Finnish Student Teachers Research Articles

Manifestations of purpose in life among Finnish student teachers

ABSTRACT This study investigates how purpose manifests itself among purposeful Finnish student teachers (N = 12) using Schwartz’s framework of personal values and Westheimer and Kahne’s model of citizenship to further the understanding of what purposeful student teachers’ sources of purpose are, how they contribute to the world beyond the self, and what actions they take to realize these contributions. Purpose is defined as personally meaningful long-term engagement to a goal with consequences for the world beyond the self. The interviews showed that although teachers’ work was deemed important, purpose contents associated with the value of benevolence, such as family and friends, were student teachers’ main content of purpose and their beyond-the-self motivations mostly manifested as actions intended to contribute within the familial circle. To increase student teachers’ future willingness to act on participatory and justice-oriented levels, more effort needs to be invested in the development of purpose and civic engagement-oriented higher education.

Finnish Student Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Leadership Development in a Study Group Intervention to Enhance Their Teacher Leadership

This study, conducted within a Finnish teacher education program, examined student teachers’ perceptions of their skills development in a study group intervention designed to enhance their teacher leadership. Data were collected via semi-structured focus group interviews with the student teachers ( n = 15) and examined using qualitative content analysis. Katzenmeyer and Moller’s leadership development for teachers model was utilized as the theoretical framework. The results indicate that through collaboration, the student teachers developed leadership skills, especially in personal assessment and influencing strategies, but need more support to be able to better recognize these skills as leadership skills.

Becoming a safe adult for pupils: emotions as part of first-year student teachers’ narrative identities told with photographs

ABSTRACT This article focuses on first-year student teachers’ emotions as part of their narrative identities. Alongside narrative research, arts-based methods were employed. The research material consists of 36 Finnish student teachers’ autobiographical writings based on their self-chosen photographs. Narrative analysis methods were used. The key aspect in student teachers’ narrative identities was their hope of becoming safe adults as teachers for their future pupils, which were greatly shaped by their memories of care and feeling safe, by being hurt emotionally, and by joy. Via this deepened understanding of the role of emotions in student teachers’ identities, teacher educators can support student teachers to prepare for the complex teachers’ work of today.

Research-informed teacher education, teacher autonomy and teacher agency: the example of Finland

Finnish education has received worldwide attention due to the country’s performances in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Research investigating Finland’s positive outcomes in the assessment has highlighted not only the strength of teachers, but also the rigour of Finnish teacher education. Finnish student teachers must undertake research-based teacher education culminating in a master’s degree. The study of educational science, underpinned by empirical research, creates teacher-researchers. A Nordic/Continental view of educational governance allows for input control in terms of a national core curriculum in Finland, without surveillance of outcomes. The structure of the Finnish education system, characterised by decentralisation and the national core curriculum, entrusts teachers to make their own pedagogical decisions. This leads to autonomous and agentic teachers in terms of decision-making on the classroom, school, and professional levels, both individually and collectively. Finnish education, underpinned by social democratic values, views education as an agent of social change. Therefore, teachers enact social transformation through the agency enabled by research-informed teacher education. Finland’s political consensus regarding education and societal trust in teachers further reinforces teacher autonomy and agency. This article argues that the rigorous research focus of Finnish teacher education cultivates autonomous and agentic teachers.

Diversity beliefs are associated with orientations to teaching for diversity and social justice: A study among German and Finnish student teachers

This mixed methods study explored German (n = 477) and Finnish (n = 379) student teachers' color-blind, multiculturalist, and polyculturalist diversity beliefs. Statistical analyses identified polyculturalism and multiculturalism as the most prominent diversity beliefs among the student teachers and detected associations between diversity belief profiles and student teachers' orientations to teaching for diversity and social justice. Polyculturalism, in particular, emerged as significant predictor of student teachers’ orientations to teaching for diversity and social justice. Qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions revealed that polyculturalism was internalized by the student teachers superficially. The implications of the findings for further research and teacher education are discussed.

‘Yes it’s good, but … ’ – student teachers’ inclusion narratives

ABSTRACT Finland is committed to inclusive education as many other countries too. In this study, we examined Finnish student teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion using an electronic questionnaire. In total, 277 students participated. The open responses were studied as various teacher students’, class, subject or special education students’ narratives of inclusion. The results showed that student teachers’ attitudes, except special education student teachers, were quite negative. The most common narratives told about lack of resources, about pupils and/or teachers suffering in inclusive settings, about good parts of segregation and about a positive attitude, followed by a but, like: yes it’s good, but. Full inclusion was not supported, but other forms, like partial inclusion, were more seconded. We conclude that future teachers need more knowledge about and a better understanding of inclusion and diversity.

