International Master’s degree students’ well-being at a Finnish university during COVID-19

The rapid developments and consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for university students’ well-being are presently being studied across the world. This study contributes to the growing discourse on university students’ well-being by exploring changes in international Master’s degree students’ well-being in relation to the move to online teaching and learning at a Finnish university during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study draws on 37 answers to an open-ended question about remote teaching and learning at the end of a survey on university students’ stress. The text data were analysed conducting a preliminary quantitative content analysis and a more detailed thematic analysis, from which two themes were developed. The first theme concerned respondents’ well-being with regard to their friends and family, including the desire for human connection, ways of coping and health concerns. The second theme concerned respondents’ well-being with regard to their studies, including the importance of social life on campus, affected concentration and motivation, degree-related complications, and online teaching and supervision. The findings suggest that sociocultural well-being may extend beyond acculturation and that decreased psychological well-being has repercussions for international students’ studies. The study concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations and practical implications.Peer reviewe

Links between teachers’ planning, assessment and development time and implementation of curriculum in early childhood education

This study aimed to examine how Finnish early childhood education (ECE) teachers use planning, assessment and development (PAD) hours across different areas of the national ECE curriculum. The PAD of pedagogy carried out by ECE teachers is an important quality factor in ECE. In Finland, the working hours reserved for planning, assessment and development tasks for ECE teachers were increased from 8% to 13% by ECE law in 2018. Based on the mixed-methods approach, 325 ECE teachers participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that ECE teachers emphasize and benefit most from the planning, assessment and development of pedagogical activities and learning areas in the use of PAD hours. Furthermore, the distribution of PAD hours between different curriculum areas depends on how well PAD hours are implemented in practice.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Generation of a human induced pluripotent stem cell line, BRCi009-A, derived from a patient with glycogen storage disease type 1a

Glycogen storage disease type 1a (GSD1a) is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations of the glucose-6-phosphatase (G6PC) gene. Mutations of the G6PC gene lead to excessive accumulation of glycogen in the liver, kidney, and intestinal mucosa due to the deficiency of microsomal glucose-6-phosphatase.Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) enable the production of patient-derived hepatocytes in culture and are therefore a promising tool for modeling GSD1a. Here, we report the establishment of human iPSCs from a GSD1a patient carrying a G6PC mutation (c.648G > T; p.Leu216 = )

Prosociality in Shared Leadership from the Finnish Principals’ Viewpoint

This chapter aims to explore the role of prosociality when exercising shared leadership in Finnish schools. Educational professionals work collectively to generate expertise conducive for shared leadership. Importantly, shared leadership could be deeply related to helping each other, which is referred to as prosociality. Potential development of shared leadership is achieved with help from others. However, no previous study has investigated the role of prosociality in exercising shared leadership. Therefore, research question is formed as following: How do the principals represent prosociality in shared leadership? This study explored prosociality through the lens of three aspects of prosociality: prosocial motivation, behaviour, and impact. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview from 12 Finnish principals in primary and lower secondary schools. The data were analysed with a thematic analysis in a deductive manner according to the three prosocial aspects. The findings showed that the principals acknowledge the prosocial elements that are deeply related to shared leadership. Moreover, the role of prosocial impact was highlighted by the principals.peerReviewe

Social contagion of autonomous motivation among professional educators : as a resource of leadership in schools

Enhancement of motivation among members in educational organizations is a crucial aspect for leaders to make the organizations more effective. However, when leadership is considered as a process, which makes leadership accessible to every member in an educational organization, the previous studies are still based on the thought that leaders determine leadership styles that motivate fol-lowers. While distributed leadership suggest some implications, it is still un-clear how each member takes on autonomous motivation and it is distributed. Social contagion is the concept that the motivation of the model person spreads to the perceiver. The purpose of this study is to reveal social contagion of autonomous motivation among professional educators including educational leaders and teachers. A sample of 359 Japanese primary and secondary professional educators filled in a questionnaire comprising the adapted editions of the Subscales As-sessing Four Types of Motivation for Teaching (SAFTMT) scale (Roth, Assor, Kanat-Maymon & Kaplan, 2007) and the Perceived Social Power Scale (PSPS) (Imai, 1993). The results indicate that autonomous motivation of professional educators spreads from one to another through social power which consists of attractive, reference, and expert power. In addition, the model persons of the professional educators who have autonomous motivation were mostly the other teachers, not educational leaders such as principals or vice-principals. The current study concludes that educational leaders should pay attention to how their teachers are autonomously motivated and make the most of it

