Ammatillinen osaaminen ja täydennyskoulutus : tiedon ja osaamisen leviäminen osallistujien välillä

The goal of my research was to describe how adult students perceive professional knowledge and know-how, and how these diffuse among a group of students during a continuing education program. The goal was also to research the meaning of shared working life experience in improving the professional know-how of the students. My research is positioned in the field of supporting environments for adult learning with an emphasis on interaction between students in social networks. The participants of my research were 31 adult students taking part in continuing education program at the time of my study. I gathered the research data using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Quantitative network enquiry led me to do 9 theme interviews. I analyzed the data using a network analyzing program and a content analyzing method. I examined the whole community of students, the home groups of four students and the main actors who were central for the community. The analysis focused on the distribution network of professional knowledge and know-how, the distribution network of social support and the network of reciprocal interaction. Professional knowledge and know-how that diffuse between adult students in continuing education, is mostly hands-on tips and occupational experience. The factors that promote the distribution of professional experience and know-how are structural ones and factors that emphasize co-operation relationships. The structural factors are participation in adult education and in home groups and also organizational arrangements of learning. The factors that emphasize co-operation relationships are encouragement and doing learning assignments together. The central distributors of professional know-how are adult students who have long working life experience. The meaning of the diffusion of professional experience and know-how for improving professional know-how of a single adult student is in developing his professional identity and adding his social capital. In the social interaction networks, which I studied, more relations exist inside the home groups than between them, which is congruent with earlier researches. My research can be utilized by using its research methods and emphasizing its results in adult education planning and guidance.

"Kyllähän täällä tehdään kaikenlaista laidasta laitaan..." : Nuorten työpajatoiminta ja oppiminen työpajoilla työharjoittelijoiden kokemana

Workshops can be seen as a one kind of occupational model in the field of the social employing. The objective of social employing is to support the employment of those persons who are in a weak labour market position and to maintain their ability to function. The objectives of the workshops, which are offering work experience and learning of life management, maintain the same goal as social employment. Workshop services in Finland are relatively little scientifically studied in spite of their fairly long history. The workshop as a concept is still quite sparsely defined and also an unknown occupational model to the large part of people. The starting point for this study was to clarify what the workshops are like, what the services are like and how learning can be seen from the point of view of the workshop services. The objective of this study was to analyse how the apprentices experience the workshop services as well as learning in the workshops and thus describe how the workshops are shaped at the youth workshops. According to earlier studies the apprentices have experienced the workshops as useful periods in their lives and also they believe that other people in society appreciate the experience that apprentices have been received from the workshops. This study can be described as a qualitative study. Its methodological foundation is in phenomenology and especially in existential phenomenology. The research material consisted of seven individual interviews and two group interviews. In the group interviews five apprentices were those who had also participated in the individual interviews and one apprentice who did not participate. The interviewees' ages were between 17-22 years. The interviews were carried out as semi-structured interviews. The method which was utilised in the analysis of the research material is developed by Juha Perttula (2000). This analyse method is based on existential phenomenology. The apprentices considered that significant experiences in the workshop services were the entry to the workshop, the form of activity of the workshop, workshop community, the achieving of life management and work experience, the understanding of the significance of the education and the planning of the future. Regarding to learning the attitude, on-the-job learning, the importance of the mentors, the new information and new skills achieved were significant experiences at the workshop for the apprentices. The apprentices' experiences reflect well the achievement of the objectives which are set for the workshop services. Results of this study are also compatible to the results of earlier studies of apprentices' positive experience of the workshop services. The results can be utilised in developing the workshop services to offer more versatile experiences than before and to improve learning conditions on the workshops. The arranging of the on-the-job learning and the significance of the actions of mentors should also be noticed.

Cloningerin psykobiologisen teorian temperamenttipiirteiden yhteys alkoholinkäyttöön nuorilla aikuisilla

