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Teachers' focus on their students' learning is considered central in high-quality, studentcentred university teaching. This frontline eye-movement research asks whether teachers' focus can be observed at the intersection of the visual and conceptual levels. It introduces a novel way to study teachers' visual attention combined with verbal interpretations, including numerical ratings of the success of teaching when they observe teaching situations. Teachers' visual attention and interpretations were further studied in connection to their prior pedagogical training and teaching experience in years. Two short videos depicting teaching during a lecture, including different types of trigger events, were presented to teachers (N = 49) who were asked to think aloud while watching. The first video's trigger was students becoming bored during a content-focused teaching situation, and the second video's trigger was the teacher replying in an engaging way to students' questions in a learning-focused teaching situation. The results showed that pedagogically trained teachers paid more visual attention to the students than did their non-trained colleagues, especially in content-focused teaching situations. Teaching experience did not have any effect on visual attention or interpretation in this study. The teachers who paid more visual attention to the students in the content-focused teaching situation noticed in their interpretations that the students were not active, expressed higher learning-facilitating teaching conceptions and gave lower numerical ratings for the teaching situation. In conclusion, pedagogical training seems to promote university teachers' ability to pay visual attention to students in teaching situations and interpret these situations from the students' perspective, i.e. focus on student learning.

This study belongs to assessment-related research and aimed to investigate Finnish high-school students' (n = 211) topic-specific epistemic beliefs about climate change and whether the Norwegian topic-specific epistemic beliefs questionnaire (TSEBQ) was also valid among Finnish respondents. Thus, research data were not only derived from the TSEBQ but also from topic knowledge tests and students' views on their favorite school subjects and interest in science subjects. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the statistical model, originally based on 49 questions, was congruent with the Norwegian four-factor model (Certification, Source, Justification and Simplicity). However, according to the reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the performance of the Simplicity factor was unclear. In CFA, the three-factor structure (without Simplicity) was supported. The effects of topic knowledge, topic interest and gender on the TSEBQ factors were examined by using hierarchical regression analysis (HRA). The TSEBQ was shown to be a reliable tool for measuring the topic-specific epistemic beliefs of Finnish students. More specifically, the results support the claim that topic-specific epistemic beliefs can be educationally and culturally bound. HRA showed that students' topic knowledge in chemistry and biology was related to certainty of knowledge and justification for knowing. Moreover, female students performed significantly better in topic knowledge and more often planned to pursue a science career in the future.

Changing majors or dropping out are of great concern to universities worldwide, but the role of learning approaches in terms of students' persistence has not been previously studied. Changing majors, especially in chemistry, is a severe problem in Finland. Here, learning approach data were collected with the ChemApproach questionnaire from 733 bachelor-level students at four Finnish universities. Students intending to change majors showed stronger submissive surface approaches and weaker active deep approaches than those intending to persist in chemistry. The ChemApproach data were complemented with information on actual persistence and first-year grades from a smaller sample from one university (N = 177). A practical deep approach in chemistry studies combined with relatively high grades was shown to be connected to persistence, while a desire to change majors combined with high grades resulted in the actual changing of majors. A high submissive surface approach indicated students at risk of dropping out completely.

The theory of learning approaches has proven to be one of the most powerful theories explaining university students' learning. However, learning approaches are sensitive to the situation and the content of learning. Chemistry has its own specific features that should be considered when exploring chemistry students' learning habits, specifically the role of practicals (i.e. hands-on laboratory work), as they are crucial in chemistry education. Therefore, the aims of this study were to find and validate a questionnaire for measuring chemistry students' learning approaches. A 17-item questionnaire was tested with 561 Finnish chemistry students from four different universities. Students ranging from the first year bachelor level to the fifth year master level participated in the study. Statistical analyses showed that a four factor model fitted the data best and these factors were named submissive surface, technical surface, active deep, and practical deep. In order to establish validity, the model was further tested by analysis of the subgroups of the major subject and gender. The analyses show that the questionnaire is statistically valid and can be used for studying chemistry students' learning approaches

In this two-year longitudinal study, we sought to examine the developmental relationships among early narrative listening comprehension and language skills (i.e., vocabulary knowledge, sentence memory, and phonological awareness) and the roles of these factors in predicting narrative listening comprehension at the age of 6 years. We also sought to examine the role of inference-making skills as longitudinal and concurrent predictors of other language skills and listening comprehension from the age of 4 to 6 years. One hundred thirty Finnish-speaking children participated in the study. A theoretical model of the developmental relationships among the variables was proposed and the associations were analyzed by means of path analysis. Results showed that inference skills, assessed through picture-book viewing, made a significant and unique contribution to variation in later narrative listening comprehension. Inference skills also played an indirect role in narrative listening comprehension by making a significant contribution to vocabulary knowledge even after controlling for earlier vocabulary knowledge and sentence memory. Although vocabulary knowledge and sentence memory were related to concurrent narrative listening comprehension, they did not predict later listening comprehension over and above the autoregressor. The results are discussed in terms of the predictive validity and diagnostic sensitivity of inference skills assessments in listening comprehension. Implications for research and theory are also discussed. (Contains 4 figures, 4 tables, and 1 note.)

A latent variable structural model was constructed to test the relations among mothers' and fathers' parenting self-efficacy (PSE), their loneliness, and their child's peer-evaluated social competence, self-evaluated loneliness, teacher-evaluated motivational orientation, and academic skills. In order to do this, first the Self-Efficacy for Parenting Tasks Index (Coleman & Karraker, 2000) was applied to a sample of mothers (n=876) and fathers (n=696) to test the relevance of these parenting task categories to Finnish mothers and fathers. The results of the latent variable structural model indicated a strong relationship between both mothers' and fathers' loneliness and their PSE, consisting of Nurturance, Discipline, Recreation, and Participation factors. Moreover, there was a modest relationship between parents' PSE and their child's social competence and consequently between social competence and child's loneliness. The relationship between PSE and child's academic achievement were mediated via child's social competence. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Teachers' focus on their students' learning is considered central in high-quality, studentcentred university teaching. This frontline eye-movement research asks whether teachers' focus can be observed at the intersection of the visual and conceptual levels. It introduces a novel way to study teachers' visual attention combined with verbal interpretations, including numerical ratings of the success of teaching when they observe teaching situations. Teachers' visual attention and interpretations were further studied in connection to their prior pedagogical training and teaching experience in years. Two short videos depicting teaching during a lecture, including different types of trigger events, were presented to teachers (N = 49) who were asked to think aloud while watching. The first video's trigger was students becoming bored during a content-focused teaching situation, and the second video's trigger was the teacher replying in an engaging way to students' questions in a learning-focused teaching situation. The results showed that pedagogically trained teachers paid more visual attention to the students than did their non-trained colleagues, especially in content-focused teaching situations. Teaching experience did not have any effect on visual attention or interpretation in this study. The teachers who paid more visual attention to the students in the content-focused teaching situation noticed in their interpretations that the students were not active, expressed higher learning-facilitating teaching conceptions and gave lower numerical ratings for the teaching situation. In conclusion, pedagogical training seems to promote university teachers' ability to pay visual attention to students in teaching situations and interpret these situations from the students' perspective, i.e. focus on student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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