University Students' Approaches to Learning, Self-Regulation, and Cognitive and Attributional Strategies : Connections with Well-Being and Academic Success

This dissertation empirically explores the relations among three theoretical perspectives: university students approaches to learning, self-regulated learning, as well as cognitive and attributional strategies. The relations were quantitatively studied from both variable- and person-centered perspectives. In addition, the meaning that students gave to their disciplinary choices was examined. The general research questions of the study were: 1) What kinds of relationships exist among approaches to learning, regulation of learning, and cognitive and attributional strategies? What kinds of cognitive-motivational profiles can be identified among university students, and how are such profiles related to study success and well-being? 3) How do university students explain their disciplinary choices? Four empirical studies addressed these questions. Studies I, II, and III were quantitative, applying self-report questionnaires, and Study IV was qualitative in nature. Study I explored relations among cognitive strategies, approaches to learning, regulation of learning, and study success by using correlations and a K-means cluster analysis. The participants were 366 students from various faculties at different phases of their studies. The results showed that all the measured constructs were logically related to each other in both variable- and person-centered approaches. Study II further examined what kinds of cognitive-motivational profiles could be identified among first-year university students (n=436) in arts, law, and agriculture and forestry. Differences in terms of study success, exhaustion, and stress among students with differing profiles were also looked at. By using a latent class cluster analysis (LCCA), three groups of students were identified: non-academic (34%), self-directed (35%), and helpless students (31%). Helpless students reported the highest levels of stress and exhaustion. Self-directed students received the highest grades. In Study III, cognitive-motivational profiles were identified among novice teacher students (n=213) using LCCA. Well-being, epistemological beliefs, and study success were looked at in relation to the profiles. Three groups of students were found: non-regulating (50%), self-directed (35%), and non-reflective (22%). Self-directed students again received the best grades. Non-regulating students reported the highest levels of stress and exhaustion, the lowest level of interest, and showed the strongest preference for certain and practical knowledge. Study IV, which was qualitative in nature, explored how first-year students (n = 536 ) in three fields of studies, arts, law, and veterinary medicine explained their disciplinary choices. Content analyses showed that interest appeared to be a common concept in students description of their choices across the three faculties. However, the objects of interest of the freshmen appeared rather unspecified. Veterinary medicine and law students most often referred to future work or a profession, whereas only one-fifth of the arts students did so. The dissertation showed that combining different theoretical perspectives and methodologies enabled us to build a rich picture of university students cognitive and motivational predispositions towards studying and learning. Further, cognitive-emotional aspects played a significant role in studying, not only in relation to study success, but also in terms of well-being. Keywords: approaches to learning, self-regulation, cognitive and attributional strategies, university students

Auditory - Visual Matching in Learning Disabilities : Intervention Studies from Finland and Sweden

The present thesis discusses relevant issues in education: 1) learning disabilities including the role of comorbidity in LDs, and 2) the use of research-based interventions. This thesis consists of a series of four studies (three articles), which deepens the knowledge of the field of special education. Intervention studies (N=242) aimed to examine whether training using a nonverbal auditory-visual matching computer program had a remedial effect in different learning disabilities, such as developmental dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). These studies were conducted in both Finland and Sweden. The intervention’s non-verbal character made an international perspective possible. The results of the intervention studies confirmed, that the auditory-visual matching computer program, called Audilex had positive intervention effects. In Study I of children with developmental dyslexia there were also improvements in reading skills, specifically in reading nonsense words and reading speed. These improvements in tasks, which are thought to rely on phonological processing, suggest that such reading difficulties in dyslexia may stem in part from more basic perceptual difficulties, including those required to manage the visual and auditory components of the decoding task. In Study II the intervention had a positive effect on children with dyslexia; older students with dyslexia and surprisingly, students with ADD also benefited from this intervention. In conclusion, the role of comorbidity was apparent. An intervention effect was evident also in students’ school behavior. Study III showed that children with SLI experience difficulties very similar to those of children with dyslexia in auditory-visual matching. Children with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and SLI benefited from the auditory-visual matching intervention. Also comorbidity was evident among these children; in addition to formal diagnoses, comorbidity was explored with an assessment inventory, which was developed for this thesis. Interestingly, an overview of the data of this thesis shows positive intervention effects in all studies despite learning disability, language, gender or age. These findings have been described by a concept inter-modal transpose. Self-evidently these issues need further studies. In learning disabilities the aim in the future will also be to identify individuals at risk rather than by deficit; this aim can be achieved by using research-based interventions, intensified support in general education and inclusive special education. Keywords: learning disabilities, developmental dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, specific language impairment, language-based learning disabilities, comorbidity, auditory-visual matching, research-based interventions, inter-modal transpose