Student Teachers' Perceptions of the Connection between Literacy, Equality and Digitalization

Digitalization has many implications for the development of equality in societies and is also reflected in education. In a digitalized world, literacy is an essential skill for both individual and societal development. This study explores Finnish student teachers' perceptions of the connection between literacy, equality, and digitalization. The research material consists of professional opinion pieces written by student teachers (N=37). The qualitative study examined student teachers' perceptions of literacy, equality, and digitalization. Student teachers' perceptions concerned pupils' polarizing backgrounds for learning, literacy instruction and the challenge of differentiating classes, deterioration of literacy and other learning, and positive aspects of literacy learning. The results show that student teachers recognize the connection between literacy and digitalization and their broad impact on societal development and equity. As future teachers, they perceived the impact of the development of inequalities on everyday school life and on opportunities to learn key skills as a challenge. The results show that the polarizing starting points for pupils is a worrying trend and challenges the future teacher in a digitalizing world. The results of the study underline that teacher training and teachers are important societal actors and reformers.

Student Teachers’ Views on Media Education Related to New Literacy Skills

High quality media education promotes media literacy and ensures citizens' smooth participation and engagement in the digital society. Digital media include powerful communication and interaction platforms that require new literacy skills. This study examines what new literacies can be found in the opinion writings of student teachers in relation to media literacy. The research material consists of 37 Finnish student teachers' opinion writings produced during the Media Education 2020 course. The aim of the study is to explore how student teachers identify new literacies as part of media education and how these new literacies are reflected in their opinion writings. As a result of the research, new literacies emerged from the data as a cultural phenomenon of our time. This was reflected in their views on the technological orientation of school and teaching and the importance of media education as a teaching task in schools. An important finding is that the textual subculture of social media is valued as a new form of literacy. The results show that while the narrative value of images, virtual game worlds and easy access to social media via smartphones were identified, the broad understanding of new literacies among student teachers is narrow. Perceptions of media education and new literacies are interlinked and the debate on their relevance as a social phenomenon should continue.

In Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Assessment Literacy: Focus on Knowledge Base, Conceptions of Assessment, and Teacher Learning

Assessment has a critical and time-consuming role in the teaching profession. However, teachers generally possess low levels of assessment knowledge and skills, with their understanding more about the culturally and historically established summative compared to formative assessment. Therefore, developing assessment literacy in preservice teacher education (PsTE) is important. In the present study, a special study module of assessment was designed for PsTE to examine Finnish student teachers’ assessment literacy. Deductive and inductive content analyses of students’ (N = 168) written diaries were conducted applying a conceptual framework of teacher’s assessment literacy in practice (TALiP). Based on the results, the students’ assessment knowledge base and assessment conceptions were promisingly versatile and indicated a rich awareness of the broad nature of assessment. However, the key findings also suggest that assessment is not an easy topic for student teachers to discuss with peers. It can be concluded that even short PsTE assessment courses can enhance student teachers’ views of versatile pedagogical inputs and outputs of assessment.

School Culture Promoting Sustainability in Student Teachers’ Views

School culture includes values, principles, and criteria. It is an integral part of sustainability education, of which climate change education (CCE) is seen as a way to improve students’ ability to take action to mitigate climate change. This survey aimed to investigate Finnish student teachers’ views of factors important in implementing CCE in school culture and their abilities as teachers to promote CCE. Thirty-six student teachers wrote essays regarding the implementation of school culture and responded to a questionnaire concerning their ability to act as climate change (CC) educators and the challenges they identified in teaching and learning about it. Inductive content analysis was used to study the essays. In student teachers’ answers, six themes to implement in school culture were identified: elements, work community, teacher’s impact, students in the centre, actors outside the school, and challenges. The student teachers highlighted challenges, such as views that deny CC and challenge the transformation of school culture to support sustainable development. The suggested ways to support CCE in daily school life that were very concrete, such as recycling and food education. Student teachers found their own ability to act as climate educators to be relatively good. They identified challenges, especially in motivating students to learn about CC and to participate and take action towards a climate-friendly lifestyle. Students’ conflicting attitudes, values, and beliefs related to CC, reinforced by their inner circle, were seen as challenges in teaching and learning about CC. Despite these challenges, transforming a school culture to support CCE should be the goal of every school.

