Ohjaukselliset käytännöt yliopisto-opintojen alkuvaiheessa : Maatalous-metsätieteellisen tiedekunnan opiskelijoiden merkitykselliset kokemukset ensimmäisen opiskeluvuoden ohjauksesta

In this Master's Thesis I study guidance practises, which facilitate first year students' integration into the university. Besides formal guidance, for example tutoring and peer tutoring, general student advising and introduction courses, I address my research to informal everyday guidance practices. I aim to highlight existing supportive practices, which are meaningful from the university students' perspective. My aim is to study what kind of guidance practises exists in university and how these practises support first year student. The aim of the guidance practises is to facilitate new university student to integrate into the academic community. I study the implementation of this aim as a development of an academic identity, which requires that students have an opportunity for guided participation in academic practises. The research is based on phenomenological-hermeneutic research tradition, and my aim is to produce information of students' everyday experiences and meanings. My informants were students of agriculture and forestry at University of Helsinki. I gathered research material utilizing the critical incident technique in 11 theme interviews, which I carried out with individuals, pairs or small groups. During interviews I asked the students to describe and evaluate their first year guidance experiences, especially those that were extreme positive or negative. Based on my research I specified four meaningful guidance practices: care of students, transparency of the practises of the learning community, presence of guidance in everyday activities of a student and communal reflection to studies. I represent the character and components of the guidance practises, and I also describe the meaning of those practises to university students. Keywords: Guidance practices, guidance, first year studies, academic community, integration, academic identity,critical incidents

Nuorten kokema yksinäisyys ja sen yhteys tulevaisuusorientaatioon

The aim of this study was to examine 1) how much and how adolescents experience loneliness, 2) how they orientate to the future, 3) are loneliness experiences and future attitudes associated with self-esteem and 4) are loneliness experiences associated with future orientation. The data (n=172) was collected in September 2003 and it consisted of 9th grade students living in countryside and city. The research was quantitative questionnaire study and it was statistically analysed. So far the problem of loneliness has not been noticed enough. People experience loneliness when there is discrepancy between actual and desired levels of interpersonal contact. In adolescence loneliness is quite common because young people go through the crises of human relationships and identity. In adolescence the meaning of friends and fellows increases and the relationship with parents changes. Future orientation becomes meaningful in adolescence because young people have to make realistic choices concerning their future life. In this study almost every adolescent had someone to be with and talk to. However 19% of adolescents experienced loneliness. Lonely adolescents experienced lack of friendships and fellowships. Lonely adolescents also felt that they left outside of others and that they were alone. Boys experienced more often lack of friendships and fellowships than girls. Girls experienced that they left more often outside and that they were more often alone than boys. Adolescents living in city experienced a little more loneliness experiences than adolescents living in countryside. Lonely adolescents had also difficulties to make social relationships and they experienced loneliness also related with parents. Lonely adolescents had also weak self-esteem. Adolescents orientated to the future mainly positively. The most important future target was health and the least important target was the universal peace and problems solving of the world. Adolescents believed that they affect to their future mainly by themselves and they planed their future about 5-10 years ahead. For adolescents it was important to have education and work to the future. In the future it was also important to have a lifelong companion and own family. For most of the young people it was also important to keep up social relationships and realize him/herself. Adolescents thought high standard of living and money also quite important things in the future. Girls preferred different future targets more important than boys. For the boys only money and high standard of living were more important than for girls. 18% of adolescents had pessimistic attitude to the future. For pessimistic adolescents many future targets were less important than for the adolescents having affirmative or optimistic attitude for the future. Adolescents who had pessimistic attitude to the future had also weak self-esteem. For the lonely adolescents it was not so important 1) to keep up social relationships and realize themselves in the future. Lonely adolescents did not prefer 2) lifelong companion and own family as important as other young people. Also 3) others acceptance and appreciation were not so important for lonely adolescents. 4) Travelling was also more insignificant for lonely than for others. Lonely adolescents future attitudes were quite pessimistic. Parent related loneliness explained future targets insignificance and pessimistic attitude for the future the most. The experience of loneliness seems to be associated with future orientation in many cases. That s why it is important to pay attention to adolescents loneliness experiences. Loneliness is real and serious problem which threats health. Thus we need to examine further loneliness in adolescence and as a result of that it is possible to develop and use interventions to help lonely adolescents to orientate positively to their future.

