Secondary Schools In Norway Research Articles

Development of written L2 French: a longitudinal study of learners in the Norwegian school context

This paper presents a longitudinal multiple case study that focused on the development of the written interlanguage of four learners over their three years of learning French as a second language (L2) in upper secondary school in Norway. The development of macro-level syntactic complexity and the development of micro-level measures of accuracy in morphosyntactic features specific to written French were examined. In order to trace development of syntactic complexity, we used two well-established measures in the SLA literature: T-unit length and the number of dependent clauses per T-unit (Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998; Verspoor et al., 2017), whereas the morphosyntactic features representing the basis for our analysis of accuracy were gender and number in the noun phrase in French. The results illustrated that the written French of all four learners clearly became more syntactically complex over the three years of the study. As regards the development at the morphosyntactic level, progress was less straight forward in the individual learners, and the developmental tendencies varied according to the nature of the features studied.

Emancipatory potential of community interaction in career education

This article contributes to a further development of Bill Law’s Community Interaction Theory (1981, 2009), by highlighting its emancipatory potential. Through an action research project with teachers, career counsellors and the article’s author, collective knowledge was developed on career education in lower secondary schools in Norway, with particular focus on integrating career learning through work placement activities. Analysis show challenges in contributing to career education’s liberating potential without sufficient insight into how to facilitate a reflective career learning process. The paper concludes that, to strengthen a focus on emancipation, career education needs to build on Community Interaction Theory by emphasising the collective, contextual, complex, and critical dimensions of career learning.

Learning analytics as modes of anticipation: enacting time in actor-networks

ABSTRACT Learning analytics platforms (LAPs) have become important modes of anticipatory governance in education. Educational futures are governed by utilizing various forms of learning analytics to track student data over time, suggesting that school leaders and teachers are expected to improve school quality by engaging with digital presentations of prediction, anticipation, and decision-making. This study investigates the LAPs Conexus Engage and Insight as they unfold in school leaders’ practice by drawing from actor-network theory. School leaders’ interaction with the tools are examined through audio and screen recorded interviews at three lower secondary schools in Norway. The findings show how anticipation emerged in actor-networks as both fluid and stable, encouraging the problematizations and priorities of school leaders. School leaders also adapted the LAPs to their own practice. The findings further suggested that time emerges on the premises of LAPs as entangled events rather than through chronological understandings of time.

Digital skills critical for education: Video analysis of students' technology use in Norwegian secondary English classrooms

AbstractBackgroundGlobally, digital skills are a crucial aspect of education that schools should develop systematically. Research on digital skills tends to be measured using self‐reports, performance tests or interventions. There is less knowledge about student and teacher uptake of technology in school, making it important to investigate the actual use of technology and digital skills in authentic classroom settings.ObjectivesThis study contributes unique baseline data concerning students' use of technology and digital skills across mandatory English courses in real classroom settings in secondary schools in Norway over time.MethodsThe study adapted a national framework for digital skills into an observation protocol. With it, this study analysed videos from 60 naturally occurring English lessons in 13 English classes at seven lower secondary schools over two school years (grades 9 and 10), following 186 students (aged 13–15) and 10 teachers.Results and ConclusionsStudents used digital skills critical for education in half of the video‐recorded English lessons, with more digital skill use at some schools over time. The main finding across classrooms and school years regards students' use of basic, not advanced, digital skills.TakeawaysAlthough teachers provide opportunities for students to use digital skills in school, more advanced skills are needed. This work calls for continued use of video recordings to provide systematic comparisons of potential shifts in students' digital skills in real English secondary classroom settings over time.

Soundtrapped? Socio-material perspectives on collaborative teaching within the music classroom

This article draws on a classroom project to explore the complexities of collaborative teaching within the music classroom, where a professional team collaborated to facilitate digital music-making at a lower secondary school in Norway during a student teacher practicum placement. The collaborative team, including in-service and pre-service teachers, researchers, and a professional musician, facilitated a composing project by means of the digital audio workstation (DAW) Soundtrap. The purpose was to shed light on the complexity and emergence of the collaborative music project; how material, structural, and educational conditions impacted the process; and the pre-service music teachers’ ways of handling a complex situation. The study was theoretically guided by a socio-material perspective, more specifically by complexity theory, and an abductive analysis was performed. In keeping with the nonlinearity and complex causality of socio-materialism and complexity theory, the researchers created three reflexive viewpoints: emergence, enabling constraints, and entanglements. The results show that technological and technical issues permeated the classroom work, making it difficult to separate social and material aspects of the project. Awareness of the entanglement of social, institutional, historical, and material dimensions of education thus can provide a useful framework for emerging music teachers’ professional development. In this way, our findings support the claim that music teacher education should aim at helping pre-service teachers prepare for encounters with complex and versatile educational situations.