The temperamental traits of Cloninger’s personality theory (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence and persistence) reflect independent systems of central nervous system deciding responses toward new, rewarding and aversive stimuli. Thus, certain temperamental traits and their combinations may predispose to heavy drinking and alcohol dependence. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate associations between temperamental traits and the amount of alcohol consumption, frequency of heavy drinking and the maximum number of drinks per occasion. In this study, we investigated also whether these associations are only confounded by between-family differences in genetic and environmental factors. Furthermore the associations between temperamental trait combinations that reflect Cloninger's typology of alcoholism and alcohol use were studied. The subjects (n=401) in the current study were a group of FinnTwin16 study participators, Finnish twins born in 1974-79. Temperament was measured with TCI-R (Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised) a self-report form. The amount of alcohol consumption was asked by Semi-structured interview (Semi-Structured Assessment of Genetics of Alcoholism = SSAGA). The frequency of heavy drinking and maximum number of drinks per occasion were asked by mail form. In accordance with previous studies, novelty seeking had a positive relationship with the amount of alcohol consumption, frequency of heavy drinking and the maximum number of drinks per occasion in both genders. In this study, the association was proven independent of between-family differences in genetic and environmental factors that are associated to both novelty seeking and alcohol use. Surprisingly, reward dependence was negatively related to the maximum number of drinks per occasion in both genders. Persistence had a weak positive relationship with maximum number of drinks per occasion in men. The temperamental trait combinations that reflect Cloninger's typology of alcoholism did not differ from the other combinations in regard to alcohol use as hypothesized. The results confirm the previous finding about the relationship between novelty seeking and alcohol use. Support for Cloninger's typology of alcoholism in regard to combinations of temperamental trait was not achieved in this study.

Sense of Community in Web Environment

The study of social phenomena in the World Wide Web has been rather fragmentary, andthere is no coherent, reseach-based theory about sense of community in Web environment. Sense of community means part of one's self-concept that has to do with perceiving oneself belonging to, and feeling affinity to a certain social grouping. The present study aimed to find evidence for sense of community in Web environment, and specifically find out what the most critical psychological factors of sense of community would be. Based on known characteristics of real life communities and sense of community, and few occational studies of Web-communities, it was hypothesized that the following factors would be the most critical ones and that they could be grouped as prerequisites, facilitators and consequences of sense of community: awareness and social presence (prerequisites), criteria for membership and borders, common purpose, social interaction and reciprocity, norms and conformity, common history (facilitators), trust and accountability (consequences). In addition to critical factors, the present study aimed to find out if this kind of grouping would be valid. Furthermore, the effect of Web-community members' background variables to sense of community was of interest. In order to answer the questions, an online-questionnaire was created and tested. It included propositions that reflect factors that precede, facilitate and follow the sense of community in Web environment. A factor analysis was calculated to find out the critical factors and analyses of variance were calculated to see if the grouping to prerequisites, facilitators and consequences was right and how the background variables would affect the sense of community in Web environment. The results indicated that the psychological structure of sense of community in Web environment could not be presented with critical variables grouped as prerequisites, facilitators and consequences. Most factors did facilitate the sense of community, but based on this data it could not be argued that some of the factors chronologically precedesense of community and some follow it. Instead, the factor analysis revealed that the most critical factors in sense of community in Web environment are 1) reciprocal involvement, 2) basic trust for others, 3) similarity and common purpose of members, and 4) shared history of members. The most influencing background variables were the member's own participation activity (indicated with reading and writing messages) and the phase in membership lifecycle (from visitor to leader). The more the member participated and the further in membership life cycle he was, the more he felt sense of community. There are many descreptions of sense of community, but the present study was one of the first to actually measure the phenomenon in Web environment, and that gained well documented, valid results based on large data, proving that sense of community in Web environment is possible, and clarifying its psychological structure, thus enhancing the understanding of sense of community in Web environment. Keywords: sense of community, Web-community, psychology of the Internet

