Search results for "erityiskasvatus"
showing 10 items of 70 documents
Ensuring Diverse User Experiences and Accessibility While Developing the TeSLA e-Assessment System
2019
The TeSLA project, with its new, innovative approaches for e-assessment, offers a great possibility for increasing the educational equality and making higher education studies available for all. It has been estimated that 10–15% of students in higher education institutions have some disabilities or special educational needs. At online universities or in online programmes, the number is even higher. These numbers emphasise the importance of the universal design for learning as a leading principle while developing the digital learning environments and e-assessment procedures. In this chapter, we describe the key elements of ensuring the accessibility of the TeSLA e-assessment system during th…
Special education without teaching assistants? : The development process for students with autism
2020
Many children may need the help of another person to attend school. It is common for children with disabilities to receive help from a teaching assistant at school. Assistants are provided in many countries as a legal right and are often publicly funded. It is also widely assumed that having teaching assistants in the class is an effective and cost-efficient way to support students with disabilities. In this study, the research task was to monitor and document the development process carried out by the teacher, with the aim of making visible the development of a more dynamic classroom interaction. The focus in this development process was the teacher’s idea of minimizing the conta…
Teacher Training for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in Finland
2019
This chapter first provides a short description of the historical background and development of special education teacher training in Finland. The relationship between special education and teaching pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is covered by chronologically presenting the main events, turning points, publications, and people that have had a significant effect on the education of pupils with ASD in Finland. This is followed by a description of the organization of teacher training, in general, and the particular characteristics of teaching pupils with ASD. In the context of ASD, it is essential to examine questions concerning the link between learning as social practice and the …
Recording Support Measures in the Sequential Pedagogical Documents of Children With Special Education Needs
2019
This study investigates the descriptions of support measures in the sequential pedagogical documents (individual education plans or programs and others) of children with special education needs from early childhood education and care to preprimary education. According to the previous research, the role of pedagogical work is largely disregarded in these documents, which typically focus on describing children’s challenges instead of support measures. In this study, the sequential pedagogical documents ( N = 257) of 64 Finnish children were studied for approximately 3 to 6 years, and the data were analyzed by investigating the textual and content-related coherence, as well as the linguistic …
The involvement of autistic children in early childhood education
2023
Research on the involvement of autistic children in daily activities in inclusive early childhood education is scarce. In Finland, all children, including autistic children, under the age of seven (before basic education) are entitled to participate in early childhood education and care. Children also attend compulsory, free-of-charge pre-primary education during the year before their basic education begins. Furthermore, attending early childhood education and care is not dependent whether a child requires day care because of their parents’ work. Autistic children attend early childhood education in inclusive day care centres. Thus, in this study, we examined the involvement of autistic chi…
Educational intervention planning for children in foster care in Finland : A case study
2018
Children in foster care may face difficulties during their school years. When it comes to academic achievement, there is reported low school performance and lower grades. However, school may be strong protective factor in difficulties if supports are individual. School-based interventions represent a possibility for supporting children whose home life may make them vulnerable. This discussion paper presents Finnish initiative, which is based on Skolfam® model used in several Nordic countries. peerReviewed
A mixed-methods approach to developing an understanding of teachers’ attitudes and their enactment of inclusive education
2017
This research sought to develop an understanding of teachers’ attitudes, sense of self-efficacy and approach to enacting inclusive education in their classrooms in two diverse countries. A mixed-methods research design guided the data collection and analysis. This article focuses on how quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used sequentially and how the findings were finally merged to provide more comprehensive insight into different aspects of teachers’ sometimes contradictory attitudes and approaches to implementing inclusive education. The meta-inferences presented here indicate that merging measurements and meanings can shed light on how teachers’ attitudes and self-effi…
Rasch Analysis of the Japanese Version of Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale: Scale Unidimensionality
2020
This study aimed to examine the construct validity of the Japanese version of the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale. The sample consisted of 250 teachers in Japan. Rasch analysis was used to examine the psychometric properties of the scale. Results did not support the 18-item Japanese version of the TEIP scale as a unidimensional scale for measuring TEIP. However, they do support the final 14-item Japanese version of the TEIP scale as a unidimensional scale for measuring TEIP. Four items were removed from the original 18-item scale (items 12, 8, 5, and 3) for violation of the local independency assumption. No item with differential item functioning (DIF) was detected. On…
A comparative study on Saudi and Japanese in-service teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education and self-efficacy in inclusive practices
2021
Although providing equal educational opportunity for all children is the common goal for inclusive education around the world, the way of implementation is influenced by cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors of each country. This study aims to compare Saudi and Japanese teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy in inclusive education. Data were collected from 185 Saudi and 359 Japanese in-service teachers using a survey. Quantitative analysis revealed that there was no difference between Saudi and Japanese teachers’ attitudes towards including students with disabilities. The Japanese teachers’ overall self-efficacy was lower than that of the Saudi teachers, but this result was discuss…