Kehittämisen kompastuskivet - myytit kehittämishankkeen keskusteluissa

I studied discussions during development project. Aim of the study was to analyse, what way workers represented their work: how normalized way of interpretation myths appeared in discourse and what consequences these utterances caused to drift of discussion. Change laboratory, which is a development method, is based to developmental work research methodology. Development is designed to be successful by learning activity and learning acts. Preventing factors of learning have been studied widely. Research has leaned to concept of resistance to change. Phenomenon of learning has been interpreted to be successful only if everybody has an agreement about the situation. There is also a new kind of concept of resistance. Resistance can be seen as a part of learning, normal processing of the learning activity. Another preventing factor can be seen as disorders of discourse, which are verbal ways of telling something that aren t real. Theoretically I consider these verbal ways as myth interpretations, which can be used as argumentative tools. I used analysis of discourse as an analytical method. Results of analysis revealed four different myth interpretations in workers discussions. Character of work was been described with myths unforeseen situations and disturbances are normal . Work was also described to be functional with myths system works and workers cause disturbances . Change laboratory discussions can be described as different social languages, which caused diverse perspectives to workers and researchers representations. Social languages also affected the way people analysed disturbances and system. Critical phase of change laboratory method seems to be analysis of disturbances and planning new mode of action. Myth utterances were used to reject ways of developing, analysis of system level and need of development. Myth utterances worked three different ways: ineffective, active or passive.

Tidigt fullständigt svenskt språkbad i Esbo

Avhandlingen behandlar tidigt fullständigt svenskt språkbad i Esbo. Arbetet utreder vad tidigt fullständigt språkbad innebär samt vad språkbadsföräldrars och språkbadslärares åsikter om språkbadet i Esbo är. Undersökningen omfattar 60 familjer samt samtliga lärare (14 st) som arbetar med språkbad i Esbo. Undersökningen består av två enkäter; en till språkbadsföräldrar och en tillspråkbadslärare. Av de 60 enkäter som sändes ut till språkbadsföräldrarna besvarades 45, dvs. 75%. 12 lärare av 14, dvs. 86%, besvarade den andra enkäten. Det är viktigt att känna till centrala begrepp i anslutning till tvåspråkighet, då man talar om andraspråkstillägnandet i språkbad. I detta arbete presenteras en modell (Sahi, 1999) som åskådliggör centrala begrepp i anslutning till tvåspråkighet. Tidigtfullständigt språkbad är ett program som är planerat att omfatta hela grundskolan. Språkbad är ämnat för enspråkiga majoritetsbarn i ett tvåspråkigt land. Dessa barn tillägnar sig minoritetsspråket i skolan. Språkbadet är inte enbart ett program, utan även en metod. Skillnaden mellan språkbad och traditionell undervisning i språk är att man i språkbadet betonar kommunikation framom grammatik. Målet medspråkbadet är funktionell tvåspråkighet. Många faktorer inverkar på andraspråkstillägnandet i språkbadet. I detta arbete betonas attitydernas och motivationens betydelse. Språkbad kräver en medveten och aktiv insats av föräldrarna. Vidare betonar litteraturen som behandlar språkbad undervisningsmetodernas betydelse samt språkbadslärarens viktiga roll. Föräldrarna är nöjda med språkbadsprogrammet, eftersom det givit goda resultat och motsvarat förväntningarna. Enligt föräldrarna är språkbad ett mjukt, modernt och effektivt program. Föräldrarna anser att barnen lär sig badspråket på ett naturligt sätt och även får en öppnare inställning till språk och kulturer. Föräldrarna betonar lärarnas viktiga insatser samt kontinuitetens betydelse. Vidare tycker föräldrarna att språkbadet borde inledas i ett tidigare skede och att eleverna borde ha mera kontakt med badspråket utanför skolan. Målet med att barnen går i språkbad är, enligt föräldrarna, att barnen ska förstå och tala språket flytande samtkänna kulturen som hör ihop med språket. Både föräldrarna och lärarna tycker att språkbadsklasserna är för stora och att det är brist på material. Lärarna anser att man mer än tidigare borde informera allmänheten, beslutsfattare samt föräldrar om verksamheten. Därtill tycker lärarna att samarbetet mellan daghem och skola samt specialundervisningen borde utvecklas. Lärarna betonar att språkbad inte lämpar sig för alla barn. Lärarna anser sig främst behöva praktiska råd av andra som arbetar med språkbad samt teoretisk kunskap. Både föräldrarna och lärarna tycker att språkbadsverksamheten i Esbo borde koordineras och att språkbadselevernas prestationer noggrant borde följas upp. Nyckelord: Tvåspråkighet, Språkbad, Andraspråkstillägnande Keywords: Bilingualism, Immersion, Second Language Aquisition.