Nuorten henkilökohtaisten tavoitteiden profiilit ja subjektiivinen hyvinvointi

Personal goals offer an important aspect of personality and motivation. Personal goals are conscious and subjectively motivated objectives by which a person directs his or her life over time. Personal goals are related to adolescents' subjective well-being. The aim of the present research was to find out, what kinds of groups of adolescents can be formed by the content of personal goals and how these groups differ in goal appraisals, meaningful life events and subjective well-being. The second aim of the study was to detect gender differences and differences between vocational and high school students in goal appraisals, meaningful life events and subjective well-being. Adolescents in upper secondary education (N=1144) were grouped together by the content of their personal goals using a person oriented approach and a cluster analysis. Clusters found in the analysis were named by the centre goal as (1) a property group, (2) a vocation group, (3) a future education and personal relationships group and (4) a selffocused group. Adolescents in the property group put a little effort into their career goal, they were not exhausted in school work and their subjective well-being was average. Adolescents in the vocation group felt progress in their career goal and put effort into it. They had goals related to life-style. They did not feel exhausted and their subjective well-being was average. The future education and personal relationships group put effort into their career goal and considered progressing in it. Personal relationships were important in their lives. They were exhausted in their school work but they did not feel cynicism. Their own health was one of their goals and they felt satisfaction in their life. Adolescents in the self-focused group did not put effort into their career goal nor considered progressing in it. They were exhausted and especially cynical in their school work. They suffered from almost clinically significant depression. They had low life-satisfaction and low self-esteem. The following gender and educational differences were found. Compared with boys, girls felt their career goal was more important and stressful, and girls also put more effort into it. Girls were more exhausted, depressed and they had lower selfesteem than boys. High school students felt more stress with their career goal than vocational school students. High school students were more exhausted, but still they felt more satisfaction with their lives. In practice, to cover adolescents' personal goals is a possibility to find distressed individuals who might be in need for extra support.

Mielikuvat transformatiivisen oppimisen välineenä : Tutkimus mielikuvaoppimisesta luontevan esiintymistavan löytämiseksi

The research focus of this study is imagery-based learning aimed at discovering an authentic way of public speaking in the context of transformative learning. The experiences of the participants in this learning process were also a subject of study. This learning process consisted of both guided and independent imagery-based training techniques. Critical reflection plays an important role in transformative learning. Actions, and interpretations and assumptions guiding them, are recognised and subjected to critical reflection. The goal of the learning process is an authentic and wide meaning perspective. Imagery-based training benefits from the gap between the new and the old experience of public speaking, and this is utilised as an activating factor for learning. The study is qualitative, looking at the imagery learning process and its outcomes from the subjective viewpoint of the participants personal experience. The imagery training acted as an intervention in the process of learning authentic public performance. The number of participants in this study was ten, five men and five women from four different working backgrounds. There were 80 individual training sessions, each attended by one person. The author conducted the imagery-based training. For each participant the learning process took roughly nine months. The research data consisted in the answers to questions in writing, diary entries, interviews and researcher notes. The data gathered by these methods was compiled into a personal report for each participant. The learners perceived authentic public speaking performance at the end of the learning process as wider, more flexible and more genuine than at the start of the training. Authenticity was defined through an internal process of becoming aware instead of some external characteristics. The learners understood the process of imagery learning as training for public performance and as an opportunity to become familiar with one s own personal way of acting and with one s own attitudes. They also perceived it as a tool that enabled the observation of personal experiences from different points of view. The learners reflected on ways of acting related to public speaking as well as on contributing factors to performance anxiety during the imagery learning process. Towards the end of the learning process, even critical reflection took place. The learners were categorized into three groups according to differences in their learning processes: the participants, the actors and the critical reflectors. This grouping reflected the relative amount of transformation in their learning processes. The participants became aware of their actions and assumptions. They took part in guided training sessions only. Worries in private life also had some consequences to their training in imagery learning. Apart from than becoming more conscious, the learning process did not yield much difference to the public speaking experiences of the participants. The actors attended both guided imagery training sessions and did individual training on their own. They became aware of their assumptions and their ways of acting. The encounter of the new and the old way of acting stimulated their learning. The actors advanced towards their own goals or even achieved them. The critical reflectors recognised their own assumptions and ways of acting and started to reflect critically on their own attitudes, as well as external attitudes and interpretations. Their assumptions, interpretations and experiences of public performance started to change in a positive direction. The learning process of the critical reflectors was functioning as a transformative process. This learning process revealed old assumptions hindering learning and old ways of acting resulting from these assumptions, thus opening up an opportunity for critical reflection and transformation. Avainsanat Nyckelord imagery learning, imagery-based training, transformative learning, reflection, critical reflection, public speaking anxiety, authentic public performance