Exploring prosociality and collective competence in exercising shared educational leadership in Finland and Japan

This dissertation aims to explore prosociality and collective competence when educational leadership is exercised as a shared endeavour in collaboration. It addresses the following specific research questions: 1) What is the relationship between prosociality, in the form of motivation, behaviour, impact, and collaboration, in educational leadership as a shared endeavour? 2) What is the relationship between prosociality and collective competence, as collective efficacy, in educational leadership as a shared endeavour? 3) What is the relationship between collaboration and collective competence, as collective efficacy, in educational leadership as a shared endeavour? The sub-studies presented here utilised previous publications as data for a systematic narrative review, quantitative survey data from teachers in Japan (N = 260), and qualitative interview data gathered from 12 Finnish principals. First, the findings of this study revealed that many prosocial phenomena concern relationships with others, such as empathy, caring, and knowledge sharing. In addition, prosociality was evoked by the experience of benefitting others when collaborating, which indicated that prosociality could be both essential for and lead to collaboration. Second, the findings demonstrated that existing literature has implicitly discussed prosocial elements without noticing that they are essential for collective competence in educational leadership as a shared endeavour. In addition, it was found that prosociality encouraged the sense of collective competence among organisational members because it is valuable for overcoming their tendency to fragment. Moreover, when organisational members recognise themselves as competent, their willingness to use their expertise for social purposes might increase. Third, the findings indicated that, when organisational members have experienced successful collaboration in challenging situations, they tend to perceive themselves to be collectively competent. Overall, these findings enrich our knowledge of how prosociality, collective competence, and collaboration are related to one another in shared educational leadership contexts by representing a new concept of collective educational leadership efficacy. Keywords: prosociality, collective competence, collaboration, collective efficacy, educational leadershipTämän väitöstyön tavoitteena oli tutkia prososiaalisuutta ja kollektiivista kompetenssia koulutusjohtamisen yhteisenä pyrkimyksenä yhteisöllisyyden kautta. Väitöstyö käsittelee seuraavia erityisiä tutkimuskysymyksiä: 1) Mikä on prososiaalisuuden (motivaation, käyttäytymisen ja vaikutuksen muodossa) suhde yhteisöllisyyteen koulutusjohtamisen toteuttamisessa yhteisenä pyrkimyksenä? 2) Mikä on prososiaalisuuden ja kollektiivisen kompetenssin (kollektiivisen tehokkuuden muodossa) suhde koulutusjohtamisen toteuttamisessa yhteisenä pyrkimyksenä? 3) Mikä on yhteisöllisyyden ja kollektiivisen kompetenssin suhde koulutusjohtamisen toteuttamisessa yhteisenä pyrkimyksenä? Alatutkimuksissa hyödynnettiin aiempien prososiaalisuutta käsittelevien julkaisujen systemaattista analyysia, japanilaisilta opettajilta kerättyä kvantitatiivista tutkimusaineistoa (N = 260) ja 12 suomalaisen rehtorin laadullisia teemahaastatteluja. Ensiksi tämän väitöstutkimuksen tulokset paljastivat, että monet prososiaaliset ilmiöt koskevat suhteita muihin toimijoihin. Tärkeitä ilmiöitä olivat empatia, välittäminen ja huolehtiminen sekä tiedon jakaminen. Erityisesti kokemus muiden hyväksi toimimisesta yhteisöllisesti sai aikaan prososiaalisuutta. Tämä tulos osoitti, että prososiaalisuus voi olla sekä välttämätöntä yhteisöllisyydelle, että se voi johtaa siihen. Toiseksi tulokset osoittivat, että olemassa oleva tutkimuskirjallisuus käsittelee kyllä epäsuorasti prososiaalisia tekijöitä kuitenkaan osoittamatta, että ne ovat olennaisia kollektiiviselle kompetenssille silloin, kun koulutusjohtamista toteutetaan yhteisenä pyrkimyksenä. Lisäksi väitöstyössä paljastui, että prososiaalisuus rohkaisee organisaation jäsenten kollektiivisen kompetenssin tunnetta, mikä on merkityksellistä koulutusjohtamisen pirstaloitumisen ja hajaannuksen voittamisessa. Kun organisaation jäsenet tunnistavat itsensä päteviksi, heidän halukkuutensa käyttää asiantuntemustaan sosiaalisiin tarkoituksiin kasvaa. Kolmanneksi tulokset osoittivat, että kun organisaation jäsenet kokevat yhteisöllisyyden onnistuneen haastavissa tilanteissa, he yleensä kokevat olevansa kollektiivisesti päteviä. Yhteenvetona voidaan todeta, että väitöstyössä saadut tulokset rikastuttavat ymmärrystämme siitä, kuinka prososiaalisuus, kollektiivinen kompetenssi ja yhteisöllisyys liittyvät toisiinsa jaetuissa koulutusjohtamisen konteksteissa ja miten nämä yhteydet kiteytyvät uuden, tässä tutkimuksessa luodun kollektiivisen koulutusjohtamisen kompetenssin käsitteen kautta. Asiasanat: prososiaalisuus, kollektiivinen kompetenssi, yhteisöllisyys, kollektiivinen tehokkuu

