The aim of this research was to examine if a set of three science and technology workshops would promote first-grade pupils' science-related competence beliefs. The first workshop dealt with electric circuits and related handicraft tasks. The second workshop involved programming with Lego Mindstorms robots. The third workshop was related to…

Academic resilience is difficult to define in an international setting, since economic levels and achievement standards vary across countries and over time. In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized using pre-defined cut-offs of achievement and social background. The main objective of the current study is to apply…

School climate which is strongly related with the students' outcomes includes some of the components, among which disciplinary climate in schools was expressed as the dominant one. Safety and order in schools which is strongly related with the physical and emotional security stated as one of the indicator of disciplinary climate in schools. In…

In this paper, a nationally representative longitudinal data of mathematics learning outcomes in Finland is analyzed in order to determine the direction of causality between mathematics-related affect and achievement. First, the results indicated that students' mathematical achievement, emotion, and self-efficacy were significantly stable over…

This paper discusses the OpenForest portal and its related multidisciplinary learning project. The OpenForest portal is an open learning environment and ecosystem, in which students can participate in co-developing and co-creating practices. The aim of the OpenForest ecosystem is to create an extensive interactive network of diverse learning…

This study investigated the consciousness of the pre service teachers of nesting animals in certain ecosystems. The study group included primary school and subject teacher students. The students were asked to name 10 different nesting animal species in each ecosystem drawing. Spruce dominated coniferous forest got the highest number of animals…

The major purpose of this study was to examine the similarities and differences in the contents of algebra topic in selected elementary school mathematics textbooks of Finland and Taiwan. The mathematics curriculum market leaders of Finland and Taiwan, Laskutaito and Kang Hsuan, were examined using content analysis method. Results show that while…

Mathematics-related affect is told to predict choices concerning future studies, to correlate with performance, and to be of importance per se. Unfortunately, the affect towards mathematics is frequently reported to be low in several countries, and this contradiction cannot be solved before knowing more about its development. The objective of this…

There have been many efforts to change mathematics education and teachers. However this has proved to be very difficult. The starting point for this study was the question: Should we change people? There might be good reasons why things remain stable for longer periods. My aim is to approach the difficult question of teacher change from the…

The outcome interpretations, attributions for the outcome, expectancies of future test outcomes, and perceptions concerning instrumental actions of four Finnish elementary school teachers and their 84 sixth-grade students were compared after a math exam. Disagreements between teachers and students on these points reflect biases on the part of…

This study investigated the process and the products of negotiation in the ethical conflicts of teaching, focusing on the ethical conflicts experienced by early education teachers. Participants included urban kindergarten and elementary school teachers from several Finnish public day care centers and schools. The study examined various categories…

This study showed how narratives permeate teacher knowledge and are essential to understand teachers work and learning. It focuses on the characteristics of the teaching profession that are both revealed and constructed in the activity of conversation. The main interest of the study was to reveal new layers of meaning and to uncover interactional…

This paper presents a conceptual framework of teachers' practical knowledge. The researcher examined interview data from 29 Finnish elementary school teachers to identify common features underlying teachers' practical knowledge. The interviews examined teachers' teaching and students' learning activities, social relationships within the…

This study investigated and evaluated how and under what theoretical and practical conditions different pedagogical practices can succeed in real world school settings between teachers and students. The preliminary data included 36 primary school teachers from urban public schools in Helsinki, Finland. The study used two complementary methods:…

This study analyzed informal Finnish compositions written by the first pupils in Vaasa (Finland) who were taught Swedish by immersion method and the compositions of their parallel class. Compositions in the fourth and fifth forms were compared. The immersion pupils were taught mostly in Swedish, while their peers in the parallel group were taught…