Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

The Impact Of Teachers’ Beliefs About Student Autonomy And Self-Regulation In 1:1 Computing Classrooms: A Comparative Study Between Sweden And Finland (#823)

Annika Wiklund-Engblom 1 , Peter Bergström 1
  1. Umeå University, Sweden, Umeå, SWEDEN, Sweden

The Nordic countries' school curricula emphasise lifelong learning and digital competence. Hence, autonomy and self-regulation are important strengths to scaffold. This study is part of a Nordic study investigating how teachers implement tablets in classrooms. OECD (2009) suggests that by understanding best practices, as well as obstacles related to teachers’ tool implementation, we will be able to improve educational processes. Furthermore, prior research show that teachers’ beliefs will influence how they plan for and design teaching (Martin, 2013). Our aim is to investigate how teachers’ beliefs about student autonomy and self-regulation relate to how they design for power and control, and thus, how they facilitate students’ strengths for using tablets in their learning.

In order to answer the research question we did several analyses. Firstly, data from classroom observations were scrutinised regarding teachers’ designs for teaching and learning analysed according to Bernstein’s (2000) theory of power and control. Secondly, retrospective teacher interviews were analysed with regard to teacher’ beliefs about autonomy and self-regulation. And thirdly, an integrated analysis were conducted comparing how teachers’ beliefs are related to how they design for learner autonomy and self-regulation in the classroom, as well as how this differed between the countries.