Luova mieli : lähikuvassa muusikoiden luomisprosessit

This work studied the creative process of musicians. The subject was chosen partly due to the attention given to creativity in social discussion. The approach was material-based, because during the work it became clear that the theoretical models describing the creative process in general did not provide adequate tools for the examination of musical creation. In this study, the creative process was defined as a process, which generated a work found by the musician novel to him or her. There were two principal research questions: 1) How does the creative process of musicians progress? 2) What makes a process creative? The main emphasis was on the first question, because the study aimed at modeling the creative process of musicians. The material for this study was collected by interviewing five professional musicians, each qualified by an expert of music to be creative. The interviews were thematically linked with each musician’s recently implemented creative process. The work generated in the process was used as a stimulant in the interview. The main themes of the interview dealt with the musician’s concrete action, cognitive functioning and affective experience during the process. Secondary themes included his or her goals as well as the factors that enhanced or inhibited the process. A material-based analysis was made of the interviews. The conceptualization and modelling of the creative process was founded on a phenomenological-hermeneutic interpretation. In addition to the primary interviews, also supplementary interviews were made in order to ensure that the description of the musician was understood correctly. Further supplementary interviews were made when the material was analyzed and results were deduced. This aimed at increasing the reliability of interpretations and conclusions. The study resulted in a four-level model representing the progress of a creative process. The levels were defined by means of the conception of state. The levels used in defining the process were 1) the state determining the potential of the process, 2) the state delimiting the process, 3) the state orienting the process, and 4) the state determined by the process. The progress of the process was described as changes taking place in the state. It was discovered that the factors having an effect on the creativity of the process were the dynamism of the process, the musician’s work in relation to his or her inner standard and the impulses that caused variation in the musician’s thinking. The interview method used in this study proved to be a very suitable tool in an examination of a creative process. Thus it may well be applicable in other research contexts associated with creative processes. The outcome of this study, the model of the progress of a creative process, should also provide a feasible basis for the examination of different kinds of creative processes. It enables a comprehensive examination of a creative process, simultaneously justifying the dynamic nature of the process.