Closeness, Conflict, and Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy: Finnish Pre- and In-service Early Education Teachers' Perceptions.

This study explored the factorial and concurrent validity of a scale developed for assessing teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in engaging with diversity in early childhood education settings. According to tests of measurement invariance, the conceptualization of the constructs varied to some extent between Finnish student teachers and qualified teachers. Qualified teachers reported, at the item level, higher confidence in engaging with diversity in mainstream early childhood classrooms than student teachers. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that for both groups, higher levels of reported confidence in planning and implementing inclusive teaching–learning interactions were related to a higher level of closeness during interactions with children. The evidence for concurrent validity may imply beneficial and reciprocal influences between teachers’ confidence in their professional competence and close teacher–child relationships. The implications of the study are discussed from the perspective of teacher training and professional development in the early childhood education context.

Swedish and Finnish Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Summative Assessment Practices

Summative assessments are an exercise of authority and something that pupils cannot easily appeal. The importance of teachers being able to assess their pupils correctly is consequently both a question of national equivalence and individual fairness. Therefore, summative assessment is a paramount theme in teacher education, and we aimed to investigate the perceptions and competence of student teachers regarding common summative assessment practices. The study was conducted at three universities, two in Sweden and one in Finland involving prospective language teachers responding to an online survey (N = 131). In addition, interviews were carried out with 20 Swedish and 6 Finnish student teachers. The analysis of the data indicates that student teachers value practices that enhance communication and collaboration as well as the curricular alignment of summative assessments. With respect to perceived competence, the respondents in general felt most confident with deploying traditional forms of summative assessment, while they were more uncertain about process evaluation and oral skills. Regarding significant differences in the participants’ perceptions of competence among the three universities, Finnish university students reported higher levels in all variables. However, room for improvement was found at all universities involved.

Genre shift in disseminating knowledge: Student teachers’ experiences of communicating their master’s theses as popular science

Previous research shows that there is a challenge in balancing research-oriented activities, including the master’s thesis, in a way that promotes teachers’ professional development. This study aims to investigate student teachers’ experiences of communicating their master’s theses as popular science to schools and school communities. Data (logbooks, videos and text submissions) were collected from Finnish student teachers (n = 38) during a campus-based course from 2019 to 2020. The results show that most students had difficulty shifting from a science to a popular science approach and found this experience of genre shift during dissemination as challenging.

Subject matter specific curriculum integration: a quantitative study of finnish student teachers’ integrative content knowledge

ABSTRACT Curriculum integration has recently stirred growing interest in educational discourses. New Finnish core curricula for basic education and for general upper secondary schools encourage and even obligate schools to integrate the curriculum. Integration has been deemed to be important, as the boundaries between school subjects have remained unnecessarily rigid. Integration is needed to construct a coherent structure for educational knowledge allowing for the study of broad-ranging topics crossing the subject boundaries. This paper is a piece of quantitative research based on a questionnaire completed by Finnish student teachers (N = 243) studying to teach a range of subjects in secondary schools (age groups 13–18). The questionnaire explored student teachers’ readiness to generate integrative topics between subjects. Variables such as teaching experience or expertise in several subjects did not correlate with the readiness and the subject matter was found to be the main correlating variable. The results outlined in this paper indicate that subject specific differences exist in the potentiality of subjects to be integrated.

Finnish student teachers’ ideas of outdoor learning

ABSTRACT A reformed national curriculum has introduced transformative and sociocultural learning elements to the Finnish education system. In addition, sustainability and outdoor education remain pressing issues for Finnish educators. We conducted a content analysis of the views of outdoor education held by student teachers enrolled in first-year sustainability and outdoor education courses in Finland (n = 46). The goal was to identify the learning environments and pedagogical ideas of student teachers. The student teachers emphasised the role of nature in outdoor education and identified locality as an important learning environment. Their surrounding environments included both built and unbuilt environments. The teaching methods they wrote were appropriate outdoor education, active learning, participatory learning, making observations and multidisciplinary learning especially for sustainability issues. Notably, technology and digitalisation were not emphasised in the results. Overall, the student teachers had a strong preliminary knowledge of outdoor learning spaces and clear visions for conducting outdoor education.

