A Way of Visualising Children's and Young People's Thoughts about the Environment: A study of drawings

This article attempts to visualise the way in which children and young people think about a specific topic, namely the environment. The aim is to make the thinking of children and young people available and to interpret the meaning of their thoughts about our environment. The theoretical roots of the study are to be found within the phenomenology of the lifeworld. The study is based on empirical material consisting of drawings produced by 109 children and young people, combined with subsequent oral comments. During the drawing analysis different structures and patterns gradually crystallised, and eventually four different themes emerged, consisting of thoughts which focus on the following: the good world, the bad world, the dialectics between the good and the bad world, and symbols and actions protecting the environment. It can be stated that the results which emerged, in the form of the thoughts of the children and young people on the environment, reflect a thinking characterisedby many nuances, such as clean and unspoilt nature in different manifestations, the need for human beings to use nature for recreation and well-being, environmental destruction in different forms, and direct or indirect ways of taking care of the prevailing environmental situation.     

Implementing vision research in special needs education

This article presents experiences from vision research implemented in education and argues for the need for teachers with visual competence and insight into suitable methods for stimulation and learning. A new type of continuing professional development (CPD) focuses on the role of vision in children's learning and development, the consequences of frequently occurring vision disturbances and related new educational possibilities. Participating teachers undertake a period of practical teaching training in their home community. Two students' cases visualise the need to break out of the narrow definition of visual impairment and become capable of evaluating the visual challenges affecting many pupils and their learning. The two cases presented represent various issues of visual challenges; both reached a better functional level, including better reading, following improved vision after the educational interventions. These results illustrate that vision competence in schools is most useful and ought to be widely accessible.     

Students’ confidence in their performance judgements: a comparison of different response scales

We report results of two studies on metacognitive accuracy with undergraduate education students. Participating students were asked to judge their personal performance in a multiple-choice exam as well as to state their confidence in their performance judgement (second-order judgement [SOJ]). In each study, we compared four conditions that differed in the type of the presented 5-point confidence scale for SOJs. In Study 1, four bipolar scales with different labels were applied; in Study 2, unipolar and bipolar scales were implemented. The results of Study 1 with N?=?420 students show that undergraduates on average provided accurate performance estimations. However, students were not aware of their judgement accuracy, shown by a low fit of SOJ and judgement accuracy. In addition, the type of provided scale significantly influenced the SOJs. Study 2 with N?=?348 students replicated the findings of the first study and gave further insight into the effects of uni- vs. bipolar response scales.     

Democracy,caring and competence: values perspectives in ECEC curricula in the Nordic countries

The aim of the study is to explore how Nordic Early Childhood Education and Care policies frame values education in preschools with a special focus on the values of democracy, caring and competence. The study is part of a larger Nordic project, Values education in Nordic preschools: Basis of education for tomorrow, the aim of which is to explore values education from various perspectives, policy levels, institutional levels and personal levels. The study applies Habermas’s theoretical ideas of communicative actions, lifeworld, and the system. Here the focus is on the system level, namely, values in national curriculum guidelines that serve as the basis of pedagogical practices in preschools in the Nordic countries. Thematic research analysis described by Braun and Clarke inspired the qualitative analysis of the documents. In addition, a quantitative language-based approach was applied to the study. Keywords related with democratic, caring and competence values were selected. The findings reveal different dimensions and meanings of the three value fields, such as democracy as being and/or becoming; care as fulfilment of basic needs and an ethical relationship; and competence values as learning for sociality and academic skills.     

Vocational Education Students’ Generic Working Life Competencies: Developing a Self-Assessment Instrument

The current study reports on the process of developing a self-assessment instrument for vocational education students’ generic working life competencies. The instrument was developed based on a competence framework and in close collaboration with several vocational education teachers and intermediary organisations offering various human resource services. A first version of the questionnaire was presented to 26 students and 5 recent graduates who were asked to comment on the items. The pilot version of the questionnaire was completed by 826 students. Half of the data were used to explore the structure of the questionnaire (n?=?413) and the other half were used to confirm the structure (n?=?413). The results showed that 8 factors could be distinguished. Further analysis reduced this to 7 usable factors: empathy, listening, assertiveness, professional attitude, problem solving, cooperation ability and, planning and prioritising. The revised questionnaire containing 44 items was tested a second time to determine the stability and measurement invariance of the instrument. In total, 456 students from the first sample completed the questionnaire. The structure was confirmed and measurement invariance across students with and without working experience was established.     

Investigating Team Learning in a Military Context

As teams have become fundamental parts of today’s organisations, the need for these teams to function and learn efficiently and effectively is widely emphasised. Also in military contexts team learning is vital. The current article examines team learning behaviour in military teams as it aims to cross-validate a team learning model that was originally developed and tested in an educational context. This team learning model includes several socio-cognitive factors that precede, constitute, and result from team learning behaviour. Findings based on path analyses indicate that psychological safety, social cohesion and group potency are positively related to team learning behaviour in military teams. In addition, team learning behaviour does not only foster the construction of mutually shared cognition and transactive memory systems, but also relates positively to the effectiveness of military teams.     

Literacy and capital in immigrant youths' online networks across countries

Communication technologies are playing an increasingly prominent role in facilitating immigrants' social networks across countries and the transnational positioning of immigrant youth in their online language and literacy practices. Drawing from a comparative case study of the digital literacy practices of immigrant youth of Chinese descent, this paper examines the cross-border social relationships that are fostered between the youth and their peers in their natal country through the use of instant messaging and other online media. Using Pierre Bourdieu's capital and field theory, and the concept of social capital, this paper considers how literacy development in transnational contexts constitutes the production of social and cultural capital. It argues that the youths' online literacy practices need to be understood within the particular social fields in which they are situated and how they allow the youth to navigate and take up position within social fields that cross national boundaries.