Erkki Olkinuora

Adaptation, Motivational Orientation, and Cognition in a Subnormally Performing Child: A Systemic Perspective for Training

In spite of the fact that many advanced cognitive and motivational training programs have been carried out successfully, we are still faced with the difficulty of achieving satisfactory transfer and generalization as well as spontaneous execution and elaboration of cognitive strategies. This is particularly true for the learning-disabled (LD) and educable mentally retarded (EMR) subjects (e.g., Borkowski & Buchel, 1983; Gelzheiser, 1985; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Paris & Oka, 1989; Wong, 1986). Another troublesome problem is that, despite the promising results at group level, little is known of during-the-training or posttraining transactions contributing to differential individual developments. Actually, we have almost no scientific basis for inferring why certain individuals respond positively to the treatment, whereas others do not. Even less is known of the interactions in which the trainees engage after having returned to normal instructional settings. These problems reflect a basic lack of theoretical understanding concerning the interactive nature of subnormal performance and cannot be solved merely by more refined focusing of diagnostic/ remedial procedures on hypothetical deficiencies.

A follow-up study of medical students’ biomedical understanding and clinical reasoning concerning the cardiovascular system

Novice medical students usually hold initial conceptions concerning medical domains, such as the cardiovascular system, which may contradict scientific explanations and thus hinder learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate which kinds of biomedical representations medical students constructed of the central cardiovascular system in their first and second years of study, and how the quality of these representations was related to the students’ success in clinical reasoning. Data for 119 medical students were collected in three phases: in the first year of study before and after a cardiovascular course and a follow-up in the second year of study. Biomedical and clinical assignments were utilised. The study revealed that students had a substantial number of different misconceptions, and they decreased only slightly over the period of instruction. Those students who had misconceptions concerning biomedical knowledge also performed poorly in clinical reasoning. Furthermore, those students whose clinical reasoning was excellent had improved their biomedical knowledge between the first and second year remarkably more than students with poorer clinical reasoning. Hence, biomedical understanding seems to act as a mediator in clinical reasoning among novice students. We suggest that domain-specific pedagogical training, which would help medical educators become aware of students’ typical misconceptions concerning biomedical knowledge and the role of this knowledge in clinical reasoning, should be carried out to improve medical education.

Education or Learning on the Job? Generational Differences of Opinions in Finland.

In this article, we are interested in what kind of opinions people belonging to different generations have on work experience and formal education. Mannheim’s theory on generations is used as a general frame of reference. The questions asked in the article are: is education appreciated more by young people who have been able to participate in it on a large scale, or by older people to whom further education often remained an unfulfilled dream? Do older people put more emphasis on work experience, because on average they have much more work experience than schooling? The starting point of the article is that the changing educational circumstances have arguably shaped the thinking and world viewof generations, and their opinions on formal education and work experience. In addition, the value of education as a currency on the labour market has changed continuously.

Riding the information highway—towards a new kind of learning

In the modern world, skimming through information quickly and finding the important nuggets of knowledge from amongst the information overload is an essential skill. One way to train oneself for this kind of literacy is reading on the internet, which requires continuous assessment of search results and specifying searches. In this article a central question is in which ways computer usage is connected with literacy needed in everyday life, which can be called functional literacy. We also examine what kind of an effect generation, occupational status and education have on the connection between computer use and literacy. Finnish data from the Second International Adult Literacy Survey (SIALS), carried out in 1998, is used. Three domains were examined in SIALS – prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy. Real‐life texts, figures and tables were used in the tests. According to the results, there were more good readers among those who regularly used computers for searching for information and reading on the internet. While the youngest scored highest in literacy, the use of computers for information seeking purposes was also connected to better literacy in the older age groups. The lowest educated appeared to benefit the most from the use of computers.