What about Study Motivation? Students´ and Teachers’ Perspectives on What Affects Study Motivation

This article presents a literature review focusing on international research concerning distance education and students’ study strategies during the last 20 years. As distance education in higher education is a steadily growing trend and in particular because the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the transition from campus education to different forms of distance education, knowledge about students’ study strategies and appropriate teaching strategies has become highly important. With this research review, we aimed to identify patterns and trends in research on distance education focusing students study strategies before and after the pandemic. The research synthesis identified and interpreted similarities and differences in the studies’ designs and findings, which we analyzed using integrative thematic analysis. Students’ study strategies seem to have changed to some extent during the pandemic, with more emphasis on their own responsibility and the need for a developed teaching strategy to align with the changing framework related to the emergency provision of distance education. We concluded that students have to develop metacognitive strategies, because self-regulated learning and a more flexible pedagogy seem to be important in teachers’ transitions and competence in digitalization. Therefore, more research targeting these aspects is needed.

In Swedish leisure-time-centers, there is a daily activity for about half a million children. It is characterized by a complexity including, for example, changes in steering documents, lack of an accentuated pedagogy and a changing profession. Against this background, this study focuses on leisure-time-teachers' perceptions of curriculum implementation and possible impact in the leisure-time-center education practice. The empirical data consists of individual interviews, focus groups and field studies. In the study, theories of curriculum didactics and organizational theory are combined. As an analytical concept, curriculum implementation and cross pressures are used. The result shows that the values ​​and tasks that the leisure-time-teachers emphasize in relation to the steering documents are social skills, professional ambivalence and the status of leisure-time-centers. Strategies personnel use is high leadership structure, reactive confirmation of steering documents and traditional leisure-time activities. Restrictions in the professional practice are the low status of activities in leisure-time-centers compared with traditional school activities, lack of time for implementation, "schooling" and unclearness in the steering documents' descriptions. This means that several stressful cross pressure are experienced in different ways at work, which complicates the realization of the curriculum's intentions. I svenska fritidshem pågår i en daglig verksamhet för cirka en halv miljon barn. Den präglas av en komplexitet omfattande exempelvis förändringar av styrdokument, brist på en accentuerad pedagogik och en förändrad profession. Mot denna bakgrund fokuserar denna studie på fritidspedagogers uppfattningar om läroplansimplementering och eventuell genomslagskraft i den fritidspedagogiska praktiken. Empirin består av individuella intervjuer, fokusgrupper och fältstudier. I studien flätas teorier om läroplansdidaktik och organisationsteori samman. Som analytiska begrepp används läroplansimplementering och korstryck. Resultatet visar att värden och uppgifter som pedagogerna betonar i relation till styrdokumenten är sociala färdigheter, professionell ambivalens samt fritidshemmets status. Strategier personalen använder är hög ledarskapsstruktur, reaktiv bekräftelse av läroplansskrivningar samt traditionella fritidshemsverksamheter. Begränsningar är fritidshemsverksamhetens låga status i jämförelse med traditionell skolverksamhet, brist på tid för implementering, ”skolifiering” samt oklarheter i styrdokumentens innehållsbeskrivningar. Därmed upplevs flera stressande korstryck i olika bemärkelser i arbetet, vilket försvårar realisering av läroplanens intentioner.

Including students with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) in general education is one of teachers’ greatest challenges and make the dilemma of inclusion displays its most difficult side. This article contributes to the understanding of how teachers in Swedish mainstream schools understand the concept of inclusive didactics for students with EBD. This article employs a directed qualitative content analysis supplemented with descriptive statistics related to the categories of inclusive didactics. Didactic theory was the basis of the predefined categories by which the analysis was completed. Empirical data were collected through 6 focus-group interviews and 37 individual follow-up interviews. The findings indicate that three didactic aspects were dominant in teachers’ understanding of inclusive didactics: Student(s), Methods, and Teacher. Less accentuated were Subject, Rhetoric and Interaction. Thus these teachers’ understanding and previous research is not consistent. The overall conclusion is that the concept of inclusive didactics is complex, complicated, and difficult for teachers to relate to. The descriptions are both vague and simplistic and therefore difficult for teachers to implement. This article clearly highlights that teachers often feel frustrated and inadequate, and blame themselves for the students’ deficiency and failure, thus concluding that strategies for distinct descriptions and teacher practices are needed.

The vast majority of students in Sweden are healthy and live good lives, but rising health problems and declining academic performance pose risks to the country’s student population. School health services (SHS) in Sweden have a long tradition of hosting health dialogues (HD) with students to support their health and its repercussions on their learning. Purpose: To describe experiences from 6- to 16-year-old students participating in the health dialogue in school. Method: Descriptive qualitative design. Data were collected from 734 open-ended responses on a questionnaire distributed among students ranging in age from 6 to 16. The data were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Findings: The analysis identified five categories: Important to identify health and health problems, School nurse, a key profession, School environment important for both health and learning, Importance of health screening and Important to have a healthy lifestyle. The findings revealed that students aged 6 to 16 years old consider health and health problems, school environment, health screening and healthy lifestyle to be important areas for health and learning School nurses were identified as key persons in HD and for student’s experience of health and learning. Conclusion: HD is an opportunity for students to participate and influence decisions concerning their health and education, to actively engage in their own health and learning in areas that affect them for example, the school environment.

In many parts of the world, various forms of so-called extended education are emerging with the aim of responding to parents’ need to care for their children in the gap between when school ends and...