Antecedents of Student Teachers’ Commitment to the Teaching Profession in Finland and Norway

The purpose of this study was to explore antecedents of Finnish and Norwegian student teachers’ prospective commitment to work as teachers or pursue other careers. Are student teachers’ perceptions of coherence between the theoretical and practical elements of the teaching programme related to their commitment to work as teachers or to pursue other careers? For Finnish student teachers, strong associations emerged between the theory-practice interaction in supervision and student teachers’ prospective commitment to work as teachers. Norwegian student teachers exhibited strong associations between personalised feedback and their prospective commitment to teaching. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

Finnish student teachers’ perceptions of their development of 21st-century competencies

ABSTRACT This study examined student teachers’ perceptions of how well their Teacher Education (TE) had prepared them for 21st-century competencies, and how well they applied these competencies to their teaching. In addition, the study sought to identify best practices, major obstacles, and suggestions to achieve these competencies. The study was implemented in two universities and three universities of applied sciences in Finland that have TE programmes. This study used a mixed-method approach. Data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively from student teachers (n = 227), who assessed 21st-century competencies with a structured questionnaire that included open-ended questions. Quantitative data analysis used descriptive statistics and correlations, while qualitative data analysis used content analysis. The study found that based on the student teachers’ self-assessment, the student teachers achieved successfully 21st-century competencies despite differences between competencies. The best-achieved competency was ‘Collaboration’ and the least well-achieved was ‘Global connections.’ The study illustrated student teachers’ perception of their success in applying 21st-century competencies to their teaching at schools. Answers to open-ended questions produced convincing evidence that courses involving collaborative and interactive learning, high quality, sufficient support, related 21st-century competencies, certain pedagogical methods used by teacher educators, and integrating theory and practice can contribute strongly to the development of student teachers’ 21st-century competencies.

Towards equity literacy: exploratory enquiry with Finnish student teachers

ABSTRACT Equity-centred teacher education recognises the dual challenge of preparing teachers to support the learning of all students while encouraging future teachers to recognise and challenge societal systems reproducing inequity. The paper focuses on analysing Finnish student teachers’ perceptions of teachers’ skills related to diversity and equity. The data are drawn from written individual and group assignments completed during three master’s level courses in home economics teacher education. A qualitative content analysis of students’ assignments present student teachers’ collaboratively produced understanding of teachers’ diversity skills. Their self-assessment of both professional strengths and areas of development are evaluated against Paul Gorski’s equity literacy framework. The findings are suggestive of a relatively strong cultural self-awareness and response-ability related to learner diversity. More attention should be given to unfolding structural inequities to enable future teachers to develop the equity literacy necessary to create and sustain equitable learning environments.

‘Human rights and democracy are not self-evident’: Finnish student teachers’ perceptions on democracy and human rights education

This article discusses democracy and human rights education (DHRE) in Finnish teacher education, drawing on existing literature, curricula and a survey of student teachers’ perceptions. Earlier studies suggested that DHRE in Finnish teacher education is unsystematic, implicit, and dependent on the teacher’s individual interests. These studies highlight a sense of national exceptionalism, where DHRE is assumed to be self-evident. In 2019, we conducted a survey of student teachers (n=300) in one university. Data content analysis reveals that student teachers now see DHRE as relevant and timely, and by no means self-evident. Student teachers believe that DHRE needs to be explicit and part of their professional education. Although the Finnish national curriculum addresses DHRE explicitly, there is a lack of implementation and explicit DHRE teacher education. We contend that the data reflects societal change, and that the notion that democracy and human rights are self-evident needs to be challenged in Finland.

Moral imagination in student teachers’ written stories on an ethical dilemma

ABSTRACT This article explores how student teachers use moral imagination when writing about an ethical dilemma. Moral imagination refers to the ability to consider a situation from a distance and to understand different perspectives through imagination. An ethical dilemma was presented in the form of a framing story, which the participating Austrian and Finnish student teachers continued writing as they chose. Through positioning and narrative analyses, we uncovered how the students’ moral imagination on the ethical dilemma centred on one or more of the following foci: (1) the pupil, (2) themselves as teachers or (3) other actors. This moral imagination manifested through different storylines. The implications of these results and the relevance of the method for teacher education are discussed.