Monikulttuurisuuskasvatus päiväkodin monikulttuurisessa esiopetusryhmässä

This study reports on the realisation of multicultural education in a multicultural pre-school group of one kindergarten. The research questions were: 1) what multicultural goals and contents did the kindergarten´s own pre-school curriculum contain? and 2) how did the pre-school educators´ views on multicultural education appear in their actions in a multicultural pre-school group? The research was conducted by analysing the curricula, interviewing the educators, and observing of the preschool groups. Pre-school education is seen as part of institutionalised education which is defined through culture. Education is considered from the point of view of critical multicultural education, paying special attention to the role of society in the definition of education. The research is a case study, and it concentrates on the interpretation of the working philosophy of one preschool group with respect to its implementation. The target group consisted of 20 6-year-old pre-school pupils in a kindergarten and their four pre-school educators. The research results showed that the kindergarten´s own pre-school curriculum (1997) was in structure and form consistent with the structure and form of the National Core Curriculum for Pre-School Education from 1996. The only difference was in the classification of the various subject fields and objectives. The contents of the two curricula showed hardly any variation, and both of them contained only few goals and contents for multicultural education. According to the interviews, the educational views and learning philosophy of the pre-school educators represented a child-centred point of view that takes into consideration the individual pupil´s needs and skills. This is also one of the basic principles of multicultural education. The principle was not, however, realised in the directed activities of the pre-school group. The heterogeneity of the pre-school group was dealt with by dividing the children into smaller groups, but the contents of the tuition were not differentiated. All children were provided with the same goals and contents. Multicultural education was seen as remote and separate from the overall educational philosophy. The contents of multicultural education were interpreted by the educators as teaching Finnish as a second language and teaching the children their own mother tongue and religion. After the evaluation of the state of the kindergarten´s multicultural education using four different models, I determined that the kindergarten emerged as a representative of the model where multicultural education is seen as something meant for immigrants only. The aim of the model is a rapid integration of the immigrant children with the majority population. Keywords: education, pre-school education, multicultural education, critical multicultural education, language, culture

Vammaisen lapsen äidin vanhemmuuden kokemus sekä lähiympäristön ja kasvatuskumppanuuden merkitys

The parenthood experience of a mother with a disabled child and the meaning of the social environment and parent-professional partnerships The importance of parental guidance when a family has a child with a disability or autism has been pointed out by several studies. The present research was based on the premise that by supporting the mother we can help the whole family to cope better and the professionals in day care or at school are able to support parents. The starting point was the subjective experience, which is also the central focus of the phenomenological method. The purpose of this study was firstly to describe the experience of the mother and the dialogue between mother and educational professionals. Secondly it was the task of this research to discover what kind of support and information the mother obtains from her social environment. At the background of this study there was the ecological theory of Bronfenbrenner, the ecocultural approach by Gallimore and the interactive examination of family that take into consideration the whole environment and personal situation. The research data was collected by interviewing the mothers, the day care personnel and the teachers at school. In this research there were a total of 32 interviews and 24 informants: 10 mothers who have a child with a disability and/or autism, 8 professionals in day care and 6 teachers at school. This study was longitudinal because the same mothers were interviewed twice, first in 1998 and then after five years in 2003. It was thus possible to get information on whether their life situation had changed and the nature of those changes. The data of this study was analysed by the method of phenomenological psychology that was applied for this study. The findings indicated that all mothers had experienced many complicated emotional feelings such as: anger, mourning, fear and sadness as well as love and bonding. It can be said that several human feelings existed at the same time. Mothers experienced that the support of the social environment, for example, relatives, families in the same situation and persons taking care of the child had significant meaning for their coping. However the life situation among the mothers varied. Mostly mothers received valuable support for their parenthood and they have adopted a strong emotion for manage ring. Mothers with an autistic child were more stressed than mothers with a mentally retarded child. A few mothers had numerous problems with taking care of their child and they did not get enough help. Same mothers were very exhausted too and the situation was quite the same after five years, when their child was teenager. All mothers said that after starting school the support for the family had significally diminished. Mothers said that dialogue with teacher got on without problems, but there were meetings seldom, so it wasn´t possible to get enough support for their parenthood. Keywords: parenthood, motherhood, disability, early special education, family-centred.

Aika hyvä rehtoriksi : Selviääkö koulun johtamisesta hengissä?