Mitä autismin kirjon opiskelijat oppivat valmentavassa koulutuksessa

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the special vocational training programme, which aimed at enhancing the pupils with autism spectrum to prepare themselves for work and independent life. The vocational training programme is based on TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication handicapped CHildren), which takes into account the autism spectrum disorders and autistic behaviour. TEACCH is based on the principles of structured teaching, functional teaching and preparation training for work and independent life. The TEACCH has been adapted to Finnish society and the educational system. Treatment programmes were individually designed for each student´s educational needs. There is also an important role for the AAPEP rating scale (Adolescent and Adult Psychoeducational Profile). The AAPEP has been the major tool for planning and following the courses. The AAPEP is an assessment instrument designed by the TEACCH programme, and it is used to provide an evaluation of current and potential skills. The AAPEP contains three scales: a direct observation scale, a home scale and a school / work scale. The AAPEP includes six test variables: vocational skills, independent functions, functional communication, interpersonal behaviour, vocational behaviour and leisure skills; these are evaluated at three levels: pass, emerge and fail. The subjects were 49 students (65% male and 35 % female) with autism spectrum, who have been followed and tested several times, also one year after the vocational training. The design is therefore a longitudinal one. The research data were collected 1997-2004 using the AAPEP rating scales. The teachers have used the AAPEP scales and the codings have been checked by the researcher. The results of the principal component analysis (PCA) suggested that the structure of AAPEP rating scales works quite well as a hypothesis. The factor structure of the scales of the AAPEP was almost the same in these data as in the original publications. The learning-and-changes results showed that learning is a slow process, but that there were also intended changes in several AAPEP areas. The Cohen´s kappa was used as an effect-size measure and the most important result of this research showed that the student´s skills were developing on a school / work scale; vocational skills variable (0,34), vocational behaviour variable (0,28), leisure skills variable (0,26) and on a direct observation scale; interpersonal behaviour variable (0,21). On a home scale skills of some students were developing negatively and also that effect-size was small. The results showed that the students´ vocational skills and vocational behaviour will continue to develop after school in many areas. There were differences between scales. The result of this research shows that the student´s skills were developing significantly in 3 of 48 variables on a direct observation scale and also on a home scale. On a school / work scale student´s skills were developing significantly in 17 of 48 variables. This result implies that students can do the work without extra assistance if there exist continuing supports for the skills after the vocational training. The fully independent life of students will be difficult, because their independent functions, functional communications and leisure skills regressed after the schooling. This seems to indicate that they will not manage their daily life without support. The students and their parents said that the treatment programmes were individually designed for each student s educational needs, and that they were satisfied with the programmes and services. Generally, it can be concluded that vocational special education can be developed for pupils with autistic syndrome and the detailed teaching can be done using TEACCH principles and applying the tool of AAPEP.