Heila-tietojärjestelmäprojekti ja sen ongelmat : Tutkimus Helsingin yliopiston henkilöstöhallinnon tietojärjestelmän kehitys- ja käyttöönottotyöstä asiakkaan näkökulmasta

Tutkimuksen tehtävänä oli selvittää Helsingin yliopiston Heila-tietojärjestelmän kehitysprojektin kulkua vuosina 1994-1999. Toisena tutkimustehtävänä oli selvittää minkälaisia ongelmia projektissa oli esiintynyt. Tutkimuksen aineisto oli projektin dokumentaatio, jossa pääaineistona olivat projektin johto- ja projektiryhmien kokouspöytäkirjat, tilanneraportit ja muut määrämuotoiset projektidokumentit. Lisäksi käytettävissä oli muuta aineistoa, kuten Heila-projektia käsitteleviä sähköpostiviestejä ja yleisönosaston kirjoituksia. Tutkimuksessa aineistoa kuvattiin kertomuksellisesti, projektin tapahtumat kirjattiin kertomukseksi kronologisessa järjestyksessä. Aineistoa analysoitiin toisen tutkimustehtävän mukaisesti sisällön analyysillä, ja tästä tuloksena oli projektin ongelmien luokittelu. Lopuksi tarkasteltiin projektin etenemiskertomuksen ja ongelmien luokittelun suhdetta. Kohteena ollut projekti viivästyi aikataulustaan kaikissa vaiheissa: toteutus- ja käyttöönotot viivästyivät useita kuukausia. Projektissa ilmeni resurssipulaa, välillä toimittajan ja välillä asiakkaan eli Helsingin yliopiston puolella. Lisäksi ohjelman sisältöalue oli niin monimutkainen, että se aiheutti vaikeuksia toteutuksessa ja käytössä. Järjestelmän suorituskyky ei vastannut sovittua, käyttöönottojen jälkeen jopa yksinkertainen tallennustoiminto saattoi kestää useita minuutteja, eikä normaaleja työtoimintoja saatu hoidettua. Helsingin yliopisto teki useita kirjallisia huomautuksia ja korvausvaatimuksia toimittajalle. Ongelmat jakautuivat toimintatapoihin liittyviin ongelmiin ja teknisiin ongelmiin. Toimintatapoihin liittyvät ongelmat sisälsivät käyttäjien huomiointiin ja projektin läpivientiin liittyviä ongelmia. Tekniset ongelmat jakautuivat kolmeen alakategoriaan: suorituskyvyn ongelmat, ohjelman ominaisuuksiin liittyvät ongelmat sekä yhteyksiin liittyvät ongelmat. Kukin alakategoria jakautui luokkiin. Projektin etenemistä arvioitiin suhteessa sen toteuttamista ohjanneeseen Helsingin yliopiston yhteistyöprojektien laatuohjeeseen, sekä Niemen (1993) malliin tietojärjestelmäprojektien läpiviennistä. Ongelmien luokittelua verrattiin Niemen (1993) arvioon projektien ongelmista. Projektin onnistumista arvioitiin Saarisen ja Sääksjärven (1992) projektin onnistumisen teorian avulla. Tulosten perusteella on mahdollista tarkastella muita projekteja, ja ongelmaluokitusten perusteella havaita potentiaaliset ongelmat. Siten voidaan parantaa työskentelyolosuhteita ja onnistumisen edellytyksiä tietojärjestelmäprojekteissa. Avainsanat: Tietojärjestelmät, projektityö, ongelmat Keywords: Information systems, project work, problems

Mikä yliopisto-opiskelijaa kiihdyttää? : Opiskeluympäristöjen tutkimusta CASS-kokemusotantamenetelmällä flow-teoriaa ja ydintunneteorioita soveltaen