Flerkulturalitet i opplæring av helsefagarbeidere

This study will focus on multicultural competence as a topic in vocational training of health care workers in upper secondary school in Norway. The research question is: How do vocational teachers practice multiculturalism in health care worker vocational education? According to OECD, multiculturalism is one of the core competencies of the 21st century. The need of healthcare professionals with expertise in multicultural sensitivity and health-communication will increase in the years ahead because this competence is essential for a good and caring professional health care. The theoretical perspective is related to a theoretical conceptual understanding of multicultural competence and to vocational didactic perspectives on health care worker vocational training. The data collection is based on semi-structured interviews with vocational teachers. The key findings show that multicultural issues are rarely highlighted in education and that multicultural topics are rarely linked to vocationally relevant professional tasks. Topics as health-communication and diet were poorly elucidated from a multicultural perspective. There will be a need to implement various occupationally relevant multicultural issues in health worker vocational training to prepared for the multicultural professional life.

Lesson signature in food and health education

ABSTRACT The Food and Health subject is a mandatory subject in primary and lower secondary schools in Norway and has many similarities to the internationally known subject Home Economics. This study aimed to examine how learning activities are structured in Food and Health education, both from the teacher’s and the student’s perspective. Momentary time sampling was used as the observation method, and we created “lesson signatures” of the Food and Health education based on the observational data. “Lesson signature” is a term used for an aggregate number of observed teaching sessions, and is intended to reveal specific external patterns, considering time use, organisation and teaching patterns. Data were collected from 23 observed Food and Health lessons from sixth and ninth grades in Norway. The signatures show that although the activity level of both teachers and students was high, teachers controlled and regulated the lessons. Teaching methods consisted mainly of group work. Students spent a small proportion of the lesson listening, and conversation and discussion as a collective were virtually absent.

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Norwegian schools during academic year 2020-21: population wide, register based cohort study

ObjectiveTo assess the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in schools in Norway mainly kept open during the covid-19 pandemic in the academic year 2020-21.DesignPopulation wide, register based cohort study.SettingPrimary and...

Young Learners’ Perceptions of Learning about Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment: The Struggle for Recognition in School

Abstract Based on participatory research with teachers and young learners’, this article explores students’ perceptions of learning about sexual and gender-based harassment in upper secondary school in Norway. Drawing upon theoretical considerations on recognition, intersectionality and legal literacy as educational capital, this article discusses approaches to teaching and learning that could ensure young learners’ rights to active participation and voice, which is an essential element for protection and prevention of harassment. The empirical material indicates that learners would like to learn more about these sensitive issues, although this applies to a greater extent for girls rather than boys. Their wish to learn more about harassment and abuse could be interpreted as a struggle for recognition, motivated by experiences of disrespect. However, defending one’s rights, and having someone defending one’s rights, in school requires both students’ and teachers’ legal literacy, which according to the empirical material is limited.

Using Rasch Analysis to Assess the Psychometric Properties of a Five-Item Version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale in Adolescents.

The aim of the present study was to use Rasch analysis to assess the psychometric properties of the five-item version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) amongst adolescents aged 13 to 19. In this cross-sectional study, 6265 adolescents responded to a web-based questionnaire. Data collected from lower and upper secondary schools in Norway, during 2018, were analysed using the partial credit parameterisation of the unidimensional Rasch model. The five-item version of the GSES was found to be unidimensional and to have acceptable reliability. The targeting of the scale could have been better. All items had ordered thresholds, indicating that the response categories worked quite well. The five-item version of the GSES has potential for measuring self-efficacy in a general population of adolescents. In surveys concerning adolescents’ mental health, it is important to include aspects of positive mental health and health-promoting factors, such as self-efficacy.

Students’ Performance in Physical Education: The Role of Differential Achievement Goals and Self-Regulated Learning

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between differential achievement goals and self-regulated learning, as well as motivational mechanisms’ consequences for performance in physical education. This was done by using the 2 × 2 achievement goals framework, and the cyclical model for self-regulated learning. The participants (N = 571, 51.7% girls) were physical education students in grades 11–13 from two upper secondary schools in Norway. A cross-sectional questionnaire was conducted, and data were analysed with a multiple-regression-based structural equation model. The modified structural model yielded an adequate fit (X2 = [df = 124] 429.79, p < 0.01; RMSEA = 0.07; CFI = 0.93), and results revealed that achievement goals have consequences for students’ self-regulation in physical education. More specifically, mastery goals have a positive association with self-regulation, whereas performance avoidance is found to have a negative association. Further, the results support claims that self-regulated learning plays a role in students’ performance. Finally, the model showed that self-regulation mediates the relationship between mastery approach goals and performance avoidance goals in relation to performance.

