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This study examined the metacognitive knowledge of Finnish comprehensive school students and explored whether grade-based differences in metacognitive knowledge exist among 6th, 7th and 9th graders. Integrating qualitative (declarative, procedural, conditional) and contextual (person, task, strategy) frameworks, the research aims for a comprehensive understanding. We employed mixed-methods approach; qualitative data from 225 student interviews underwent qualitative theory-driven analysis, followed by quantitative methods to explore variations and relationships. Results showed prevalent procedural and strategic metacognitive knowledge. Utterances on problem-solving often linked to task-specific knowledge, emphasising the need for a varied metacognitive knowledge set. 9th graders excelled in explaining strategy use, while 7th graders demonstrated proficiency in understanding when and why to employ specific strategies. Although a qualitative level approach can aid in understanding the development of metacognitive knowledge, combining qualitative and contextual conceptualisations provides a better overview of metacognitive knowledge. This study suggests that metacognitive knowledge-supporting elements are needed in math learning materials and teachers’ pedagogical actions.

Students’ use of personal mobile devices (PMDs), including smartphones, tablets, and laptops, in mathematics classrooms globally has become feasible due to the implementation of the bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives and policies in schools. Students’ academic use of PMDs in mathematics learning has been associated with increased motivation, enjoyment, and enhanced performance. While debates continue worldwide on the bans of PMDs in schools, it is noteworthy that students in Namibian basic education are not permitted to use PMDs in schools. This study employed a comparative nonexperimental quantitative research design to assess the perceived usefulness (PU) and behavioural intention (BI) to use PMDs in mathematics classrooms among 500 Namibian students and 209 teachers. The study employed a volunteer purposeful sampling method to select participating students and teachers from government schools in the Omusati and Khomas regions. Student selection was based on self-selection from full-class mathematics groups. Similarly, the study utilised volunteer purposeful sampling to recruit grades 4–12 mathematics teachers. Utilising structural equation modelling, the findings revealed that students expressed more positive ratings for PMD usefulness and intention than did teachers. Furthermore, PU significantly predicted students’ BI to learn mathematics with PMDs in school. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis supported configural, metric, and scalar invariance in PU and BI factor structures across both participant groups. However, when students’ latent means of PU and BI are set to 0, the teachers’ latent mean parameter estimates are negative, suggesting potential disparities. Teachers should recognise and leverage students’ positive perceptions of PMDs to enhance motivation and engagement in mathematics learning. Simultaneously, ensuring consistent assessment across participant groups is essential, while addressing teachers’ PMDs reservations through professional development and support remains crucial.

This study helps to clarify the teaching practices used by some Finnish teachers to optimise student learning and to teach problem solving. Eighteen teachers (primary through university) from rural, municipal, and metropolitan schools were interviewed to provide insight into the teaching practices behind Finland’s successful model of equitable education. Of the eighteen teachers interviewed, nine were asked about how they optimise student learning and nine were asked about how they teach problem solving. Of the nine teachers asked about how they optimise learning, four mentioned practices that align with problem-based learning, and all of the teachers asked about how they teach problem solving mentioned practices that align with problem-based learning. A majority of the interviewed teachers stated that they incorporate individual student competencies and prior experiences into lesson design. All eighteen teachers, regardless of interview topic, mentioned practices related to socio-constructivism as a leading theoretical approach, and all eighteen teachers mentioned motivational practices aligned with the self-determination theory. Finnish teachers have autonomy over their teaching practices so there are teachers who do not teach in the ways represented in this study. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The current study aimed to explore primary schoolteacher’s emotional stress-coping strategy and to examine its possible relationships with stressful situations caused by pupils’ misbehaviours in Finland context. A total of 12 items in four subscales with second-order model was the most appropriate structure to understand teachers’ emotional coping strategy. In the student-related stressful situations, the most relevant emotional coping strategies were religion/mindfulness,social support from family members, and self-blame. In addition, when teachers use self-blame to acknowledge their stressful emotions, they use another emotional strategy simultaneously, and vice versa. Those results showed significance of future studies on understanding more effective emotional strategies for student-related stress and investigating how teachers use several types of emotional coping strategies coincidently.

Creative Little Scientists was a 30-month (2011-2014) EU/FP7-funded research project focusing on the synergies between early years science and mathematics education and the development of children’s creativity, in response to increasing interest in these areas in European educational policy. Using a variety of methods, including desk research, a teacher survey and classroom-based fieldwork, the research provided insights into whether and how children’s creativity is fostered and appropriate learning outcomes, including children’s interest, emerge. Based on these and ongoing collaboration and dialogue with participants and other stakeholders the project proposed recommendations for policy and teacher education. This paper presents these recommendations and the research on which they were based. Throughout the study, mixed methods were employed, combining quantitative approaches used in surveys of policy and teachers’ views based on a list of factors, alongside qualitative approaches employed in case studies of classroom practice. A strong conceptual framework developed at the start of the project guided data collection and analysis, as well as the presentation of findings and the development of policy recommendations, thus ensuring the latter’s strong and consistent relationship with the relevant theoretical knowledge, the comparative research, analysis of classroom practices and the production of guidelines for teacher education.

Teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of bioenergy, and their motivation to teach such a topic, can largely determine the success of implementing bioenergy related education in schools. The study aimed to explore science teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of bioenergy in India. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 28 science teachers from four urban schools in India. Results indicated that the science teachers were fairly knowledgeable regarding bioenergy and they also demonstrated positive perceptions of bioenergy. In addition, they were positive towards the prospect of receiving more information to increase their own knowledge of bioenergy. However, the science teachers appeared to have some misconceptions regarding the issue of CO2 emission from using bioenergy. It also emerged that although the existing Science syllabus for Grade X in Indian schools includes a topic on bioenergy, the majority of the science teachers were not aware of it. Policy makers and educators are recommended to provide science teachers more support to improve their capacity for teaching energy and environmental topics in schools in India. In addition, an improvement of the current learning and teaching environment in Indian schools could help teachers to deliver energy and environmental education more effectively to their students.

Schools are facing challenges to meet the demands of the information society and the student generation of today. Not only are students carrying their mobile phones everywhere, they are also familiar with different online environments, especially social software. This situation can be seen both a challenge and a chance for schools, as mobile technologies and social software can be used as tools for building flexible learning environments to foster students’ collaborative learning. This paper examines the possibilities of mobile technologies and social software in the contexts of blended learning and collaborative learning theories. The paper also provides two concrete examples of how these possibilities have been put into practice in higher education, namely teacher education. It provides ideas for the use of mobile technologies and social software in teaching and learning.

This paper provides an insight into challenges with collaborative learning using social software. It reports two case studies conducted in a teacher training department in a Finnish university. Although the case studies were concerned with providing teacher students with inspiring and motivating experiences of using ICT in pedagogically meaningful ways, the research design was set up so that challenges could be identified and investigated. Results reveal several factors that are related to challenges of learning collaboratively with social software. The main challenge concerns students’ understanding of what it means to learn collaboratively. It would seem that the added value of interaction and collaboration is poorly recognised. Furthermore, implications for teacher training are discussed.

This article considers the knowledge students (ages 6, 10, and 15 years) have of animals from a cross-cultural perspective. Students from six countries (Brazil, England, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, and the United States of America) were asked to free-list as many animals as possible and state where they had seen or learned about the animals. The results were analyzed and they indicate that 1) Students are aware of animals. 2) Students are more aware of mammals as examples of animals. 3) There is a globally shared folk biological knowledge of animals. 4) Students learn about animals during sociocultural interactions. The educational implications are discussed.