The aim of this study was to describe school leadership on a practical level. By observing the daily behaviour of a principal minute by minute, the study tried to answer the following questions: how did the principals use their time, did they have time to develop their school after participating in the daily life of the school, and how did the previously studied challenges of modern leadership show in their practical work? Five principals in different areas of Helsinki were observed – two women and three men. The principals were chosen at random from three educational conferences. The main hypothesis of this research was that the work of the principal consists of solving daily problems and routines concerning the pupils, teachers and other interest groups and writing all kinds of bureaucratic reports. This means that the school and its principal do not have enough resources to give to a visionary development of teaching and learning – in other words pedagogical leading – even though every principal has the best knowledge about his or her own school’s status quo and the needs for development revealed by this status quo. The research material was gathered by applying the Peer-Assisted Leadership method. The researcher shadowed each principal for four days for three hours at a time. After each shadowing period, any unclear situations were clarified with a short interview. After all the shadowing periods, the principals participated in a semi-structured interview that covered the themes emerging from the shadowing material. In addition to this, the principals evaluated their own leading with a self-assessment questionnaire. The results gathered from the shadowing material showed that the actions of the principals were focused on bureaucratic work. The principals spent most of their time in the office (more than 50%). In the office they were sitting mainly by the computer. They also spent a significant mount of time in the office meeting teachers and occasional visitors. The time spent building networks was relatively short, although the principals considered it as an important domain of leadership according to their interviews. After the classification of the shadowing material, the activities of the principals were divided according to certain factors affecting them. The underlying factors were quality management, daily life management, strategic thinking and emotional intelligence. Through these factors the research showed that coping with the daily life of the school took about 40% of the principals’ time. Activities connected with emotional intelligence could be observed over 30% and activities which required strategic thinking were observed over 20% of the time. The activities which according to the criteria of the research consisted of quality management took only 8% of the principals’ time. This result was congruent with previous studies showing that the work of school leaders is focused on something other than developing the quality of teaching and learning. Keywords: distributed leadership, building community, network building, interaction, emotional intelligence, strategy, quality management

Tacit Pedagogical Knowing: At the Core of Teacher's Professionality

The purpose of this research was to examine class teachers' interactive pedagogical thinking and action, in other words their tacit pedagogical knowing. Tacit pedagogical knowing was defined as a process in interactive teaching situation, through which a teacher finds solutions to surprising and challenging situations, pedagogical moments, so that the lesson continues. Teachers are able to describe their tacit pedagogical knowing afterwards and also find some reasons for it as well. More specifically, the aim was to study, 1) how does a class teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing appear in teacher's actions, and 2) what kinds of contents include in class teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing. The research material was gathered from four class teachers by videotaping their lessons and by stimulated recall interviews. In addition to this, the researcher spent a relatively long time in the research participants' classrooms. She conducted initial interviews and orientating observations by means of participant observation in order to get to know the participants and their contexts better. A phenomenologically oriented approach, which proceeded by following abductive logic, was used in the analysis procedures of the videotaped and stimulated recall data. In addition to this, correlation examinations were used in the validation of stimulated recall data analyses. The appearance of the tacit pedagogical knowing was observed in the videotaped data. The contents of tacit pedagogical knowing were defined by the analyses of stimulated recall data. According to the research results, a class teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing appears in the maintenance of the pedagogical relation, the teacher's relation to content, and the didactical relation. The contents of class teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing were many sided. The maintenance of the pedagogical relation, the teacher's relation to content, and the didactical relation were elements of the contents as well. In addition to these, the maintenance of teacher's pedagogical authority, the maintenance of the student's role or pedagogical authority, and the awareness of the nature of the content of instruction are included in the contents of teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing. The phenomenon of tacit pedagogical knowing was observed to be clearly a process-like and relational phenomenon. Based on the research results, a model of teacher's tacit pedagogical knowing was developed. Using the model, it is possible to illustrate the factors that are at the core of teacher's professionality. This model could be used in the context of teacher education, supervision, or in-service training.

