Contents and Pedagogy of the Programme

The programme is founded on three pedagogical principles:

1. Involvement of students in larger research projects, typically those conducted in the Centre for Research on Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE) or in its partner organisations such as the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

2. Intertwining of theory and practice,
meaning that the students’ Master’s theses are products of both demanding study of literature and extensive fieldwork often combined with intervention efforts in work organisations.

3. Emphasis on rich interaction, collaboration and mutual support among the students of the Master’s programme class, from the very start all the way to graduation.

The programme is structured around three substantive content areas:

1. History and future of work and technology
This area builds on key theories of technological development as well as on current literature on the frontiers of new technology and new forms of work. Drawing on these contents, the students are expected to put their research topics in a broader historical and societal perspective in their Master’s theses.

2. Work-related learning
This area builds on comparative study of key theories of learning, from cognitivism and constructivism to the theory of expansive learning developed within the Helsinki tradition of developmental work research. Drawing on these contents, the students are expected in the Master’s theses to observe, record and analyse real-life learning processes and to identify possibilities for new forms of learning.

3. Methodologies and practices of intervention
The third content area is methodologies and practices of intervention. This area builds on literature on central traditions of interventionist research, starting from Lewin’s action research and extending to the methodologies based on Vygotsky’s principle of double stimulation. The students also gain hands-on experience of the analysis of data from ongoing intervention sessions. Drawing on these contents, the students are expected to reflect on the potentials of intervention and when possible also to analyse intervention-related data in their Master’s theses.

Other pedagogical principles

The teaching of research methods in the programme is integrated into the three substance areas. Special emphasis is put on the preparation of the research plan, on the collection of data, and on the techniques of data analysis.

Pedagogically, all required courses are aimed at generating written elements toward the student’s Master’s thesis. This means that the actual writing of the thesis does not start from scratch in the second year but can build on the assignments the student has produced from the very beginning of the programme. The writing of the thesis is typically supported from three directions, namely by the student’s assigned supervisor, by the research group in which the student is involved, and often also by a tutor or co-supervisor assigned by the work organisation on which the thesis is focused. 

The teaching is organised partly specifically for the students of the Master’s programme, partly open also for the other students in the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at the University of Helsinki.