Motivaatio hoiva-avustajakoulutukseen ja -koulutuksessa

Hoiva-avustajakoulutus on uusi lyhyt, työttömille, maahanmuuttajille ja alanvaihtajille suunnattu hoitoalan koulutus, jota ollaan vakiinnuttamassa Suomeen. Koulutukseen osallistujien motivaation tunteminen on tarpeen koulutuksen suunnittelun avuksi. Tutkimuksessani selvitin hoiva-avustajakoulutuksen osallistujien opiskelumotivaatioon liittyviä kokemuksia: mitkä tekijät motivoivat koulutuksen aloittamiseen, mitkä kokemukset koettiin motivaatiota vahvistaviksi ja mitkä kokemukset koettiin motivaatiota haastaviksi koulutuksen aikana. Lisäksi selvitin koulutuksen koettuja hyötyjä. Tutkimusaineisto koostui kuuden hoiva-avustajakoulutuksen suorittaneen henkilön haastatteluista, jotka analysoin laadullisella sisällönanalyysillä. Koulutukseen hakeutumisen motivaationaaliset tavoitteet liittyivät pääosin sisäiseen kiinnostukseen ja alaan liittyvän osaamisen hankkimiseen, ja vähemmässä määrin työllistymiseen. Osallistujat kokivat ihmisläheisten arvojen ja taipumusten sekä kyvyn tulla vanhusten kanssa toimeen antavan heille sopivuuden alalle. Motivaatiota koulutuksen aikana haastoi osalla vanhemmista osallistujista aikaisempi vähäinen kokemus tietokoneen käytöstä ja esseiden kirjoittamisesta. Motivaatiota vahvistivat onnistumisen kokemukset erityisesti työssä sekä vahva ympäristön tuki. Koulutuksen tärkeimmiksi hyödyiksi koettiin ammattiin liittyvä osaaminen ja ammatti-identiteetin kehittyminen, sekä koulutuksen toimiminen ponnahduslautana lähihoitajakouluun. Tutkimuksesta on hyötyä hoiva-avustajakoulutuksen edelleen kehittämisessä. Tutkimus antaa positiivisen signaalin oppisopimuskoulutuksena toteutettavalle hoiva-avustajakoulutukselle. Se osoittaa, että hoiva-avustajakoulutuksen osallistujien motivaationaaliset tavoitteet liittyvät vahvasti sisäiseen kiinnostukseen ja auttamishaluun ja ovat siten samankaltaisia kuin hoiva-alalla. Koulutuksen lyhyys ja taso antaa sopivan lähitavoitteen, joka vahvistaa itseluottamusta ja valmistaa seuraavaan koulutukseen. Hoiva-avustajakoulutuksen käyneet kokivat oppineensa koulutuksesta, mutta se miten koulutus vaikuttaa hoitoapulaisena toimivan työn laatuun, olisi vielä selvittämisen arvoinen asia

Data from: Role of seed germination in adaptation and reproductive isolation in Arabidopsis lyrata

Seed germination is an important developmental and life history stage. Yet, the evolutionary impact of germination has mainly been studied in the context of dormancy, or for its role in reproductive isolation between species. Here, we aim to examine multiple consequences of genetic divergence on germination traits between two Arabidopsis lyrata subspecies: ssp. petraea (Eurasia) and ssp. lyrata (North-America). Post-dormancy germination time, a potentially adaptive trait, showed differentiation between the populations, and quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping revealed that the trait variation is mainly controlled by two antagonistic loci. These QTL areas contain several candidate genes with known function in post-dormancy germination in A. thaliana. The sequence variation of three genes was consistent with differential selection, and they also included fixed nonsynonymous substitutions with potential to account for the phenotypic differentiation. We further show that the divergence between the subspecies has led to a slight but significant reduction in hybrid germination proportions, indicating incipient reproductive isolation. Comparison of reciprocal F1 and F2 progenies suggest that Bateson-Dobzhansky-Muller-incompatibilities likely act through uniparentally inherited factors. Examination of genome-wide transmission ratio distortion further revealed that cytonuclear interactions cause substantial pregermination inviability in the hybrids. These results confirm that seed germination has adaptive potential beyond the dormancy stage and that hybrid seed inviability can be one of the first reproductive barriers to arise during divergence

Environmental response in gene expression and DNA methylation reveals factors influencing the adaptive potential of Arabidopsis lyrata