Flow experience is often defined either as an experience of high concentration and enjoyment or as a situation, where high challenges are matched with high skills. According to core-emotion theories, the experience of any emotion contains two core emotions: valence and arousal. Through an accurate mathematical model, the present study investigated, whether the experience of concentration and enjoyment is related to situations where both challenge and skills are high and in balance. Further, it was investigated what sort of core emotions are related to differing relationships between challenge and skills. Finally, university students’ experiences of their natural study environments were described in terms of core emotions and in terms of relationships between challenge and skills. Participants were 55 university students who participated two weeks research period. Altogether 3367 questionnaire answers were collected with the CASS experience-sampling method, operating in 3G-mobile phones. The relationship between challenge and skills (competence) was defined in an exact way in polar coordinates. An enjoyable and concentrated flow experience was defined as a sum variable of absorption, interest and enthusiasm. Core emotions were calculated with factor analysis from nine emotion variables. As expected, an experience of concentration and enjoyment was, on average, related to the situations where both challenge and skills were high and in balance. This was not, however, the case in every situation. Thus, it should be taken into consideration how flow experience is operationalised in experience sampling studies. When flow experience was defined as a situation of high challenge and high skills, it was often related to high valence and arousal emotions such as excitement or enthusiasm. A happier or a more tranquil enjoyment was related to situations of moderate challenge and high skills. Experiences differed clearly between various natural study environments. At lectures students were often bored or mentally absent, and did not experience challenges. In a small group students were often excited or enthusiastic, and showed optimal balance between challenge and skills. At library students felt satisfied and were engaged in highly challenging work.

Minimalistinen yhdyssanateoria ja käsitteiden yhdistely

The thesis aims to link the biolinguistic research program and the results of studies in comceptual combination from cognitive psychology. The thesis derives a theory of syntactic structure of noun and adjectival compounds from the Empty Lexicon Hypothesis. Two compound-forming operations are described: root-compounding and word-compounding. The aptness of theory is tested with finnish and greek compounds. From the syntactic theory semantic requirements for conceptual system are derived, especially requirements for handling morphosyntactic features. These requirements are compared to three formidable theories of conceptual combination: relation theory CARIN, Dual-Process theory and C3-theory. The claims of explanatory power of relational distributions of modifier in CARIN-theory ared discarded, as the method for sampling and building relational distributions is not reliable and the algorithmic instantiation of theory does not compute what it claims to compute. From relational theory there still remains results supporting existence of 'easy' relations for certain concepts. Dual-Process theory is found to provide results that cannot in theory be affected by linguistic system, but the basic idea of property compounds is kept. C3-theory is found to be not computationally realistic, but the basic results of diagnosticity and local properties (domains) of conceptual system are solid. The three conceptual combination models are rethought as a problem of finding the shortest route between the two concepts. The new basis for modeling is suggested to be bare conceptual landscape with morphosyntactiic or semantic features working as guidance and structural features of landscape basically unknown, but such as they react to features from linguistic system. Minimalistic principles to conceptual modeling are suggested.

3 - 5-vuotiaiden lukemaan oppiminen : montessorivälineet kielellisen tietoisuuden ja varhaisen lukitaidon edistäjinä

Aims. The beginning point of this research was confusion between studies claiming, that children mature Metalinguistic to read at 6-7 of age, and the fact, that in Montessori playschools children easily start writing and reading at age 3 to 5. Aim was also find out how conception of slow Metalinguistic development has started, and if there is some evidence of phoneme awareness of reading of young children in the field of research of reading. Aim was also seek evidence of the sensitive period of reading as Montessori described it. The research also wanted to turn up, if phoneme awareness only develops in children, who work with graphemes and with reading, or could it be found in children, who do not. The mean was to research how the Montessori reading material supports child’s Metalinguistic development, when child begins learning to read. The research plans to represent knowledge about how young children learn to write and read. Methods. Research performed in ordinary kindergarten and in Montessori playschool in Espoo. In kindergarten observed six children, age 3-4, at eight grapheme-rhyme sessions from January to April 2007, and conducting a test based on Chaney’s (1992) study of phoneme awareness of young children. In Montessori kindergarten were observed 17 children about their phoneme awareness and reading competition from January 2007 to March 2008. Their developments in reading were also measured three times from 1.9.07 to 20.3.08 with classification constructed for this study, loosely based on Chall’s (1983) reading stages. The Montessori reading material was analyzed about the influence they have to a child’s Metalinguistic development. This was done based to theory and its concepts from the field of research of reading; phoneme awareness, morphological, syntactical and semantic consciousness. Results and conclusions. Research proved that children 3-5 have naturally developed phoneme awareness. In kindergarten and in Montessori playschool children between 2 and 4 could do phoneme synthesis, and in the latter they also could do phoneme segmentation of words. Montessori reading material guided children gradually, except to read, also to observe and absorb Metalinguistic knowledge. Children learned to write and read. At the last evaluating day almost 50 % of children write and read clauses or stories, and 82 % could read at least words. Children can develop Metalinguistic awareness, while using the Montessori materials for learning to write and read. To reach literacy is easy for children because of their phoneme awareness.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms among school personnel after the Jokela school shooting : A longitudial study of exposure, interventions, and symptom changes

