| 1. |
- Curtis, Reed T., 1984-
(författare)
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Without mast, without sails, without compass : Non-traditional trajectories into higher education and the duality of the folk-market
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 1809, the trajectory of Swedish history and the identities associated with the country changed after Finland was lost to Russia. Swedish General von Döbeln explained that the loss left the nation "without mast, without sails, without compass." The research within this dissertation is not of war but of a similar sense of loss. The loss of the folk-home.Through an abductive case-study of present-day students entering higher education, the author explores the sociocultural history of Sweden, the Swedish education system, student self-efficacy beliefs, and the educational trajectories students experience on their way into higher education. This research uses a mixed methods design where a quantitative survey and qualitative narrative interviews complement each other. First, students within an introduction to university learning summer course at a large research university in Sweden completed a psychosocial survey measuring their self-efficacy beliefs about their academic skills and career decision making abilities. A statistically significant correlation was found between the two measures. Second, 11 students from the same course participated in narrative interviews where they detailed their educational trajectories between upper-secondary education and higher education. The author constructed, analyzed, mapped, and discussed each narrative using careership and social cognitive theory. Students within this study suggest that their transition between compulsory education and upper-secondary education was particularly impactful and shaped their self-efficacy beliefs and educational trajectories into higher education. Students describe a lonely process of upper-secondary education decision making at the age of 15 when they were sent to market without preparation, without support, and without the necessary tools. The majority eventually changed academic programs and schools during upper-secondary education. This led to lengthy ruptures outside of formal education that significantly delayed their progress towards graduation. Students only later decided to pursue a non-traditional trajectory into higher education after the negative self-efficacy beliefs they developed during these ruptures were challenged externally.Lastly, previous research, theory, and the empirical findings were systematically combined through an interactive process of abduction. First, the author developed the concept of the folk-market, which better represents the current neoliberal welfare model present in late modern Sweden. The folk-market must be understood as a duality. The folk-market is both a market for folk and a market of folk. Citizens are both the consumers and the consumed. Second, the author presents folk-market theory, which suggests that neoliberal reforms that embed markets within welfare systems alter transition regimes, redirect state responsibility, and distance the connections citizens have with the state. Therefore, the findings suggest that notions of statist individualism misrepresent late modern Sweden. The relationships individuals and families have with the state are now indirect and filtered through the folk-market. This study also indicates that though Swedish, neoliberal, and adolescent narratives of "autonomous youth" are unrealistic, they directly shape educational policy in Sweden. As such, many students in Sweden are left navigating a competitive folk-market without mast, without sails, without compass.
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| 2. |
- Manninen, Katri
(författare)
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Experiencing authenticity : the core of student learning in clinical practice
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present thesis explored student learning at a clinical education ward with an explicit pedagogical framework. Although nursing students were the focus of the studies the intention is to gain more generally understanding of student learning in clinical settings. Learning in this thesis is understood as a transformative process that involves knowledge construction and meaning-making processes. Clinical education is carried out in real clinical work-places and consists of encounters with patients, healthcare professionals and peer students. Students train their future professional role in these encounters. Previous research has shown challenges that are tied to both organizational and pedagogical issues indicating that clinical learning environments are not always ideal. One way to meet these challenges is by introducing clinical education wards. These are units run collaboratively by educational institutions and the clinical settings; they train students on different levels and focus on inter-professional training or on one profession.The overall aim of the present thesis was to contribute to our understanding of students’ learning at a clinical education ward where students are supported in taking care of patients independently. A qualitative approach was used to explore students’ learning from the perspectives of students, patients and supervisors. The theory of transformative learning and the concepts of authenticity and threshold were used in interpreting and understanding of the findings.The results show that the core of student learning at a clinical education ward is the experience of both external and internal authenticity In Study I, first-year nursing students created mutual relationships with patients and expressed feelings of belongingness, which resulted in experiences of both external and internal authenticity. Experiencing authenticity resulted in learning and understanding of nursing and students’ future professional role.In Study II, final-year students’ learning turned out to be more complex; they experienced only external authenticity, with feelings of ambivalence and selfcentredness creating uncertainty as a threshold for their learning. Taking care of patients in need of extensive nursing care helped students overcome the threshold and experience internal authenticity as well.Study III explored student-patient encounters and showed that mutual relationships resulted in learning relationships, where patients were active participants in student learning.In Study IV, supervisors’ approaches to student learning were explored, and the supervisors’ role was shown to involve balancing patient care and student learning by having a nursing care plan for patients and a learning plan for students. Supervisors allowed students to have independence while giving them adequate support at the same time.To conclude, authenticity makes learning meaningful, and students need to experience both external and internal authenticity in their learning process. Patients’ active participation and supervisors giving both challenges and support are essential to students’ learning. An explicit pedagogical framework based on patient-centredness, peer-learning and supervisors working as a team creates prerequisites for experiences of external and internal authenticity. The present thesis points out that creating possibilities for experiencing authenticity should be the basis for designing clinical learning environments.
