Research on mentor education for mentors of newly qualified teachers : A qualitative meta-synthesis

The aim of this meta-synthesis is to deepen the understanding and knowledge of qualitative research focusing on education for mentors of newly qualified teachers. Altogether, 10 studies were included and synthesised. Four common themes emerged in the initial analysis: School and mentoring context, Theory and practice, Reflection and critical thinking and Relationships. Furthermore, three overarching dimensions were found as a final synthesis guiding the further development of mentor education: 1) Contextual dimensions, 2) Theoretical-analytical dimensions, and 3) Relational dimensions. The synthesis stresses the importance of a systematic, long-term and research-informed mentor education that develops mentors' (self-)understanding of teaching and mentoring.Paid Open Acces

Att kvalificera sig till mentor : perspektiv på kompetensbehov och utbildning av mentorer för nya lärare

Akseptert fagfellevurdert versjon (postprint).Dette er manusversjonen av artikkelen Aspfors, J. & Fransson, G. (2015). Att kvalificera sig till mentor: perspektiv på kompetensbehov och utbildning av mentorer för nya lärare. Psykologi i kommunen, 50(2), 17-27. http://www.fpkf.no/tidsskrift

Suffering while resigning to an unacceptable violation of dignity

Background: The interaction of health personnel with relatives is linked to the quality of care results in nursing homes. However, there is limited knowledge of how relatives perceive being an integral part of the nursing home context. This secondary analysis has its starting point in an ethical concern about relatives’ experiences in a previous study. Aim: To critically discuss relatives’ experiences of suffering when their next of kin live in a nursing home in a rural arctic context. Research Design, Participants and Context: The critical hermeneutic stance is informed by Habermas. The secondary analysis is conducted on original data from five semi-structured focus groups with 18 relatives of residents of two nursing homes in a rural part of Norway. The theoretical framework concerning dignity, well-being, and suffering, as developed by Galvin and Todres, contrasts the analysis. Ethical Considerations: The study followed the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. It was approved by the Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD) (reg. no. 993360). Findings: The main theme of this study is: suffering while resigning to an unacceptable violation of dignity. This theme is deepened by two subthemes: (a) suffering while adapting to a relationship of dependence and (b) suffering while accepting the unacceptable. Conclusions: Relatives experience suffering as a cross-pressure in their struggle to interact responsibly with health personnel in nursing homes. This may have a negative outcome, where relatives end up adapting to being silent witnesses to missed care and a violation of dignity

Att kvalificera sig till mentor : perspektiv på kompetensbehov och utbildning av mentorer för nya lärare

Akseptert fagfellevurdert versjon (postprint).Dette er manusversjonen av artikkelen Aspfors, J. & Fransson, G. (2015). Att kvalificera sig till mentor: perspektiv på kompetensbehov och utbildning av mentorer för nya lärare. Psykologi i kommunen, 50(2), 17-27. http://www.fpkf.no/tidsskrift

Dignity at stake – relatives’ experiences of influencing dignified care in nursing homes

Background - Dignity, in the care of older nursing home residents, has been an increasingly part of the public discourse the recent years. Despite a growing body of knowledge about dignity and indignity in nursing homes, we have less knowledge of how relatives experience their role in this context. This study is a follow-up to a previous study in nursing homes, which gave rise to concern about the relatives’ descriptions of residents’ dignity. The aim of this current study is to critically discuss relatives’ experiences of influencing the dignified care of residents of nursing homes. Methods - Methodologically, the study is informed by a critical hermeneutic stance, where the analysis is guided by a qualitative interpretive approach and a humanizing framework. This is a secondary analysis that includes data from five semi-structured focus groups from a previous study. The participants were 18 relatives of 16 residents living in two nursing homes in rural northern Norway. Results - The main theme in this study, preventing missed care when dignity is at stake, is identified when relatives of nursing homes experience that they are able to influence dignified care by (a) pinpointing to prevent missed care and (b) compensating when dignity is threatened. Conclusions - Despite their stated good intentions to safeguard dignity, relatives of nursing homes experience being alienated in their attempts to change what they describe as undignified and unacceptable practice into dignified care. The relatives’ observations of dignity and indignity are, contrary to what national and international regulations require, not mapped and/or used in any form of systematic quality improvement work. This indicates that knowledge-based practice in nursing homes, including the active application of user and relative knowledge, has untapped potential to contribute to quality improvement towards dignified care