Relating aspects of adolescents’ critical nutrition literacy at the personal level

Efforts targeting adolescents’ dietary behaviour have often focused on improving their access to nutrition information; however, adolescents report finding nutrition information difficult to understand. Exploring adolescents’ critical nutrition literacy might provide insight into how best to improve their use of available nutrition information.PurposeThe purpose of this article is to explore how the two aspects of the critical nutrition literacy - critical evaluation of nutrition information’ and ‘engagement in dietary behaviour’ are linked at personal level. Additionally, the study sought to establish the association between critical nutrition literacy and self-efficacy in nutrition related subjects.MethodsApplying a cross-sectional study design, the study sampled 1622 adolescents aged 15-16years, enrolled in 58 secondary schools in Norway. The adolescents responded to scales measuring self-efficacy and CNL. Using Lisrel 9.30, the study evaluated a structural equation model linking CNL and SEBH.ResultsThe study yielded a simple yet theoretically sound model depicting the link between CNL and self-efficacy.ConclusionEfforts promoting adolescents’ nutrition literacy might benefit from increasing their self-efficacy in nutrition-related subjects.

Physical education and new forms of activity following the implementation of the core curriculum in Norway in 2020

Teaching physical education is intended to stimulate lifelong joy of movement for students and help them to master life. The core elements of this subject and the interdisciplinary topic of health and life skills, introduced in the new core curriculum (i.e., Fagfornyelsen 2020), enable a broader understanding of students’ holistic development. This article aims to highlight how using movement activities such as yoga, qigong, massage, expressive dance, and visualisation and relaxation techniques, collectively referred to as activities with low pulse and little exertion, can contribute to achieving the aforementioned goals. In 2017, one of the authors conducted an autoethnographic study at the secondary school in Norway where she worked (Bratten, 2017). She studied which feelings and experiences stood out as meaningful ones for students and teachers in activities with low pulse and low exertion, hereinafter referred to as LpLe-activities. The results were divided into the following categories: different, bodily experiences, and usefulness. The phenomenological approach and Shusterman’s theory of somaesthetics were used to clarify the findings. This discussion demonstrates that the aforementioned activities can create inner security and give students faith in themselves and contribute to goal achievement in physical education. This happens through good and deep sensory experiences and inner experiences that students get in the classes. Such an approach to physical education teaching, focussing on what occurs in the body, has been untraditional and requires knowledge and teachers’ desire to enrich the traditional practice of the subject.

“It’s Not Just About the Activity, It’s Also About How the Activity is Facilitated”: Investigating Students’ Experiences in Two Competitive Situations in Physical Education

ABSTRACT Research in the Scandinavian school context has indicated that physical education (PE) is dominated by activities and values from a sports discourse. The main aim of this study was to explore students’ experiences of two competitive activities provided by the teacher. The participants were 49 students (13–15 years old) and their two teachers from two secondary schools in Norway. Methods included written narratives, interviews, observation, and video recordings of PE lessons. Data were thematically analysed. Results showed that the teacher-facilitated one competitive activity with the aim of winning and another activity with the aim of educating the students. The teacher’s facilitation of the activities influenced the students’ experiences, goals, and effort in these activities. The study shows that it is important that teachers have clear learning outcomes for lessons and make students aware of those learning outcomes, and that students find the lessons useful in their everyday lives.

Using the Rasch measurement theory to assess the psychometric properties of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-10 in adolescents

BackgroundThe Hopkins Symptom Checklist-10 (HSCL-10) is widely used to measure psychological distress in adolescents. To provide valid and reliable results and generate recommendations for practice and policies, instruments with sound psychometric properties are required. The purpose of this study is to use Rasch measurement theory to assess the psychometric properties of the HSCL-10 among adolescents aged 13–19.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, 6445 adolescents responded to a web-based questionnaire. Data were collected from lower and upper secondary schools in Norway during 2018. The data were analysed using the partial credit parameterisation of the unidimensional Rasch model.ResultsHSCL-10 was found to be unidimensional and to have acceptable reliability. One pair of items showed response dependency. The targeting of the instrument could have been better. All items had ordered thresholds. Three items under-discriminated and three displayed differential item functioning regarding gender.ConclusionsHSCL-10 has potential for measuring psychological distress in adolescents, though there is room for improvement. To further improve this instrument, some items should be rephrased.