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| 3. |
- Bonnevier, Anna, 1970-
(författare)
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Understanding learning and learning for understanding : Exploring medical students' personal understandings of learning tasks and experiences of learning and understanding in medicine
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The central concern of the thesis is to problematise the complexity of the relationship between student learning and the teaching-learning environment in medicine as experienced by students. The thesis argues that learning material presented to students offers only potential for learning. What students make of that potential is influenced by a number of different variables and as such this needs to be investigated empirically. High-quality learning is an important goal for all higher education and previous research together with the empirical findings presented in this thesis convey the importance for students to seek a holistic approach to learning. Such a learning approach encompasses not only learning of facts and theories but also includes exercising an ability to reflect and reason, to organise facts and theories into wholes, and to explore how they relate to each other. Most importantly, it involves the ability to understand the grounds on which facts and theories are chosen for specific purposes depending on context. The thesis explores these issues by drawing on findings from three studies of medical students’ experiences of learning and understanding and how students’ personal understandings of subject content in medicine come to the fore in their work on learning tasks. By applying a context-oriented methodological perspective on learning, focusing on what students actually do in a learning situation, the thesis enables an in-depth investigation of relationships between aspects of content, context and the individual. The results show that the learning environment in the medical programme to a large extent does not make sufficient room for students to express understanding of this dynamic character. In the thesis it is argued that to facilitate such an understanding it is necessary for both students and teachers to increase awareness of the context-dependency of subject content, facts and theories, and the different meanings content takes depending on context of use.
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| 4. |
- Garrote Jurado, Ramon, 1962-
(författare)
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Educational Software in Engineering Education
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis contributes to the quality of engineering education and the accessibility of education worldwide by promoting computer-enhanced teaching and learning. It uses the epistemology of John Dewey (1859-1952) and the action research methodology first advanced by Kurt Lewin (1890-1947). A mixed methods approach that combines qualitative case studies with quantitative research methods is used.In the first of three case studies engineering students working on their final degree projects participated. To elicit interaction, a learning management system (LMS) was used and the students were strongly encouraged to discuss various aspects of their work.The second case focused on the barriers to a wider utilization of educational software in engineering education. The case is delimited to lecturers at the School of Engineering at the University of Borås. The investigation focuses on the lecturers’ reluctance to use educational technology and the slow uptake of new pedagogical methods in engineering education.The third case study covers three subsets of participants. A course intended to improve lecturers handling skills and motivation to utilize educational software in a pedagogically sound manner was given in Cuba, Guatemala and Peru.The first case demonstrated that computer-enhanced collaborative learning can improve the learning experience and performance of engineering students. The second case showed that LMS tools that facilitate traditional methods are used routinely, whereas lecturers often refrain from using features intended to facilitate collaboration and the creation of communities of learners.The third case study investigated the use of a complete course package, with all course material and software contained on the same USB drive (LiveUSB Mediated Education, LUME). It is asserted that LUME can facilitate constructivist pedagogical methods and help overcome the reluctance of lecturers to utilize educational software in a pedagogical sound way.