Dental health and school-based health education among 15-year-olds in Tehran, Iran

The aim of the present study was to assess dental health and its determinants among 15-year-olds in Tehran, Iran and to evaluate the impact of a school-based educational intervention on their oral cleanliness and gingival health. The total sample comprised 506 students. Data collection was performed through a clinical dental examination and a self-administered structured questionnaire. This questionnaire covered the student s background information, socio-economic status, self-perceived dental health, tooth-brushing, and smoking. The clinical dental examination covered caries experience, gingival status, dental plaque status, and orthodontic treatment needs. Participation was voluntary, and all students responded to the questionnaire. Only three students refused the clinical dental examination. The intervention was based on exposing students to dental health education through a leaflet and a videotape designed for the present study. The outcome examinations took place 12 weeks after the baseline among the three groups of the intervention trial (leaflet, videotape, and control). High participation rates at the baseline and scanty drop-outs (7%) in the intervention speak for reliability of the results. Mean value of the DMFT (D=decayed, M=missing, and F=filled teeth) index of the 15-year-olds was 2.1, which comprised DT=0.9, MT=0.2, and FT=1.0 with no gender differences. Dental plaque existed on at least one index tooth of all students, and healthy periodontium (Community Periodontal Index=0) was found in less than 10% of students. Need for caries treatment existed in 40% of students, for scaling in 24%, for oral hygiene instructions in all, and for orthodontic treatment in 26%. Students with the highest level of parents education had fewer dental caries (36% vs. 48%) and less dental plaque (77% vs. 88%). Of all students, 78% assessed their dental health as good or better. Even more of those with their DMFT=0 (73% vs. 27%) and DT=0 (68% vs. 32%) assessed their dental health as good or better. Smokers comprised 5% of the boys and 2% of the girls. Smoking was common among students of less-educated parents (6% vs. 3%). Of all students, 26% reported twice-daily tooth-brushing; girls (38% vs. 15%) and those of higher socio-economic background (33% vs. 17%) did so more frequently. The best predictors for a good level of oral cleanliness were female gender or twice-daily tooth-brushing. The present study demonstrated that a school-based educational intervention can be effective in the short term in improving the oral cleanliness and gingival health of adolescents. At least 50% reduction in numbers of teeth with dental plaque compared to baseline was achieved by 58% of the students in the leaflet group, by 37% in the videotape group, and by 10% of the controls. Corresponding figures for gingival bleeding were 72%, 64%, and 30%. For improving the oral cleanliness and gingival health of adolescents in countries such as Iran with a developing oral health system, school-based educational intervention should be established with focus on oral self-care and oral health education messages. Emphasizing the immediate gains from good oral hygiene, such as fresh breath, clean teeth, and attractive appearance should be key aspects for motivating these adolescents to learn and maintain good dental health, whilst in planning school-based dental health intervention, special attention should be given to boys and those with lower socio-economic status. Author s address: Reza Yazdani, Department of Oral Public Health, Institute of Dentistry, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 41, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: reza.yazdani@helsinki.fi

Current Care Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation : Implementation, skills and attitudes