Matka koulun kestävän kehittämisen maisemassa

A Journey in the Landscape of Sustainable School Development “A Journey in the Landscape of Sustainable School Development” is a story of the Sorrila School development process. This research deals with a school development project as a process, and as a part of international projects on Education for Sustainable Development, with ENSI (Environment and School Initiatives) being the most important. The main purpose of the study was to analyze the change process as a general phenomenon as well as the learning connected to it. The research describes the development period 2001–2008 at the Sorrila Primary school. The research questions are as follows: 1. What did pupils learn during the research and development period? 2. How did the coordinating teacher develop personally? 3. How were the ENSI targets and other closely linked projects reached? 4. What was the feedback from the pupils, their parents and other teachers at the school? 5. How did the developing process proceed in 2001–2008? The method used was integrating action research, which also had ethnographical elements. Narrative was the form of the data as well as the manner of reporting. The method as a whole was integrating, ethnographical action research as a story. The research data consisted mostly of Knowledge Forum notes written by the teacher-researcher. Knowledge Forum is an Internetbased collaborative knowledge-building programme. Pupils’, parents’ and other teachers’ feedback, newspaper articles and students’ writings complied the data, which consists of material from seven years. Sustainable development was the basis of the school improvement. The targets of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) were part of the development projects. According to the research results the school was seen as part of complex systems where manifold and interactive learning took place. The learning of pupils, teachers and the school as a community can be characterised socioculturally. The school was able to reach a level of collaborative transformative learning. As well as several concrete projects, such as Comenius school project, school development consisted of networking at many levels. Along with the projects and networking, the school was able to apply the pedagogy of connection, by carrying out integrative and cross-disciplinary themes and using various learning and teaching methods. International cooperation was a natural part of the work. A figure of Aunt Green, the role model of the teacher researcher, was an innovation which resembled a change agent. The other role of the teacherresearcher as a coordinator, was important for her own professional development. According to the results the change process, which relied on sustainable school development, led the school along a road of positive renewals. It was not a series of projects but an ongoing process. The objectives of the international projects were accomplished to a great extent during the research period. According to the principles of action research, the main results were put forward in order to help others to develop their schools. Frictions and problems as well as positive experiences and rejecting dualities were seen as change forces. Keywords: education for sustainable development (ESD), sustainable school development, teacher professional development, integrating, pedagogy of connection, transformative learning

Representing the epistemic nature of teachers’ practical knowledge : The case of class teachers’ general pedagogy

The present study addressed the epistemology of teachers’ practical knowledge. Drawing from the literature, teachers’ practical knowledge is defined as all teachers’ cognitions (e.g., beliefs, values, motives, procedural knowing, and declarative knowledge) that guide their practice of teaching. The teachers’ reasoning that lies behind their practical knowledge is addressed to gain insight into its epistemic nature. I studied six class teachers’ practical knowledge; they teach in the metropolitan region of Helsinki. Relying on the assumptions of the phenomenographic inquiry, I collected and analyzed the data. I analyzed the data in two stages where the first stage involved an abductive procedure, and the second stage an inductive procedure for interpretation, and thus developed the system of categories. In the end, a quantitative analysis nested into the qualitative findings to study the patterns of the teachers’’ reasoning. The results indicated that teachers justified their practical knowledge based on morality and efficiency of action; efficiency of action was found to be presented in two different ways: authentic efficiency and naïve efficiency. The epistemic weight of morality was embedded in what I call “moral care”. The core intention of teachers in the moral care was the commitment that they felt about the “whole character” of students. From this perspective the “dignity” and the moral character of the students should not replaced for any other “instrumental price”. “Caring pedagogy” was the epistemic value of teachers’ reasoning in the authentic efficiency. The central idea in the caring pedagogy was teachers’ intentions to improve the “intellectual properties” of “all or most” of the students using “flexible” and “diverse” pedagogies. However, “regulating pedagogy” was the epistemic condition of practice in the cases corresponding to naïve efficiency. Teachers argued that an effective practical knowledge should regulate and manage the classroom activities, but the targets of the practical knowledge were mainly other “issues “or a certain percentage of the students. In these cases, the teachers’ arguments were mainly based on the notion of “what worked” regardless of reflecting on “what did not work”. Drawing from the theoretical background and the data, teachers’ practical knowledge calls for “praxial knowledge” when they used the epistemic conditions of “caring pedagogy” and “moral care”. It however calls for “practicable” epistemic status when teachers use the epistemic condition of regulating pedagogy. As such, praxial knowledge with the dimensions of caring pedagogy and moral care represents the “normative” perspective on teachers’ practical knowledge, and thus reflects a higher epistemic status in comparison to “practicable” knowledge, which represents a “descriptive” perception toward teachers’ practical knowledge and teaching.

