Background: Research on gender differences and practical initiatives to attract girls to engineering are often carried out at the macro level where science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are aggregated into an entity called STEM. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article challenges the aggregated approach, analyzes gender differences among…

This paper problematizes the argument that technology supports spaceless education, and analyses how space acts during remote teaching. This study examines how physical spaces can act as un/equalizer among higher education students. With interview data produced by international students studying in Finnish universities during the outbreak of the…

This study explored the perceptions of ethical issues in supervision among doctoral students and supervisors. The nature of ethical issues identified by doctoral students (n = 28) and their supervisors (n = 14) is explored and the degree of fit and misfit between their perceptions in two cases representing the natural and behavioural sciences is…

The post-doctoral phase is characterized by a high level of competition and even a risk of unemployment due to the increasing number of PhDs. This study explores the function of social support or lack of it in post PhD researchers' engaging and disengaging experiences from the beginning of their careers as researchers. The data were collected from…

Non-formal science education means goal-oriented learning outside of school. The use of out of school learning environments (e.g. science camps) has been found to increase motivation and interest in natural sciences. In this study, the relevance of non-formal science education in science camps has been analyzed from the perspectives of children…

Doctoral studies are about learning to create new knowledge and to become a researcher. Yet surprisingly little is known about the individual learning patterns of doctoral students. The study aims to explore learning patterns among natural science doctoral students. The participants included 19 doctoral students from a top-level natural science…

This study focuses on a youth science camp for pupils in sixth to ninth grades that is organized annually by the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The main idea of the science camp is to learn to do guided inquiry in nature. The study investigates the significance of science camp for encouraging young participants to learn science and how the camp…

In the economic pressure of recent decades, many universities have invested in increasing the number of accessed and graduated students. However, this has led to another problem: there is not enough higher learning in higher education. According to generally accepted view, the problem lies in the eagerness of overplaying immediate skills in…

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine how a collective knowledge-creation-oriented approach to doctoral education is being adopted in research within the field of education. The authors interviewed nine leaders of national centres of excellence in science research and 12 education professors whose research communities cultivate…

So far the research on historical environment-related education has focused on scientific rather than "humanistic" (including Romantic and religious) educational approaches and ideologies. In the field of non-formal education implemented by associations these have, however, been common. We used content analysis to study two membership…

This study investigates how doctoral students perceive research work in the context of their own PhD projects. Thirty-two students from a Finnish university were interviewed, representing three disciplines: medicine, natural sciences and behavioural sciences. Their conceptions of research varied in terms of describing research as "a job to…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate knowledge-creating agency by examining doctoral students' accounts of their pursuits, using structured interviews. We examined all of the talk apparently related to agency of 13 doctoral students taking part in collective doctoral training in two, highly regarded Finnish research communities…

This study focused on exploring students' and supervisors' perceptions of ethical problems in doctoral supervision in the natural sciences. Fifteen supervisors and doctoral students in one research community in the natural sciences were interviewed about their practices and experiences in the doctoral process and supervision. We explored to what…

The theme of this paper is students' interest in future natural sciences-related careers. It is based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment survey that in 2006 focused attention on the science literacy achievements of students. The paper uses the methods of linear regression modelling and structural equation modelling in…

Data identified two essential contradictions within the development of Finnish primary and secondary pupils' natural-scientific consciousness: one between the dominant biological-biologistic conception and the emerging physical-chemical or universal conception of the laws of nature; the other between religious and natural-scientific conceptions of…