Background: The national resuscitation guidelines were published in Finland in 2002 and are based on international guidelines published in 2000. The main goal of the national guidelines, available on the Internet free of charge, is early defibrillation by nurses in an institutional setting. Aim: To study possible changes in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) practices, especially concerning early defibrillation, nurses and students attitudes of guideline implementation and nurses and students ability to implement the guideline recommendations in clinical practices after publication of the Current Care (CC) guidelines for CPR 2002. Material and methods: CPR practices in Finnish health centres; especially concerning rapid defibrillation programmes, as well as the implementation of CC guidelines for CPR was studied in a mail survey to chief physicians of every health centre in Finland (Study I). The CPR skills using an automated external defibrillator (AED) were compared in a study including Objective stuctured clinical examination (OSCE) of resuscitation skills of nurses and nursing students in Finnish and Swedish hospital and institution (Studies II, III). Attitudes towards CPR-D and CPR guidelines among medical and nursing students and secondary hospital nurses were studied in surveys (Studies IV, V). The nurses receiving different CPR training were compared in a randomized trial including OSCE of CPR skills of nurses in Finnish Hospital (Study VI). Results: Two years after the publication, 40.7% of Finnish health centres used national resuscitation guidelines. The proportion of health centres having at least one AED (66%) and principle of nurse-performed defibrillation without the presence of a physician (42%) had increased. The CPR-D training was estimated to be insufficient regarding basic life support and advanced life support in the majority of health centres (Study I). CPR-D skills of nurses and nursing students in two specific Swedish and Finnish hospitals and institutions (Study II and III) were generally inadequate. The nurses performed better than the students and the Swedish nurses surpassed the Finnish ones. Geriatric nurses receiving traditional CPR-D training performed better than those receiving an Internet-based course but both groups failed to defibrillate within 60 s. Thus, the performance was not satisfactory even two weeks after traditional training (Study VI). Unlike the medical students, the nursing students did not feel competent to perform procedures recommended in the cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines including the defibrillation. However, the majority of nursing students felt confident about their ability to perform basic life support. The perceived ability to defibrillate correlated significantly with a positive attitude towards nurse-performed defibrillation and negatively with fear of damaging the patient s heart by defibrillation (Study IV). After the educational intervention, the nurses found their level of CPR-D capability more sufficient than before and felt more confident about their ability to perform defibrillation themselves. A negative attitude toward defibrillation correlated with perceived negative organisational attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines. After CPR-D education in the hospital, the majority (64%) of nurses hesitated to perform defibrillation because of anxiety and 27 % hesitated because of fear of injuring the patient. Also a negative personal attitude towards guidelines increased markedly after education (Study V). Conclusions: Although a significant change had occurred in resuscitation practices in primary health care after publication of national cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines the participants CPR-D skills were not adequate according to the CPR guidelines. The current way of teaching is unlikely to result in participants being able to perform adequate and rapid CPR-D. More information and more frequent training are needed to diminish anxiety concerning defibrillation. Negative beliefs and attitudes toward defibrillation affect the nursing students and nurses attitudes toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines. CPR-D education increased the participants self-confidence concerning CPR-D skills but it did not reduce their anxiety. AEDs have replaced the manual defibrillators in most institutions, but in spite of the modern devices the anxiety still exists. Basic education does not provide nursing students with adequate CPR-D skills. Thus, frequent training in the workplace has vital importance. This multi-professional program supported by the administration might provide better CPR-D skills. Distance learning alone cannot substitute for traditional small-group learning, tutored hands-on training is needed to learn practical CPR-D skills. Standardized testing would probably help controlling the quality of learning. Training of group-working skills might improve CPR performance.

"Ei sitä ainakaan helpommaksi tehdä sairaan opiskelijan elämää" : Pitkäaikaissairaiden kokemuksia korkeakoulutuksen esteistä ja mahdollisuuksista

This study examines the experiences of students with chronic illnesses in higher education. I chose to study rheumatic and other musculoskeletal diseases because they are group of diseases that are nationally significant in Finland. From students experiences I do interpretation of their agency. My research problems are: What kind of obstacles and possibilities student with chronic illness experiences in studying? What kind of obstacles illness set up for the agency or does it set any? How agency of student with chronic illness shows in the context of the university? I collected the data by using interview and focus group method. Additionally I had different kinds of documents of accessibility and equality in the university. Interviews were like halfstructured theme and open interviews. Focus group method I have applied. All the people that participated in the study were students from the university of Helsinki. They all have rheumatic or other musculoskeletal diseases. I have five interviewees and the group consisted of two people and the researcher. In the data analysis I use categorizing by the themes. Students that participated in my study spoke about their pain related experiences of their illness which also connected to their experiences of the higher education. Students agencies were limited the more they experienced pain. Pain forces students to certain activity one actions avoidance and another s favouring. If part-time studying would have been possible economically, it would have made the life easier for a part of the students. Students were aware of the available resources of their body for some of the students illness and life control set challenge and for some it set conditions. Students thought that university education is more possible to them than vocational education. Students didn t feel their own body limited in the context of university that emphasize intellectual and knowledge connected values and some of the students had reversed their illness as a resource of studying. However students felt their illness as a private matter and they considered illness profit and disadvantage before telling about it, which I interpretated limiting students agencies. In the university terms of students agencies were bond to individuality that came up in positive and negative. Freedom of studying was positive but official and individual study accommodations made agency bounded. Majority of the students didn t see possibilities to do differently in the university s practice but some of the students had recognised values underneath the practices that made it possible to reflect them, do differently and made space for agency.