Objectives. School personnel who are exposed to school violence are at risk in developing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Finland there have been two such events in recent years, Jokela school shooting on 7.11.2007 and Kauhajoki school shooting about a year later. The aim of the present study was to examine the presence and change in PTSD symptoms during the first year after the Jokela school shooting. A second aim was to study how the initial exposure and treatment affects the symptom levels of PTSD. There were four hypotheses: 1) The PTSD symptoms are higher for the people who were exposed to the school shooting than for the people who did not face the stressor. 2) The PTSD symptoms increase in the follow up for the people at the school which was not attacked because of the second incident brought up the memories from the Jokela school shooting. 3) Those who have greater exposure to the shooting will have higher level of PTSD symptoms at both 4 and 11 months after the shooting than those who were not directly exposed to the shooting. 4) The PTSD symptoms are reduced more in the group that starts treatment right after the traumatic event than in other groups. Methods. A sample of 24 members of Jokela school personnel were examined four months after the incident and 16 were reassessed 11 month after the incident. To study the change and level of symptoms in other schools during the same period, a group with no exposure to the shooting was used as a control group (n=22). The assessment included Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist Specific (PCL-S) and a social and professional support questionnaire. In addition questions about timing of support and experiences of psychological debriefing were asked. Results and conclusions. Most participants in the study group experienced some symptoms of PTSD at both 4 and 11 months. In both measures three participants from the study group fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. The study group and control group differed significantly in overall symptom levels. The study group had more PTSD symptoms in the first measure but in the follow-up the study group’s PTSD symptoms decreased and the control group’s increased. There was a significant change in the study groups PTSD symptom level for those who started treatment right after the traumatic event. The results from this study showed that an exposure to school shooting has long-term effects on school personnel. The findings suggest that it is crucial to plan a comprehensive and long-term treatment for school personnel in the aftermath of school shooting.

Verkko-oppimateriaalin multimodaalisuus : kohteena YLEn Kansalaisen ABC -verkko-oppimateriaalit

Today information and communication technology allows us to use multimedia more than ever before in e-learning materials. Multimedia though can increase cognitive load in learning process. Because of that it cannot be taken granted what kind of learning materials should be produced. This paper intended to study the diversity of e-learning materials and the factors related cognitive load. The main purpose was to study the multimodality of the multimedia learning materials. The subject of this study is the learning materials on the web site Kansalaisen ABC published by YLE. Learning materials in the web site were approached from three different perspectives. The specific questions were: (1) What kind of form features are used in the representations of the learning material? Are certain form features preferred over others? (2) How do the cognitive load factors take shape in learning materials and between the forms? (3) How does the multimodality phenomenon appear in the learning materials and in what ways are form features and cognitive load factors related to multimodality? In this case study a qualitative approach was used. Analysis of the form features and the cognitive load factors in learning materials were based on content analysis. Form features included the specification of a format, the structure, the interactivity type and the type of learning material. The results showed that the web sites include various representations of both verbal and visual forms. Cognitive load factors were related mostly to visual than verbal material. Material presented according to the principles of cognitive multimedia theory multimedia representations did not cause cognitive overload in the informants. Cognitive load was increased in the case of students needing to split their attention between the multimedia forms in time and place. The results indicated how different individual characteristics are reflected by the cognitive load factors.