Inclusive education requires staff commitment to the principles of inclusion, and teacher training is crucial to fulfilling its goals. However, research on higher education teacher educators' inclusive dispositions is lacking, particularly in the Finnish or Nordic context. To redress this situation, psychometrically sound research instruments are…

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable "Environmental Attitude Scale" (EAS) for secondary school (5th, 8th grade), high school (11th) and undergraduate college students. The reliability and validity studies of the scale were carried out in three different countries (Finland, USA and Turkey). The sampling size was…

Although temperament and motivation both reflect individual differences in what is perceived as rewarding or threatening, and what is to be approached and what avoided, respectively, we know rather little about how they are connected in educational settings. In this study, we examined how different aspects of temperament (reward and punishment…

The use of inquiry-based learning (IBL) is encouraged in schools, as it has been shown to be an effective method for raising students' motivation in STEM subjects and increasing their understanding of scientific concepts. Nevertheless, IBL is not very often used in classrooms by teachers due to different (perceived) obstacles. Within the Ark of…

Purpose: Systems intelligence (SI) (Saarinen and Hämäläinen, 2004) is a construct defined as a person's ability to act intelligently within complex systems involving interaction and feedback. SI relates to our ability to act in systems and reason about systems to adaptively carry out productive actions within and with respect to systems such as…

Fostering agency as a core component of professionalism is seen as a critical task of higher education. However, the tools for assessing university students' agency, and the pedagogical and relational resources needed for its development, are lacking. The present study describes the theoretical foundations and factor structure of the newly…

Research Findings: This study examined the applicability of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) and its underpinning framework of teaching through interactions in typical Chinese kindergarten classrooms. A sample of 180 kindergarten classrooms in China was selected, and the CLASS was used to…

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Secondary (CLASS-S) in Finnish classrooms. Trained observers coded classroom interactions based on video recordings of 46 Grade 6 classrooms (450 cycles). Concurrent associations were investigated with respect to teacher self-ratings (e.g., efficacy beliefs…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership and distributed leadership enacted by school principals are tested in a simultaneous design as predictor to two distinct yet related aspects of teachers' sense…

The aim of this study was to investigate symptoms of social anxiety and the psychometric properties of the "Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents" (SAS-A) among Finnish adolescents, 13-16 years of age. Study 1 (n = 867) examined the distribution of SAS-A scores according to gender and age, and the internal consistency and factor structure…

This study examined whether teacher-rated versus self-rated student temperaments are different in relation to the school grades in Maths and Mother language (ML) instruction in a nationally representative sample of Finnish Secondary School students (n?=?1,063, mean age 15.1 years). The results indicated that teacher-rated temperament was more…

This article reports on the development of a short questionnaire to measure work engagement--a positive work-related state of fulfillment that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Data were collected in 10 different countries (N = 14,521), and results indicated that the original 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) can be…