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| 5. |
- Murstedt, Linda, 1977-
(författare)
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Lärande, värderingar och statsvetenskap : Studenters tolkningar av genus- och nationsbegreppet
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sociologists and feminist researchers have emphasized the prevalence of taken for granted notions about political concepts. Nation and gender are examples of concepts that are often perceived as non-political and “natural”. Researchers have understood these concepts as related to self-perception, and studies have demonstrated that students tend to perceive gender perspectives as pseudoscientific.From an educational perspective, this raises questions as to how values are involved in students’ learning processes. Over the last 20 years, an increasing number of researchers have characterized conceptual change as affective in nature. However, few empirical studies have put effort into investigating affective aspects of the conceptual change process. This thesis adds to this research discussion by offering an empirically rooted conceptualisation of the value-oriented dimension of the learning process. The thesis is based on three empirical studies that investigate how students interpret tasks challenging them to adopt a critical and structural perspective of ‘nation’ and ‘gender’. Drawing on qualitative analyses of tape-recorded group discussions and written home exams, the thesis argues that students bring in other ideas than those advocated in the specific teaching settings with regard to three topics. Firstly, students express values relating to power, meaning when and how it is legitimate to speak about power. Secondly, students express values that concern how science should be practised. Thirdly, students express values related to identity that revolve around how “I” relate (or not) to the concepts taught in the particular course setting. These results suggest that students enter the classroom with personal ideas and principles of what is “good” or “right” when practising political science, and that values can be seen as a key aspect in understanding the complexities of students’ learning processes in this particular subject area.
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| 6. |
- Odhammar, Fredrik, 1963-
(författare)
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Möten i psykodynamisk barnpsykoterapi : Förväntningar, samspel och förändring
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to increase the knowledge of courses and processes of change prior to and during psychodynamic child psychotherapy with parallel parent contact. The dissertation examines parents’ and psychotherapists’ stated goals and expectations prior to the child’s psychotherapy, processes of change focusing on the psychotherapeutic encounter between child and psychotherapist, and outcome gauged by standardized measures compared to experienced change regarding the child’s problems. This dissertation also wants to examine different instruments for describing the psychotherapeutic process. Data was collected from systematic case studies, at different times during the course of psychotherapy, with material from different sources, such as child psychiatric assessment before and after conducted psychotherapy, questionnaires, and video taping of therapy sessions. By examining the therapeutic encounter from the perspectives of child, parent and psychotherapist, an image of psychotherapy, which illustrates the complexity of the psychotherapeutic process, was created. The thesis is based on three articles: Study I examines parents’ and psychotherapists’ goals and expectations prior to psychotherapy. Study II is a close study of a video-taped individual therapy, in which the interaction between child and therapist is examined with the rating instrument Child Psychotherapy Q-set (CPQ), the psychotherapist’s description of the psychotherapy’s process, and the self-rating instrument Feeling Word Checklist (FWC-24). Study III examines change in global functioning ability after child psychotherapy. By examining several psychotherapies in order to construct qualitative understanding of low and high change, respectively, in rated global functioning, limitations in the rating instrument Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) are analyzed. The results point to: 1. The need for a culture of cooperation between family and the one conducting the treatment, where goals are formulated together and in accordance with the family’s frame of reference and life experiences, which can increase the possibility of creating positive expectations, and of adapting treatment to the family in question. 2. Different methods of examining psychotherapy reflect and complete the image of the psychotherapy process. 3. The psychotherapy process’s complexity and the difficulty in describing the effect of therapy with simple measurements or remaining psychiatric symptoms. Positive change in several areas, such as the child experiencing increased independence, gets access to more positive affections, has improved self-esteem and a more optimistic idea of the future, could be described as psychological phenomena and can be difficult to encompass with narrow psychiatric terminology. 4. The intersubjectivity between child and psychotherapist appears essential. The therapist’s attitude and interventions are characterized by creating a steady therapeutic framework for exploring the child’s problems. 5. The importance of the therapist’s meta-competence, i.e., overarching competencies that psychotherapists need to use to guide any intervention, what interventions to use, and when they are suitable.