Early Career Teachers’ Experiences of Developing Professional Knowledge - from research-based teacher education through five years in the profession

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Induction practices : experiences of newly qualified teachers

The thesis consists of four studies (articles I–IV) and a comprehensive summary. The aim is to deepen understanding and knowledge of newly qualified teachers’ experiences of their induction practices. The research interest thus reflects the ambition to strengthen the research-based platform for support measures. The aim can be specified in the following four sub-areas: to scrutinise NQTs’ experiences of the profession in the transition from education to work (study I), to describe and analyse NQTs’ experiences of their first encounters with school and classroom (study II), to explore NQTs’ experiences of their relationships within the school community (study III), to view NQTs’ experiences of support through peer-group mentoring as part of the wider aim of collaboration and assessment (study IV). The overall theoretical perspective constitutes teachers’ professional development. Induction forms an essential part of this continuum and can primarily be seen as a socialisation process into the profession and the social working environment of schools, as a unique phase of teachers’ development contributing to certain experiences, and as a formal programme designed to support new teachers. These lines of research are initiated in the separate studies (I–IV) and deepened in the theoretical part of the comprehensive summary. In order to appropriately understand induction as a specific practice the lines of research are in the end united and discussed with help of practice theory. More precisely the theory of practice architectures, including semantic space, physical space-time and social space, are used. The methodological approach to integrating the four studies is above all represented by abduction and meta-synthesis. Data has been collected through a questionnaire survey, with mainly open-ended questions, and altogether ten focus group meetings with newly qualified primary school teachers in 2007–2008. The teachers (n=88 in questionnaire, n=17 in focus groups), had between one and three years of teaching experience. Qualitative content analysis and narrative analysis were used when analysing the data. What is then the collected picture of induction or the first years in the profession if scrutinising the results presented in the articles? Four dimensions seem especially to permeate the studies and emerge when they are put together. The first dimension, the relational ˗ emotional, captures the social nature of induction and teacher’s work and the emotional character intimately intertwined. The second dimension, the tensional ˗ mutable, illustrates the intense pace of induction, together with the diffuse and unclear character of a teacher’s job. The third dimension, the instructive ˗ developmental, depicts induction as a unique and intensive phase of learning, maturity and professional development. Finally, the fourth dimension, the reciprocal ˗ professional, stresses the importance of reciprocity and collaboration in induction, both formally and informally. The outlined four dimensions, or integration of results, describing induction from the experiences of new teachers, constitute part of a new synthesis, induction practice. This synthesis was generated from viewing the integrated results through the theoretical lens of practice architecture and the three spaces, semantic space, physical space-time and social space. In this way, a more comprehensive, refined and partially new architecture of teachers’ induction practices are presented and discussed

Teachers’ professional learning through mentor education: a longitudinal mixed-methods study

Mentor education for practice teachers and mentors’ professional learning has been described as an underdeveloped area in research. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of teachers’ professional learning during and after completing mentor education in Norway. The research questions examine teachers’ experiences of learning through mentor education and the implementation of mentor education in practice. Using a longitudinal mixed-methods research design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected in different phases, providing an opportunity to explore teachers’ professional learning during and 1.5 years after completing a two-year university-based mentor education programme. Through its longitudinal mixed-methods design and collective and school-based participation in mentor education, this study offers new perspectives on teachers’ professional learning and mentor education. The results show that participants experience professional learning as mentors and as teachers because of the content focus, duration, and collective participation of the mentor education programme. Moreover, the results show that the knowledge and skills acquired through mentor education have been implemented into the participants’ own and collective mentoring, teaching, and collaborative practices.publishedVersio