University of Lapland

About: University of Lapland is a education organization based out in Rovaniemi, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Arctic & Indigenous. The organization has 665 authors who have published 1870 publications receiving 39129 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Rovaniemi & Lapin yliopisto.

Mastery, submission, and subversion:on the performative construction of strategist identity

Abstract: While research on strategy-making has begun to focus attention on identity construction, we nevertheless lack a critical understanding of the ways in which socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity. In this article, we draw on Judith Butler’s theorizing on performative subject formation—first to explore identity constructions grounded in the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy and second to consider the subversion of discourses and identities enabled by this simultaneity. We distinguish between three performative identity constructions and demonstrate that by submitting to specific understandings of strategy discourses such as the illusion of control (the analytical strategist), omnipotence (the strategic leader), and personal glory (the state-of-the-art strategist), managers face the unattainability of these projects, which drives them to increase their mastery of the dominant discourses in order to win acceptance from others. Highlighting the dynamics of identity construction in strategy-making, we argue that subversion of the dominant discourses and identities is at best subtle. This enables us to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as the overemphasis on technical rationality, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and the inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

Teachers’ conceptions and their approaches to teaching in virtual reality and simulation‐based learning environments

Abstract: This research article focuses on virtual reality (VR) and simulation‐based training, with a special focus on the pedagogical use of the Virtual Centre of Wellness Campus known as ENVI (Rovaniemi, Finland). In order to clearly understand how teachers perceive teaching and learning in such environments, this research examines the concepts of teaching and learning, pedagogical models and methods as well as the educational tools used by ENVI teachers (n = 8). Data were collected through thematic interviews and analysed using the content analysis method. This interview study indicates that teachers saw ENVI’s use in education as indisputably beneficial, because it has brought authenticity to teaching and provided students with experiential learning opportunities. ENVI has also made possible the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge. Teachers had widely accepted their role as facilitators of student learning but held widely varied conceptions of learning. Teachers’ underlying conceptions become evi...

Modeling dynamics of tundra plant communities on the Yamal Peninsula, Russia, in response to climate change and grazing pressure

Abstract: Understanding the responses of the arctic tundra biome to a changing climate requires knowledge of the complex interactions among the climate, soils and biological system. This study investigates the individual and interaction effects of climate change and reindeer grazing across a variety of climate zones and soil texture types on tundra vegetation community dynamics using an arctic vegetation model that incorporates the reindeer diet, where grazing is a function of both foliar nitrogen concentration and reindeer forage preference. We found that grazing is important, in addition to the latitudinal climate gradient, in controlling tundra plant community composition, explaining about 13% of the total variance in model simulations for all arctic tundra subzones. The decrease in biomass of lichen, deciduous shrub and graminoid plant functional types caused by grazing is potentially dampened by climate warming. Moss biomass had a nonlinear response to increased grazing intensity, and such responses were stronger when warming was present. Our results suggest that evergreen shrubs may benefit from increased grazing intensity due to their low palatability, yet a growth rate sensitivity analysis suggests that changes in nutrient uptake rates may result in different shrub responses to grazing pressure. Heavy grazing caused plant communities to shift from shrub tundra toward moss, graminoid-dominated tundra in subzones C and D when evergreen shrub growth rates were decreased in the model. The response of moss, lichen and forbs to warming varied across the different subzones. Initial vegetation responses to climate change during transient warming are different from the long term equilibrium responses due to shifts in the controlling mechanisms (nutrient limitation versus competition) within tundra plant communities.

Finnish pre-service teachers’ and upper secondary students’ understanding of division and reasoning strategies used

Abstract: In this paper, we focus on Finnish pre-service elementary teachers’ (N = 269) and upper secondary students’ (N = 1,434) understanding of division. In the questionnaire, we used the following non-standard division problem: “We know that 498:6 = 83. How could you conclude from this relationship (without using long-division algorithm) what 491:6 = ? is?” This problem especially measures conceptual understanding, adaptive reasoning, and procedural fluency. Based on the results, we can conclude that division seems not to be fully understood: 45% of the pre-service teachers and 37% of upper secondary students were able to produce complete or mainly correct solutions. The reasoning strategies used by these two groups did not differ very much. We identified four main reasons for problems in understanding this task: (1) staying on the integer level, (2) an inability to handle the remainder, (3) difficulties in understanding the relationships between different operations, and (4) insufficient reasoning strategies. It seems that learners’ reasoning strategies in particular play a central role when teachers try to improve learners’ proficiency.