Janne Pietarinen

Early career teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom: associations with turnover intentions and perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction

ABSTRACT Teachers’ capacity to learn intentionally and responsively in the classroom is particularly vulnerable during the first years in the profession. This study investigated the interrelations between early career teachers’ turnover intentions, perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction, and sense of professional agency in the classroom. The survey data were collected from 284 in-service teachers with not more than 5 years of experience and analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that the negative relation between turnover intentions and early career teachers’ sense of professional agency was completely mediated by perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction. The results indicate that experiences of insufficient abilities to solve pedagogically and socially challenging student situations have a crucial effect on early career teacher’s capacity for adaptive reflection and active transformation of instruction.

Social support as a contributor to student teachers’ experienced well-being

Abstract The aim of this study is to gain better understanding of the dynamics of the social support system adopted in teacher education and its significance for the student teachers’ experienced well-being. The focus was on exploring the extent to which empowering emotional, informational or instrumental support is enabled for student teachers during their studies. Altogether, 40 student teachers were interviewed, and the data were subjected to content analysis. The results showed that the student teachers faced both empowering and burdening experiences involving social support, or lack of it. Informational support was the most frequently reported. Further, most of the informational and emotional support was appropriate and was received from both peers and teacher educators. Conversely, a lack of or inadequate support was experienced burdening. However, active efforts to develop a more supportive social environment – i.e. offering or giving social support for others – were rarely described.

Large-Scale Curriculum Reform in Finland--Exploring the Interrelation between Implementation Strategy, the Function of the Reform, and Curriculum Coherence.

ABSTRACT The study aims to gain a better understanding of the national large-scale curriculum process in terms of the used implementation strategies, the function of the reform, and the curriculum coherence perceived by the stakeholders accountable in constructing the national core curriculum in Finland. A large body of school reform literature has shown that a central determinant for the effectiveness of curriculum reform is the way in which the reform is implemented. Accordingly, implementing curriculum reform always entails translation of the new ideas into new educational practices, which involves complex sense-making processes from those involved. Altogether, 117 stakeholders accountable in constructing the national core curriculum in Finland completed a survey. The results showed that the effect of the implementation strategy for the perceived curriculum coherence was mediated by the perceived educational impact of the reform both for the school and society. The mediated interrelation between the top-down–bottom-up implementation strategy in the curriculum process, and the estimated coherence in the written core curriculum implies that the objects of the activities, namely elaborating and focusing on the educational impact of the decisions, is a crucial determinant for achieving curriculum coherence, and further, facilitating sustainable school development at the local level.

Student teachers’ self- and co-regulation of learning during teacher education

Self-regulative learning skills are extremely important contributors in student teacher learning. Also, interest in co-regulation in learning as a facilitator for pupils’ self-regulation skills and an ability to learn how to support peers’ regulated learning has increased significantly during the past decade. Still, our understanding of student teachers’ co- and self-regulative learning during their studies is shallow. This study aims to explore student teachers’ self- and co-regulation of learning, including their elements and qualities embedded in various contexts of teacher education. In this study 19 primary school student teachers from a large research-based Finnish university were interviewed. The data were content analysed by applying an abductive strategy. The results showed that student teachers applied self-regulated learning more often than co-regulated learning, and that teaching practice provided a primary arena for regulative learning. Further investigation revealed that although self- and co-regulation had the same components, they differed in terms of the quality of regulation. Our findings suggest that co-regulated learning activities that involve peers and teacher educators reached a more profound and meaningful level when learning to become a teacher than learning activities involving self-regulated activities.

The way ahead for Finnish comprehensive school? Examining state-level school administrators’ theory of change

Abstract A significant body of evidence shows that the goals of educational reforms are seldom fully achieved. Some research suggests that the problem lies in state-level curriculum reform work that lacks a sufficient understanding of the educational reality. However, views and perceptions among the central architects of the reforms have not been thoroughly studied. This study provides an insight into these views. The data comprise 23 semi-structured interviews with officials from the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) who conducted the Finnish Comprehensive School Core Curriculum Reform (2013–2014). FNBE officials’ perceptions of the triggers and aims of the reform—considered as their ‘theory of change’—are explored with qualitative analysis by identifying issues they wanted to preserve or react to, and the issues that should be worked towards and positioned as goals in the future. The results show that there is a somewhat shared theory of change among the architects of Finnish curriculum reform. The chief issues considered as things to react to were related to society, whereas the most common aims were related to pedagogy, such as moving away from traditional teaching towards pupil-centred collaborative learning. However, the theory of change was complex and included possibly contradictory elements.

What if Teachers Learn in the Classroom

This study focuses on exploring teacher learning in terms of teachers’ professional agency embedded in the classroom. Teachers’ sense of professional agency is related to perceiving instruction as a bidirectional process, use of students as a resource for professional learning and continuous reflection on teaching practices. Accordingly, the capacity to cross the boundaries in teacher learning contributes active professional agency and, consequently to work-related well-being. Hence, the interrelations between teachers’ sense of professional agency and the burnout they experienced were also analysed. Altogether 2310 Finnish comprehensive school teachers, including primary, subject and special education teachers, completed the study survey. The results indicated that active professional agency, promoting both learning and well-being, requires not just reflecting and adapting but also efforts to learn at work. Moreover this requires not just self-directed and active professional practice but also learning at the boundaries and creating new professional knowledge together with students and colleagues.

Teacher’s professional agency – a relational approach to teacher learning

ABSTRACT The study aims to gain a better understanding of the complexity of teacher learning by exploring the elements of teachers’ sense of professional agency in the two primary contexts of teachers’ work: the professional community and the classroom. Moreover, the relationship with agentic learning in these contexts is studied. A total of 2310 primary and secondary school teachers completed the survey and the resulting data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results confirmed that teacher learning in terms of professional agency is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon that cannot be reduced, and hence cannot be explained by a single behavioural attribute. The findings also indicated that the objects of learning and teachers’ approaches to their learning determined the contextual variation in terms of professional agency. The results also showed that experienced agency in the classroom is dependent on teacher learning in the professional community. This implies that engaging teachers in learning outside their classrooms provides an effective strategy for improving instructional practices, and further, student learning.

Leading a school through change – principals’ hands-on leadership strategies in school reform

ABSTRACT Principal’s hands-on strategies reflecting their theories of changing have a substantial effect on the development of their schools and on how the large-scale reform takes root. The study explores five comprehensive school principals’ leadership strategies during a large-scale school reform in Finland. The principals’ strategies in the middle of reform acknowledged the process nature of leading and involved coherence-making. The inclusive and learning-oriented strategies were applied quite consistently in terms of the horizontal, but not so much in the vertical coherence-making. Exclusive strategies we used to decrease teachers’ workload. Principals’ theories of changing seem to focus on creating and protecting teachers’ opportunities for meaningful learning.