Semanttisen webin ontologisen tekstiilikäsitteistön kehittäminen ja liittäminen museoiden luettelointitietoihin

DEVELOPING A TEXTILE ONTOLOGY FOR THE SEMANTIC WEB AND CONNECTING IT TO MUSEUM CATALOGING DATA The goal of the Semantic Web is to share concept-based information in a versatile way on the Internet. This is achievable using formal data structures called ontologies. The goal of this re-search is to increase the usability of museum cataloging data in information retrieval. The work is interdisciplinary, involving craft science, terminology science, computer science, and museology. In the first part of the dissertation an ontology of concepts of textiles, garments, and accessories is developed for museum cataloging work. The ontology work was done with the help of thesauri, vocabularies, research reports, and standards. The basis of the ontology development was the Museoalan asiasanasto MASA, a thesaurus for museum cataloging work which has been enriched by other vocabularies. Concepts and terms concerning the research object, as well as the material names of textiles, costumes, and accessories, were focused on. The research method was terminological concept analysis complemented by an ontological view of the Semantic Web. The concept structure was based on the hierarchical generic relation. Attention was also paid to other relations between terms and concepts, and between concepts themselves. Altogether 977 concept classes were created. Issues including how to choose and name concepts for the ontology hierarchy and how deep and broad the hierarchy could be are discussed from the viewpoint of the ontology developer and museum cataloger. The second part of the dissertation analyzes why some of the cataloged terms did not match with the developed textile ontology. This problem is significant because it prevents automatic ontological content integration of the cataloged data on the Semantic Web. The research datasets, i.e. the cataloged museum data on textile collections, came from three museums: Espoo City Museum, Lahti City Museum and The National Museum of Finland. The data included 1803 textile, costume, and accessory objects. Unmatched object and textile material names were analyzed. In the case of the object names six categories (475 cases), and of the material names eight categories (423 cases), were found where automatic annotation was not possible. The most common explanation was that the cataloged field was filled with a long sentence comprised of many terms. Sometimes in the compound term, the object name and material, or the name and the way of usage, were combined. As well, numeric values in the material name cataloging field prevented annotation and so did the absence of a corresponding concept in the ontology. Ready-made drop-down lists of materials used in one cataloging system facilitated the annotation. In the case of naming objects and materials, one should use terms in basic form without attributes. The developed textile ontology has been applied in two cultural portals, MuseumFinland and Culturesampo, where one can search for and browse information based on cataloged data using integrated ontologies in an interoperable way. The textile ontology is also part of the national FinnONTO ontology infrastructure. Keywords: annotation, concept, concept analysis, cataloging, museum collection, ontology, Semantic Web, textile collection, textile material

Erityistä tukea tarvitsevien lasten polut esiopetuksesta alkuopetukseen : tukitoimet ja suoriutuminen

The purpose of this follow-up study is to analyse stages of learning and teaching of children with special needs in pre-school and the first two grades of elementary school. The target group included 270 children with special needs. The three year follow-up period for each child began during the pre-school year, and continued until the spring of the second grade in elementary school. Various diagnoses were detected among children in the study group. The disorders were categorised in six classes: the developmentally delayed, children with language development disorder, children with emotional and behavioural disorders, children with attention deficit, children with other non-cognitive disorders and children with extensive developmental disorders. The study's starting point was the situation in pre-school: how the children were placed in pre-school, and what kinds of support they were offered? The purpose of the study was to describe how children with special needs move from different types of groups in pre-school to the different types of classes in the first two grades of elementary school. I also examined how well the children with special needs succeeded in the first two grades of elementary school. An additional purpose was to find out what connections there may be between the paths taken by children with special needs when they move from pre-school to elementary school, the types of support they get, and how they succeed academically in elementary school. The data were gathered mainly by means of questionnaires. In addition the children were studied by means of tests designed to estimate their academic skills at the end of the second grade. In analysing the data I used both quantitative and qualitative methods. Six paths were identified among the children in the study group, based on whether a child was in a group or a class given special teaching or in an ordinary group or class during pre-school and the first two grades of elementary school. In this study, about 53% of the children with special needs moved from pre-school to a regular class in elementary school, and about 47% of the children received special education in elementary school. Among the ordinary groups (n = 69) in pre-school the majority of children (73 %) moved to a regular class in elementary school. Among the children receiving special education (n = 201) in pre-school, 46% moved to a regular class in elementary school. That path turned out to be the one followed by the greatest number of children. Only rarely did children move from an ordinary group in pre-school to a special education class in elementary school. Examination of the results according to the children's transition paths also links together with the viewpoint of integration and segregation. This study indicates that in pre-school special education groups, a significantly greater number of methods supporting children's development were used than in the conventional education groups. The difference was at its greatest inconnection with the use of so-called special rehabilitation methods. A quite wide range of variation was observed in how the children succeeded in elementary school. Success in the tests designed to estimate the children's academic skills was poor for 31% of the children (n = 230) in the first grade study group. For 69 % of the children, however, success in the tests was at least satisfactory. In the second grade study group 34 % of the children (N = 216) got through all the three tests estimating academic skills acceptably. According to this study, a number of children with special needs require special support throughout pre-school and the first two grades of elementary school. The results show that if the children received special support during the pre-school year, a number were able to participate in regular education in elementary school. Keywords: a child with special needs, measures of support, transitions, achievements in school