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| 7. |
- Haglund, Liza, 1959-
(författare)
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Towards Epistemic and Interpretative Holism : A critique of methodological approaches in research on learning
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The central concern of this thesis is to discuss interpretations of learning in educational research. A point of departure is taken in core epistemological and ontological assumptions informing three major approaches to learning: behaviourism, cognitive constructivism and socioculturalism. It is argued that all three perspectives provide important insights into research on learning, but each alone runs the risk of reducing learning and interpretations of learning to single aspects. Specific attention is therefore given to Intentional Analysis, as it has been developed to account for sociocultural aspects that influence learning and individual cognition. It is argued that interpretations of learning processes face challenges, different kinds of holism, underdetermination and the complexity of intentionality, that need to be accounted for in order to make valid interpretations. Interpretation is therefore also discussed in light of philosopher Donald Davidson’s theories of knowledge and interpretation. It is suggested that his theories may provide aspects of an ontological and epistemological stance that can form the basis for interpretations of learning in educational research. A first brief sketch, referred to as ‘epistemic holism’, is thus drawn. The thesis also exemplifies how such a stance can inform empirical research. It provides a first formulation of research strategies – a so-called ‘interpretative holism’. The thesis discusses what such a stance may imply with regard to the nature and location of knowledge and the status of the learning situation. Ascribing meaning to observed behaviour, as it is described in this thesis, implies that an action is always an action under a specific description. Different descriptions may not be contradictory, but if we do not know the learner’s language use, we cannot know whether there is a difference in language or in beliefs. It is argued that the principle of charity and reference to saliency, that is, what appears as the figure for the learner, may help us decide. However, saliency does not only appear as a phenomenon in relation to physical objects and events, but also in the symbolic world, thus requires that the analysis extend beyond the mere transcription of an interview or the description of an observation. Hence, a conclusion to be drawn from this thesis is that the very question of what counts as data in the interpretation of complex learning processes is up for discussion.
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| 8. |
- Trostek, Jonas von Reybekiel, 1977-
(författare)
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Normativa aspekter av individers begreppsbildning : Hur gymnasieelever och studenter skapar och förhåller sig till idéer om genus och nation
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The cognitive models that research on conceptual change has generated have been the subject of criticism, suggesting that these reflect an unrealistic view of learning as an overly “cold” and isolated process. Accordingly, representatives of this criticism suggest that research on conceptual change should investigate to what extent the cold cognition relates to “warm” affective constructs. In the present thesis, the warmth is not considered as prior to conceptual change, but is inferred from the very process of conceptual change itself. The aim is to investigate and describe how this warmth – in terms of normativity – is expressed in conceptual change and how individuals, in these processes, emerge as subjects in their interchange with the environment. This is done by exploring what students do when they make meaning of gender and nation in interviews and exam papers. The results show that the students mainly relate to two different norm-systems, including six normative aspects of conceptual change. The first system includes the goal to challenge or emancipate, the means to problematize, and engagement in the interviews or exams. Furthermore, it includes critical theory as an ideal, social structures and power as values, and me as a social being and actions as part of a tradition as what to make meaning of. The second system includes the goal to preserve, the means to claim how it “is”, and engagement in the interviews or exams. Furthermore, it includes psychological/biological reductionism as an ideal, essences and a natural order as values, and me as an individual and actions as an outcome of intentions as what to make meaning of. By understanding what the students do as interfering with these normative aspects, it becomes possible to understand them as negotiating norms that are brought to the fore. With this, “coldness” appears to be a misleading epithet of conceptual change.
