Pedagogical well‐being: reflecting learning and well‐being in teachers’ work

Teachers’ learning and occupational well‐being is crucial in attaining educational goals both in the classroom and at the school community level. In this article teachers’ occupational well‐being that is constructed in teaching–learning processes within the school community is referred to as pedagogical well‐being. The article focuses on exploring teachers’ experienced pedagogical well‐being by examining the kinds of situations that teachers themselves find either empowering and engaging or burdening and stressful in their work. The study aims to: (1) identify the primary contexts of teachers’ experienced critical incidents of pedagogical well‐being; and (2) determine the kind of action strategies teachers have adopted in these contexts when they are reported as empowering and engaging. The study included data collected from the teachers of nine case‐schools around Finland. Altogether, a selected group of 68 comprehensive school teachers, including both primary and secondary school teachers, were interviewed. Our results suggested that interaction with pupils in socially and pedagogically challenging situations constitutes the core of teachers’ pedagogical well‐being. Success in both the pedagogical goals and more general social goals seem to be fundamental preconditions for teachers’ experienced pedagogical well‐being. Further investigation showed that teachers’ approaches to socially challenging situations varied. Results suggest that teachers’ pedagogical well‐being is centrally generated in the challenging social interactions of their work. Moreover, the way in which a teacher acts in the situation is found to be a regulator for experienced pedagogical well‐being.     

The Role of Gender and Reading Competence in the Development of Motivational Orientations from Kindergarten to Grade 1

This longitudinal study examined gender differences in motivation and the role of reading prerequisites, that is phonemic and comprehension skills, in the formation of motivational tendencies from kindergarten up to grade 1. The longitudinal sample consisted of 157 Finnish-speaking children. Teachers rated children's adaptive goals, (i.e. task orientation and social dependence orientation) at four points of time, kindergarten-spring, preschool-fall, preschool-spring and in the fall of grade 1. Children's phonemic awareness and language comprehension skills were assessed in kindergarten at the initiation of the study (i.e. initial phoneme identification, rhyming, writing of the alphabet, listening and instruction comprehension). Word reading and reading comprehension skills were assessed at the end of grade 1 in the three groups of children at risk for reading failure and in children with high reading prerequisites. The results showed that gender and early phonemic and language comprehension differences were associated with divergent motivational-developmental trajectories. Children with low phonemic or low language comprehension skill showed higher social dependence and lower task orientation over time than children with high initial reading prerequisites. In particular, boys with low reading prerequisites underwent a negative motivational change. The group of children who had poor phonemic and poor language comprehension skills showed most unfavorable development of motivation and reading. Findings concerning motivational trajectories are discussed with regard to the lack of fit between child's competence and curriculum demands.     

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

This study examines the role of learned societies as publishers in Finland based on bibliographic information from two Finnish databases. We studied the share of learned societies' peer‐reviewed publication channels (serials with ISSNs and book publishers with distinct ISBN roots) and outputs (journal articles, conference articles, book articles, and monographs) in Finland. We also studied the share of learned societies' open access (OA) publications. In 2018, there were 402 peer‐reviewed publication channels in Finland. In 2011–2017, the number of peer‐reviewed publications from scholars working in Finnish universities and published in Finland was 17,724. Learned societies publish around 70% of these channels and publications, mostly in the fields of humanities and social sciences. Learned societies in Finland focus on journal publishing, whereas university presses and commercial publishers focus on book publishing. In 2016–2017, 38.4% of the learned societies' outputs were OA. This study concludes that Finnish learned societies play an integral part in national scholarly publishing. They play an especially important role in journal publishing, as commercial publishers produce only 2.6% of Finnish journals and book series, and only 1.4% of the journal articles from scholars working in Finnish universities.     

Changes in muscle activity with increasing running speed

Electromyographic (EMG) activity of the leg muscles and the ground reaction forces were recorded in 17 elite male middle-distance runners, who performed isometric maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) as well as running at different speeds. Electromyograms were recorded from the gluteus maximus, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris, gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior. The results indicated that the averaged EMG (aEMG) activities of all the muscles studied increased (P?<?0.05) with increasing running speed, especially in the pre-contact and braking phases. At higher speeds, the aEMG activities of the gastrocnemius, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris and gluteus maximus exceeded 100% MVC in these same phases. These results suggest that maximal voluntary contractions cannot be used as an indicator of the full activation potential of human skeletal muscle. Furthermore, the present results suggest that increased pre-contact EMG potentiates the functional role of stretch reflexes, which subsequently increases tendomuscular stiffness and enhances force production in the braking and/or propulsive phases in running. Furthermore, a more powerful force production in the optimal direction for increasing running speed effectively requires increased EMG activity of the two-joint muscles (biceps femoris, rectus femoris and gastrocnemius) during the entire running cycle.     

Primary school students’ perceived social support in relation to study engagement

European Journal of Psychology of Education - The aim of this research was to study the dynamics of fourth graders’ perceived social support for schoolwork and to examine how this support...     

Do comprehensive school teachers perceive themselves as active professional agents in school reforms?

This article focuses on exploring comprehensive school teachers’ professional agency in the context of the most recent school reforms in Finland (i.e., developing undivided basic education). In this article, the emphasis is on analyzing the premises on which teachers view themselves and their work in terms of developing their own school, catalyzed by the national school reform. Teachers’ perceptions and the relation between their perceptions of the development work and their educational backgrounds were empirically examined by means of essays entitled “Remembering the Future.” Results suggested that both teachers’ perceptions of undivided basic education and their perceptions of themselves in the development process varied considerably. Further investigation showed that teachers’ perceptions of the reform and of themselves within the reforms were interrelated. More specifically, perceiving oneself as an active subject in the development work seemed to promote a holistic and functional perception of the object of the development. On the basis of the results, it seems that as highly educated professionals, teachers were very capable of identifying and analyzing what should be changed in schools and/or the school districts. However, a challenge for the teachers’ active professional agency in educational reforms seems to be the lack of shared and informed assumptions of how change can be brought about.     

Correction to: Primary school students’ perceived social support in relation to study engagement

European Journal of Psychology of Education -