Students’ perceptions of assessment practices in upper secondary school during COVID-19

ABSTRACT During COVID-19, distance learning has given students around the world unforeseen challenges, including the way their learning is being assessed. Assessment for learning (AfL) can contribute to the development of students’ strategies to meet unknown challenges as lifelong learners. The purpose of AfL is to inform learning, and it can play a significant role in achieving lifelong learning strategies, such as self-regulation, effectiveness and independent learning. This article presents qualitative findings from a study examining students’ perceptions (24 students) of teaching and assessment practices in upper secondary school in Norway in the spring of 2020. The findings show that students valued individual teacher feedback to support learning. The students experienced flexibility in teaching practices, and moreover, they were trusted to do the work they were told. However, regarding assessments, they felt it was unfair and that student involvement in assessment was lacking. There was little variation in the assignments, which were mostly individual, written assignments. An important message is that they missed collaborating with other students and that many of them were left alone with their schoolwork.

Student teachers’ online sharing of challenging incidents in practice placement

ABSTRACT The present study asks what challenges student teachers meet in today’s school and how they present, respond to, and reflect on these challenges in an online discussion forum. The study explores these questions by analysing cases written by student teachers in their last practice placement in a one-year post-graduate teacher education programme for secondary school in Norway. The findings show that the cases centre around students and classroom management, and that student teachers take on a role as either participant or observer. The responses are a mix of advice, descriptions of similar experiences, and support. They tend to normalise the situations rather than explore them. Learning from challenging incidents does not happen by itself. Timing is crucial, and so is space for reframing, reflection, and for considering alternative perspectives. This means that there is a need for distance to the situation and a process of interaction with various perspectives.

How is the School Library Used? Mapping the Use of an Upper Secondary School Library

To be able to secure an evidence-based development of the library service at a large upper secondary school in Norway, a multi method study was conducted to map the use of the library. 
 Findings show that the library is used a lot by the students from all different branches. The main use is by students working on schoolwork sitting together with others. A stable part of the users prefers to work in the quiet area. Both teachers and students expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the library staff and emphasised the importance of the librarians' presence and availability for the users, both professionally and as responsible adults. Teachers and students alike perceived the library space as an attractive and very important physical place for students to work. A discussion of strengths and challenges of adequate methods for mapping school library use is included. Most research on school libraries concentrate on student achievement and cooperation between librarians and teachers. These are of course essential areas of concern and importance when it comes to discussing the position and function of school libraries. Nevertheless, the use of the libraries has had much less focus yet constitutes an important research area to understand the health of any library and its services. In this article we present results from a study of the use of an upper secondary school library. From 2016 to 2019, several studies were conducted relating to the use of the library at a Norwegian upper secondary school. These studies were a cooperative project between staff at the library and the Oslo Metropolitan University. The school management staff were also involved in choosing the research focus of the study. In this paper, the methods used and some of the findings are presented.

Positive Youth Development and Mental Well-Being in Late Adolescence: The Role of Body Appreciation. Findings From a Prospective Study in Norway.

Although a vulnerable period, adolescence is a time of great potential for healthy development. Understanding factors that contribute to mental well-being in this period is of great importance to facilitate for healthy development. During the adolescence period the body goes through rapid and considerable changes, and the focus on body appearance and perfection is substantial at societal, media, and peer level. In this study, we investigated the association between dimensions characterizing positive youth development, and mental well-being among Norwegian adolescents 16–17 years 1 year later, and whether this association was mediated by degree of body appreciation. We further tested whether the indirect and direct paths between positive youth development dimensions and mental well-being were moderated by gender. We used data from the first and second follow-up of the control arm of the COMPLETE study, a cluster randomized controlled trial in upper secondary schools in Norway. Findings showed that positive youth development in grade 1, as measured by both a combined global PYD and the dimensions competence, and connection were significantly associated with mental well-being in grade 2 in models adjusted for mental well-being in grade 1, gender and perceived family affluence. Also, body appreciation in grade 1 significantly predicted mental well-being in grade 2 in models including each of global PYD, competence, connection, character, and caring dimensions. Contrary to our hypothesis, no mediating effects of body appreciation were observed, and no moderation of indirect effects by gender were observed.

Students’ perceptions of visibility in physical education

The purpose of this study is to explore students’ perceptions of visibility in physical education (PE) using a single cumulative case study approach. Data were generated from the descriptive field notes of seven participant observations ( n = 77), individual semi-structured interviews ( n = 13) and five focus group interviews ( n = 18) with ninth-grade students (ages 14–15 years) from three classes in a public lower secondary school in Norway. The findings show that students perceive visibility differently depending on the context; some students like being visible in PE, while others dread it. Perceptions change rapidly and are situation-specific, influenced by the lesson content, the way the teacher facilitates the lessons, self-perception shaped by past experiences, the presence, actions, and attitudes of fellow students, body pressure and societal body ideals. The findings actualise the relevance of the transaction model of stress and coping ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ) in determining when visibility in PE is and is not perceived as stressful. Consequently, the organization of the PE environment benefits from these insights.