保育士・幼稚園教諭に求められる保育及び子育て支援現場におけるソーシャルワーク機能についての一考察 : フィンランドのネウボラの視察から [The Function of Social Work as Part of Child Support by Nursery and Kindergarten Teachers : an Observation Study of Finnish Neuvola System]

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フィンランドのネウボラの視察から見えたわが国の利用者支援事業の課題 －ケースの視察及び利用者インタビューから－ [Issues Related to Japan's User Support Project for Children and Childcare Support System Discovered by Visiting Neuvola in Finland]

The aim of this article is to introduce Neuvola, a childrearing support service in Finland, and to discuss issues related to Japanʼs User Support Project for Children and Childcare Support System. The authors visited and sat in on Neuvola sessions for three clients, and they conducted interviews with a client between October 4 and 8, 2015. Clients and Neuvola nurses were relaxed, and clients initiated the topics discussed during the visit. There was rapport between clients and Neuvola nurses, and clients seemed to be at ease in receiving the service. During the interviews, the client mentioned that she was able to talk about sensitive issues because the nurses would help the family to move in the right direction. Moreover, an information sharing system through ICT had been created between related facilities so that clients did not need to repeat their stories whenever they were referred to other facilities. On the other hand, it became clear that, like Japan, there were budgetary issues limiting Neuvola office hours in some communities. Findings made by visiting Neuvola suggest that it is important for the User Support Project to establish a system and an environment that enable clients and workers to develop mutual trust.nonPeerReviewe

フィンランドの段階的支援としてのプロコウルプロジェクトの展開と実践 [The Deployment and Practice of Three Tier Support System 'Prokoulu' for Children with Special Educational Needs in Finland]

The purpose of this paper is to overview Prokoulu project in Finland that has been introduced to overcome severe school conditions. We scrutinized lecture materials about Prokoulu written by a principal related Iiterature and results of a visit survey. The data revealed that Prokoulu is a three-tier support system that enhances children's behavior by "positive feedback". Before implementing the project for children, teachers are required to change the relationships among colleagues positively in order to become models for children. Teachers, children and parents share fundamental values, and write up desirable behavior The set of goal behavior is clearly indicated to children in positive form, and immediate evaluations focusing on favorable actions are kept in teachers' mind. Although changing teachers' attitudes are not easy, the teachers are developing each other continuously and consciously under the leadership of the principal. They are cooperating with universities and research institutes to evaluate the project results. Children's behavior change according to which behavior the teachers focus on. One of the crucial principles is that teachers need to change their attitudes by themselves.nonPeerReviewe

Principal self-efficacy and school climate as antecedents of collective teacher efficacy

The importance of collective teacher efficacy (CTE) has been increasingly emphasised, but few studies have focused on how it can be enhanced. Since CTE is assumed to be related to factors that differ between schools, the belief-shaping sources of CTE could be related to principals’ beliefs of their efficacy. Moreover, a school climate that centralises teachers’ attempts to improve student learning could enhance CTE. This paper examines a proposed analytical model that links principal self-efficacy (PSE) to CTE, as mediated by the school climate. The model is tested via a multilevel analysis with data from 70 Finnish schools and 767 educators. The analysis revealed that PSE is partially and indirectly related to CTE via the school climate at the school level. Based on these results, theoretical and practical implications for future research and teaching development efforts are discussed.peerReviewe