Abstract Understanding what factors influence plastic and genetic variation is valuable for predicting how organisms respond to changes in the selective environment. Here, using gene expression and DNA methylation as molecular phenotypes, we study environmentally induced variation among Arabidopsis lyrata plants grown at lowland and alpine field sites. Our results show that gene expression is highly plastic, as many more genes are differentially expressed between the field sites than between populations. These environmentally responsive genes evolve under strong selective constraint — the strength of purifying selection on the coding sequence is high, while the rate of adaptive evolution is low. We find, however, that positive selection on cis-regulatory variants has likely contributed to the maintenance of genetically variable environmental responses, but such variants segregate only between distantly related populations. In contrast to gene expression, DNA methylation at genic regions is largely insensitive to the environment, and plastic methylation changes are not associated with differential gene expression. Besides genes, we detect environmental effects at transposable elements (TEs): TEs at the high-altitude field site have higher expression and methylation levels, suggestive of a broad-scale TE activation. Compared to the lowland population, plants native to the alpine environment harbor an excess of recent TE insertions, and we observe that specific TE families are enriched within environmentally responsive genes. Our findings provide insight into selective forces shaping plastic and genetic variation. We also highlight how plastic responses at TEs can rapidly create novel heritable variation in stressful conditions

Role of seed germination in adaptation and reproductive isolation in Arabidopsis lyrata

Abstract Seed germination is an important developmental and life history stage. Yet, the evolutionary impact of germination has mainly been studied in the context of dormancy, or for its role in reproductive isolation between species. Here, we aim to examine multiple consequences of genetic divergence on germination traits between two Arabidopsis lyrata subspecies: ssp. petraea (Eurasia) and ssp. lyrata (North America). Postdormancy germination time, a potentially adaptive trait, showed differentiation between the populations, and quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping revealed that the trait variation is mainly controlled by two antagonistic loci. These QTL areas contain several candidate genes with known function in postdormancy germination in A. thaliana. The sequence variation of three genes was consistent with differential selection, and they also included fixed nonsynonymous substitutions with potential to account for the phenotypic differentiation. We further show that the divergence between the subspecies has led to a slight but significant reduction in hybrid germination proportions, indicating incipient reproductive isolation. Comparison of reciprocal F1 and F2 progenies suggests that Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities likely act through uniparentally inherited factors. Examination of genomewide transmission ratio distortion further revealed that cytonuclear interactions cause substantial pregermination inviability in the hybrids. These results confirm that seed germination has adaptive potential beyond the dormancy stage and that hybrid seed inviability can be one of the first reproductive barriers to arise during divergence

Genotypes and phenotypes of QTL mapping family 2

Genotypes and phenotypes of QTL mapping family

Phenotype_script

R commands used to analyze the phenotype dat

Genotypes and phenotypes of QTL mapping family 1

Genotypes and phenotypes of QTL mapping family

Measurements of seed germination in Arabidopsis lyrata

Measurements of germination time and germination success in controlled conditions. Block and place mark the seed position within a plate. Crosstype defines the reciprocal crosses. Group is the ID number of the mother plant. Ripening- and stratdays refer to lengths of the after-ripening and stratification treatments. Germination is the binary representation of whether seed germinated during the experiment (1) or not (0). Germdays is number of days from the start of the experiment until germination

QTL_script

R/qtl commands used in the QTL analysi

Comparing the Linkage Maps of the Close Relatives Arabidopsis lyrata and A. thaliana

We have constructed a genetic map of Arabidopsis lyrata, a self-incompatible relative of the plant model species A. thaliana. A. lyrata is a diploid (n = 8) species that diverged from A. thaliana (n = 5) ∼5 MYA. Mapping was conducted in a full-sib progeny of two unrelated F(1) hybrids between two European populations of A. lyrata ssp. petraea. We used the least-squares method of the Joinmap program for map construction. The gross chromosomal differences between the two species were most parsimoniously explained with three fusions, two reciprocal translocations, and one inversion. The total map length was 515 cM, and the distances were 12% larger than those between corresponding markers in the linkage map of A. thaliana. The 72 markers, consisting of microsatellites and gene-based markers, were spaced on average every 8 cM. Transmission ratio distortion was extensive, and most distortions were specific to each reciprocal cross, suggesting cytoplasmic interactions. We estimate locations and most probable genotype frequencies of transmission ratio distorting loci (TRDL) with a Bayesian method and discuss the possible reasons for the observed distortions