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| 9. |
- Öhrstedt, Maria, 1967-
(författare)
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Högskolestudenters lärande : Ett lärstrategiskt perspektiv på studier i psykologi
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- University students’ approaches to learning influence academic achievement and qualities in learning outcomes. Approaches to learning develop in a process where student factors interact with factors of the learning context. Students’ subjective perceptions of their learning environment seem to be crucial.This thesis draws on an established research stand in aiming to contribute to a deeper understanding of how students adapt their approaches to learning to perceived contextual factors in a specific learning context. In three studies, conceptions for development and variation of approaches to learning among psychology students at a Swedish university are examined.Study I examined how approaches to learning vary with expected and final course grades, and student abilities to predict academic achievement (N = 189). Overall, students had low self-assessment skills, with students adopting surface approach to learning having the poorest skills. Students adopting a strategic approach to learning achieved high grades, while students adopting a surface approach to learning had poorer performances. Students adopting a deep approach to learning expected high grades but the exam did not favour a deep approach.Study II aimed at describing similarities in factors that psychology students themselves, despite them adopting different approaches to learning, considered influenced their studying activities. A selective student sample described their studying activities in repeated interviews (N = 11, N = 7). The development of approaches to learning was described as a negotiation where different aspects of learning were related to each other. The students described a common set of reference points: 1) previous studying activities, 2) course recommendations, 3) learning outcomes, 4) assessment demands, and 5) estimated effort. Despite great variation in students’ tendencies to adapt approaches to learning, the adaption process resulted in a gradual homogenization of studying activities.Study III examined whether minor variations in parallel learning contexts would give rise to differences in students’ regulation of approaches to learning and whether tendencies to vary differed between students with different approaches to learning (N = 195). All approaches to learning varied between learning contexts, but the strategic approach to learning varied less than surface and deep approaches. Students with a low surface, a high deep or a high strategic approach to learning varied most, while students with a high surface, a low deep or a low strategic approach to learning were more stable.The results show that approaches to learning among psychology students seem to develop in a process of negotiation where different aspects of learning are interrelated. For strategic reasons, examinations seem to drive students towards a surface approach to learning. Students’ shared interpretations of factors of the learning context seem to result in a gradual homogenisation of studying activities, despite different students showing different tendencies to adapt their approaches to learning to a specific learning context. A strategic approach seems optimal for academic achievement. In summary, this thesis shows how fine-grained studies can contribute to a deeper understanding of the context specific development of students’ approaches to learning.
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| 10. |
- Lumma-Sellenthin, Antje
(författare)
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Learning professional skills and attitudes : Medical students' attitudes towards communication skills and group learning
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Medical education aims at forming students’ professional identity. This includes skills and attitudes such as communication and teamwork skills. One of the thesis’ aims is to identify students’ typical difficulties with learning communication skills, and to understand how these affect their identity development. Group discussions of student-patient interviews were video-taped, and selected discussions were transcribed and analyzed. Students had difficulties in establishing trustful relationships with their patients, asking about sensitive topics, responding empathetically, and with applying formal structures to the consultation. Students’ professional identity was supported by peer students’ and teachers’ comments, which created a common language and fostered selfmonitoring abilities. Another aim was to study the relationship between students* attitude towards communication training, group learning, and their self-regulatory skills. In a survey study, established instruments were combined with a new questionnaire. Four medical schools participated – two with traditional and two with problem-based curricula – in Sweden and Germany. Statistical analyses revealed that female students were more positive towards learning communication skills than male students were. Good self-regulatory skills were related to a positive attitude towards group learning and clinical experience before academic studies. It was concluded that early clinical experience benefits students’ selfregulated learning, and promotes a positive attitude towards communication training. Awareness of typical difficulties can facilitate the acquisition of coping strategies.
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