Voices of Researchers, Educational Developers
and Students in Supporting Study Paths in
Finnish Higher Education
Päivikki Jääskelä and Pia Nissilä
University of Jyväskylä
Department of Teacher Education
Knowledge producing system as a whole
• Guidance as a systemic entity – The focus of this
conference
• Holistic approach to research - Gibbons & al. (1994)
•
•
Our theoretical starting point
Instead of demarcations between science and non-science, research is
seen as more heterogeneus set of knowledge practitioners
 Who is participating in producing knowledge
related to studying and guidance in higher
education?
Heterogeneus voices from 2000 to 2008
• Researchers: Referee-articles in national and international
scientific journals, and dissertations
• Educational developers: Articles in national pedagogical
journals in higher education (universities and universities of
applied sciences)
• Students: masters theses and theses in universities of applied
sciences
What themes do different knowledge producers
deal with?
• What are the research themes related to studying, pedagogy
and guidance in HE?
• What themes educational delevopers write about?
• What kind of themes students are interested in?
Data from different databases
• Search from national databases by keywords: Union cataloques
containing Finnish articles (ARTO) dissertations, master’s
theses, monographs and compilations (LINDA)
•
Ca. 20 subject keywords associating studying and learning in higher education,
teaching and guidance, working life, competence and expertice, student exhange and
practical training, academic and professional identity. In addition, some truncated
keywords were used.
• Systematic search for articles by Finnish reseachers from
international journals classified in ”Arts and humanities” and ”
Social Sciences”
•
Over 20 e-journals eg. Higher Education, Learning and Instruction, International
Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance.
• Systematic search for articles from national journals
•
Two referee-journals and two pedagogical journals
• Supplementary search from Eric database
Analysis
• Content analysis is based on titles (national publications and
theses) and titles and abstracts (international journal articles)
• We aimed at getting multiple dimensions of the data, therefore
we classified each title as many categories it belongs to
(categories do not exclude each other)
Number of
Data (2000-2008)
sources
Total
frequency
1655
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
925
273
f
317
140
Researchers
(Articles
Dissertations)
Educational
developers
(Pedagogical
articles)
Students
(Thesis)
Multiple voices
(Monographs
Type of
Compilations)
sources
Preliminary themes emerged
from data
• Studying: Learning skills, styles and strategies, study orientation, study motivation, selfregulation, self-assesment, learning outcomes, study success, study stress, problems of
learning, socialization to study community, students’ union activities, academic self-beliefs,
critical thinking and argumentation, students’ prior knowledge and pre-understanding, study
activity, abandonment, change of main subject, student exchange, different ways to study,
writing thesis, collaborative learning, social interaction, students’ experiences of equality,
absence
• Pedagogy and guidance: Different methods of teaching and guidance (eg. peer
tutoring and tutoring by staff, dialogical pedagogy), pedagogical arrangements, different
guidance services, guidance of PSP, teaching experiments, course or curriculum
development (eg. problem-based learning), development of learning environment (eg. virtual
learning enviroment), accessibility
• Education and working life: Practical training, expertise and competence,
professional identity, orientation to entrepreneurship, working life experiences, tranfer to
working life, job acquisition, relationship between HE and working life
• Studying in relation to student’s life as a whole: Studying in relation
to family (eg. motherhood), work, military service, professional sport or musicianship,
freetime, fysical or psychological well-being, loneliness, standard of living, experiences as
foreign students
How about themes by different
voices?
RESEARCHERS
(n=317)
EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPERS
(n=140)
Pedagogy and guidance
Studying
Education and working life
Pedagogy and guidance
Studying
Education and working life
STUDENTS
(n=925)
Studying
Education and working life
Pedagogy and guidance
Student’s life as a whole
Note: Larger font
size and bold
style indicate the
level of emphasis
within each voice.
What about the preliminary results in relation to the
conference theme ”guidance system as a systemic
entity”?
• Approach of the conference is in line with our theoretical
framework: holistic view of learning, pedagogy and guidance
system
•
•
•
•
Viewpoint of student
Study path as a whole
Studying in relation to student’s life as a whole (psychosocial well-being, working life
orientation)
Pedagogy and guidance services as a systemic entity (curriculum development, and
whole higher education institution as a learning environment including eg. career
guidance, health care system, pedagocical and guidance practices, library services)
• The study is a part of Finnish ESF-project ”Developing guidance
and working life skills in HE” (started at 2009) – Purpose of this
study is to produce pre-understanding of the phenomena
Critical findings from the holistic view of learning,
pedagogy and guidance system
• The views of students is not emphasized: only 24 % of the
research, and 4 % of the educational developing work cover the
theme; on the other hand 61 % of the master’s thesis handle this
theme
• Study path appeared as fragments eg. conserning beginning of
the studies or transfer to working life, but not as a whole
• Research and developmental work concentrated on studying as
such, not on it’s relation with student’s life as a whole; on the
other hand 11 % of the students were interested in this theme
• Pedagogy and guidance services as a systemic entity:There is a
lot of research and developmental work concerning pedagogical
development and development of seperate guidance services,
but not a system as a whole
Finally:
• Preliminary results call for more systemic
approach: If we want to understand and
support students as whole human beings in
their study paths, could we develop our
guidance system more collaboratively?
Thank You!
paivikki.jaaskela@jyu.fi and pia.nissila@jyu.fi