Virtuaalimaailmoja valtaamassa : verkko-opetusinnovaation leviäminen koulun maantieteeseen vuosituhannen vaihteessa

Tutkimus käsittelee verkko-opetusinnovaation leviämistä perusasteen ja lukion maantieteeseen vuosina 1998–2004. Työssä sovellettiin opetusinnovaation leviämismallia ja innovaatioiden diffuusioteoriaa. Aineisto hankittiin seitsemänä vuotena kyselylomakkeilla maantieteen verkko-opetuksen edelläkävijäopettajilta, jotka palauttivat 326 lomaketta. Tutkimuksen pääongelmat olivat 1) Millaisia edellytyksiä edelläkävijäopettajilla on käyttää verkko-opetusta koulun maantieteessä? 2) Mitä sovelluksia ja millä tavoin edelläkävijäopettajat käyttävät maantieteen verkko-opetuksessa? 3) Millaisia käyttökokemuksia edelläkävijäopettajat ovat saaneet maantieteen verkko-opetuksesta? Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että tietokoneiden riittämätön määrä ja puuttuminen aineluokasta vaikeuttivat maantieteen verkko-opetusta. Työssä kehitettiin opettajien digitaalisten mediataitojen kuutiomalli, johon kuuluvat tekniset taidot, informaation prosessointitaidot ja viestintätaidot. Opettajissa erotettiin kolme verkko-opetuksen käyttäjätyyppiä: informaatiohakuiset kevytkäyttäjät, viestintähakuiset peruskäyttäjät ja yhteistyöhakuiset tehokäyttäjät. Verkko-opetukseen liittyi intensiivisiä myönteisiä ja kielteisiä kokemuksia. Se toi iloa ja motivaatiota opiskeluun. Sitä pidettiin rikastuttavana lisänä, joka haluttiin integroida opetukseen hallitusti. Edelläkävijäopettajat ottivat käyttöön tietoverkoissa olevaa informaatiota ja sovelsivat työvälineohjelmia. He pääsivät alkuun todellisuutta jäljittelevien virtuaalimaailmojen: satelliittikuvien toistaman maapallon, digitaalikarttojen ja simulaatioiden käytössä. Opettajat kokeilivat verkon sosiaalisia tiloja reaaliaikaisen viestinnän, keskusteluryhmien ja ryhmätyöohjelmien avulla. Mielikuvitukseen perustuvat virtuaalimaailmat jäivät vähälle sillä opettajat eivät juuri pelanneet viihdepelejä. He omaksuivat virtuaalimaailmoista satunnaisia palasia käytettävissä olevan laite- ja ohjelmavarustuksen mukaan. Virtuaalimaailmojen valtaus eteni tutkimuksen aikana digitaalisen informaation hyödyntämisestä viestintäsovelluksiin ja aloittelevaan yhteistyöhön. Näin opettajat laajensivat virtuaalireviiriään tietoverkkojen dynaamisiksi toimijoiksi ja pääsivät uusin keinoin tyydyttämään ihmisen universaalia tarvetta yhteyteen muiden kanssa. Samalla opettajat valtautuivat informaation kuluttajista sen tuottajiksi, objekteista subjekteiksi. Verkko-opetus avaa koulun maantieteelle huomattavia mahdollisuuksia. Mobiililaitteiden avulla informaatiota voidaan kerätä ja tallentaa maasto-olosuhteissa, ohjelmilla sitä voidaan muuntaa muodosta toiseen. Internetin autenttiset ja ajantasaiset materiaalit tuovat opiskeluun konkretiaa ja kiinnostavuutta, mallit, simulaatiot ja paikkatieto havainnollistavat ilmiöitä. Viestintä- ja yhteistyövälineet sekä sosiaaliset informaatiotilat vahvistavat yhteistyötä. Avainsanat: verkko-opetus, internet, virtuaalimaailmat, maantiede, innovaatiot