic skills, studying and lifelong learning can be hard work as well as time-consuming. General understanding of dyslexia and reading difficulties at the higher education level has improved, although considerable ambiguity remains about what these mean in practice. This is a qualitative, interview-based study that seeks to improve our …
Teacher Agency and Futures Thinking
2022
Problems encountered in top-down school reforms have repeatedly highlighted the significance of teachers’ agency in educational change. At the same time, temporality has been identified as a key element in teachers’ agency, with teachers’ beliefs about the future and experiences of the past shaping their agentic orientations. However, research on teachers’ future orientations is typically limited to short-term trajectories, as opposed to long-term visions of education. To address this, we draw on a futures studies perspective to give more explicit attention to teachers’ long-term visions of their work. We argue that the method of future narratives, already well…
Interorganisational Collaboration in a Norwegian Prison—Challenges and Opportunities Arising from Interagency Meetings
2021
AbstractIn prison, the provision of care and the surveillance of inmates takes place in multiple locations with several often contradictory demands. Inmates may experience a fragmentation of services because of the separate silos in which criminal justice service and mental health professionals work and the distinct ways of working that develop within these. A greater alignment between services is required. This chapter focuses on interagency meetings in a Norwegian prison. These are groups that aim to develop an holistic perspective of the inmate’s situation and problems, and are seen as an innovative way to overcome the contradiction between ‘treatment’ and ‘punishment’ prison paradigms a…
Facilitation of Developmental Tasks in Prisons: Applying the Method of Human-Centred Co-evaluation
2021
AbstractCollaboration and learning are especially needed in times of change in the workplace. This chapter describes a novel method for developing work practices and enhancing professionals’ proactiveness through collective, participatory experimentation and evaluation. We used the method in a low-security closed prison in Finland to advance prison staff’s rehabilitation work with prisoners. The design, implementation and evaluation of the innovations prison officers introduced to advance their work (recording the inmates’ behaviour and needs into their sentence plans) are illustrated. Besides describing how the method was applied in practice, we also identify and discuss the gaps within pr…
Citing as a sourcing practice: students’ citing self-selected online sources in their essays (Las citas como práctica del uso de las fuentes: las cit…
2020
This study examined upper secondary school students’ citations of self-selected online sources in their essays. Students (n = 140) conducted online inquiry about either effects of social media on people’s quality of life (SM) or allowance of genetic manipulation of organisms (GMO). Students, working either individually or in pairs, explored online sources with the help of a graphic organizer, after which they composed their essays. To capture the quality of citations identified in the essays, they were evaluated in terms of accuracy and richness of source features. Further, regression analysis was used to examine the effect of topic, grade level and work mode on the number and quality of ci…
The Transition to Upper Secondary Level After Basic Education for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Finland
2019
This chapter provides an exploration of the preparation of pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for transition to upper secondary level after Finnish basic education. It also examines the importance of supports required during the transition phase. Two examples of pupils with ASD (Kalle and Maija) are utilized to illustrate how to plan and support pupils with ASD during their initial post-school transition. Transitions are defined, after which education opportunities after basic education for pupils with ASD in Finland are examined. This is followed by a brief illustration of the Finnish comprehensive school system to provide context with a focus on support arrangements and the prepar…
Finnish Students’ Engagement in Science Lessons
2015
The decreasing number of students who are engaged in science learning has been recognised as a problem. The pre-conditions of engagement and actual engagement were examined using a novel research method to obtain detailed information on Finnish students’ engagement in different situations and to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon. The study’s participants consisted of 68 students (31 girls, 37 boys) from 9th grade and 67 students (46 girls, 21 boys) from 1st grade in upper secondary school. The research aimed to answer the following question: How does Finnish students’ engagement occur in exact and life science lessons? Participants received smartphones equipped with a smartphon…
Inter-generational learning of teachers: what and how do teachers learn from older and younger colleagues?
2018
Abstract: This paper examines how and what teachers learn from their older and younger colleagues. Data were gathered from interviews and written reports from 27 Belgian and Finnish teachers. Thematic qualitative analysis was used. The results revealed differences in what teachers learn from older and younger colleagues. Teachers reported learning innovative teaching methods and ICT skills from younger colleagues, whereas practical information, classroom management skills, self-regulation and community building were learned mainly from older colleagues. Attitudes regarding teaching and different ways of being a teacher were learned from both younger and older colleagues alike. Similarities …
Why Study Online in Upper Secondary School? Qualitative Analysis of Online Learning Experiences
2015
In Finland, online learning has become more common in recent years. In this study, we examined why adult students chose to study online for upper secondary school. The research also focused on the support needed for learning from a special education perspective. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected using an electronic questionnaire. In total, 58 students responded. Data were analyzed qualitatively using the content analysis technique. The findings indicate that the main reasons for online studies are similar in Finland to those found internationally: flexibility of timetables, the student’s health condition, and family situations. The findings also indicate that a student’s…