Health education teachers’ historical bodies:constructing teacher identity and teaching information evaluation

Abstract Purpose: This article describes how Finnish health education teachers verbalise and construct their teacher identity based on their lifestyle, subject area and relationships with their students. Design/methodology/approach: Narrative interviews were conducted amongst eight secondary and upper secondary school teachers. The nexus analysis was used to analyse teachers’ methods of teaching students information-seeking, evaluation and critical thinking skills. Findings: The teachers’ historical bodies — their skills, interests, information-seeking habits and familiar sources — impacted the chosen teaching methods. The results indicate that teacher identity is constructed along different paths and is constantly performed and transformed in the classroom through interactions with students. Originality/value: The study illustrates the reconstruction of teacher identity through interaction in interviews. Teachers act as role models, information gatekeepers and trustees who guide students to choose credible health information sources

Ask your mother!:teachers’ informational authority roles in information-seeking and evaluation tasks in health education lessons

Abstract This paper contributes to the pedagogical discussion on how to promote critical thinking among adolescents in modern media environments. It argues that teachers play an essential role in guiding students’ assessment of and decision between credible information sources. The study was carried out among eighth-grade health education teachers and students in a secondary school in Finland. Nexus analysis was used as a theoretical lens with which to analyze lesson observation data and teacher interviews. The findings indicate that teachers moved fluently between the informational authority roles of a cognitive authority and a trustee. Moments of perplexity in which teachers were not able to act in these informational authority roles created tension in the classroom; however, they also promoted diversified learning

Health education teachers’ contributions to students’ multiliteracy learning

Abstract This article describes how Finnish health education teachers reflect on their views of multiliteracy and the instructional practices they used to implement it. Narrative interviews were conducted among eight junior high school and high school teachers. Nexus analysis was used to guide the analysis on the teachers’ views and practices. The results indicate that the study participants considered the promotion of multiliteracy to be part of their work as a health education teacher and they implemented multiliteracy instruction in diverse ways, such as assigning information-seeking and production tasks, or by creating role-playing games. However, the study revealed tensions between need-based literacy teaching and curriculum-steered multiliteracy promotion as well as common and novel teaching practices. At its best, reflecting on these tensions can serve as a steppingstone toward professional change and development

Finnish adolescents’ selection and assessment of health information sources

Abstract Introduction: It is challenging for young people to determine who or what information sources they can trust in health issues. This study examines adolescents’ understanding of health, health information needs and credible health information sources and discusses the ways some information sources can be regarded as adolescents’ cognitive authorities in health matters. Methods: Thirty-seven Finnish secondary school students from fourteen to sixteen years were interviewed during a school health education project. Analysis: The data were transcribed verbatim and analysed qualitatively through open, axial and selective coding. Findings. Two broad categories of young people’s understanding of health and well-being were identified: a narrow disease-oriented view and a wider view including aspects of mental and social well-being. These views were connected with recognised health information needs, preferred health information sources and credibility evaluation. Conclusions: The interviewed young people found family members and health professionals to be the most credible information sources in health problems. Thus, they can be regarded as adolescents’ cognitive authorities who are likely to influence their opinions. In more general health information needs and in lifestyle issues, the range of the information sources was wider and credibility assessments were dependent on the subject