Proofs, Paradoxes, and Probabilities : The Logical Turn of Philosophy in Finland

This monograph describes the emergence of independent research on logic in Finland. The emphasis is placed on three well-known students of Eino Kaila: Georg Henrik von Wright (1916-2003), Erik Stenius (1911-1990), and Oiva Ketonen (1913-2000), and their research between the early 1930s and the early 1950s. The early academic work of these scholars laid the foundations for today's strong tradition in logic in Finland and also became internationally recognized. However, due attention has not been given to these works later, nor have they been comprehensively presented together. Each chapter of the book focuses on the life and work of one of Kaila's aforementioned students, with a fourth chapter discussing works on logic by authors who would later become known within other disciplines. Through an extensive use of correspondence and other archived material, some insight has been gained into the persons behind the academic personae. Unique and unpublished biographical material has been available for this task. The chapter on Oiva Ketonen focuses primarily on his work on what is today known as proof theory, especially on his proof theoretical system with invertible rules that permits a terminating root-first proof search. The independency of the parallel postulate is proved as an example of the strength of root-first proof search. Ketonen was to our knowledge Gerhard Gentzen's (the 'father' of proof theory) only student. Correspondence and a hitherto unavailable autobiographic manuscript, in addition to an unpublished article on the relationship between logic and epistemology, is presented. The chapter on Erik Stenius discusses his work on paradoxes and set theory, more specifically on how a rigid theory of definitions is employed to avoid these paradoxes. A presentation by Paul Bernays on Stenius' attempt at a proof of the consistency of arithmetic is reconstructed based on Bernays' lecture notes. Stenius correspondence with Paul Bernays, Evert Beth, and Georg Kreisel is discussed. The chapter on Georg Henrik von Wright presents his early work on probability and epistemology, along with his later work on modal logic that made him internationally famous. Correspondence from various archives (especially with Kaila and Charlie Dunbar Broad) further discusses his academic achievements and his experiences during the challenging circumstances of the 1940s.

Opettajien roolit alakoulun samanaikaisopetuksessa

Teachers work is changing from independent work towards a collegial cooperation, and one form of cooperation can be co-teaching. Co-teaching is also discussed in the three level model of supporting in Special education strategy (Ministry of Education 2007). Efforts have been made to increase co-teaching in Helsinki with the help of a merit pay system. The purpose of this study is to describe teachers' roles in planning, implementing and evaluating co-teaching and to resolve how teachers have ended up with these roles, what advantages and disadvantages there are in different roles and what kind of roles are experienced meaningful. This study is made from a class teacher or a special class teacher point of view. The research material was collected using a qualitative web-inquiry in Autumn 2010. The questionnaire was answered by 35 teachers. The material was studied using content analysis methods. Three different co-teaching roles were formed on the basis of the research material. These roles differ in the way of dividing responsibility of planning and implementing co-teaching. Responsibility Sharers divided the responsibility evenly, Primary Responsible had one teacher with main responsibility and Single Responsible had only one teacher having all the responsibility of planning and teaching. The more responsibility the class teacher had, the more the special education teacher was limited to answer for students with special needs. Distribution of work with Responsibility Sharers was mostly based on good cooperation, while Primary Responsible and Single Responsible had work distribution mostly affected by absence of common planning time. The most satisfied with their co-teaching roles were the Responsibility Sharers, while the Single Responsible were the most unhappy group. However, it seems that individuals' persona affects to what kind of co-teaching was experienced meaningful.