Pirjo Vuoskoski explored physiotherapy students' experiences of assessment related to work-placement periods that are an integral part of the undergraduate degree programme. The students studied in two different universities of applied sciences. For them, work-placement periods constituted almost one-fourth of the whole degree. In her dissertation, Vuoskoski shows that the most essential aspect of the lived-through assessment experience, is the intention of the student to obtain self-knowledge through assessment encounters, and the sense of fulfilment of that subjective self-interest.

"Awareness of the subjective self-interest enables the other constituents of the experience to take place. The other constituents are resemblance between assumptions and the assessment practice, sense of shared interests in assessment, trust in self and others in the assessment of self, sense of safety and openness of the assessment environment, sense of emotional engagement to assessment, sense of enhancement and support in the assessment process, and the challenge to assumptions and self-interest. Awareness of the subjective self-interest does not guarantee that the other constituents will take place, though", states Vuoskoski.

The student’s assessment experience can, according to Vuoskoski, be conceived as a chain of events meaningfully linked to one another. The chain, then again, stands out against the overall experience of a longer process – the ongoing higher educational process.

"What makes the chain of events to stand out as an educationally meaningful experience, is how satisfactory or dissatisfactory the student feels the situation for self as a learning and developing subject", summarizes Vuoskoski.


New perspective from Husser's phenomenology

Pirjo Vuoskoski conducted a descriptive phenomenological analysis for her doctoral research; the method had not been used earlier to study assessment experiences. In the descriptive phenomenological approach based on Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), assessment experiences are explored as essential structures and presences to consciousness, which can be accessed through a systematic method. The aim is to obtain and describe the phenomenon precisely as present in the lived-through experiences and their concrete descriptions.

"In the phenomenological descriptive tradition, it is crucial to stay focused on the evidence arising from the research material and to avoid any presumptions and subjective interpretations of the results and their significance", comments Vuoskoski when asked about the starting points for her research.

As stated by the doctoral candidate, Husserlian phenomenology is a reasonable alternative to prevailing hermeneutical and interpretive approaches. As a method based on systematic analysis, it can be put to good use for the needs of educational research and educational and work-related practices.


Information on the public examination of the dissertation:

Pirjo Vuoskoski's dissertation Work-placement assessment as a lived-through educationally meaningful experience of the student: an application of the phenomenological descriptive approach will be examined on Saturday 29 November 2014 at 12 noon by the Faculty of Education of the University of Lapland, in Lecture Hall 3 (address: Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi, Finland). The opponent is Docent Seija Mahlamäki-Kultanen from the University of Tampere and the custos Associate Professor (fixed-term) Sari Poikela from the University of Lapland.


Information on the doctoral candidate:

Pirjo Hannele Vuoskoski (born in 1961 in Oulu, Finland) carried out her compulsory schooling in Palojoensuu, Enontekiö and Ylitornio. She took her matriculation exam in Kuortaneen Liikuntalukio in 1979. Vuoskoski graduated as a physiotherapist in 1982 and a physiotherapy specialist in 1994 in Turku. In 2004, she obtained her Master's degree in Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä, becoming a teacher of physiotherapy.

For the most of her career, Vuoskoski has worked as a physiotherapist and physiotherapy entrepreneur in the southwestern part of Finland in 1982–1994, as a lecturer of physiotherapy in Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in 1995–2011 and in Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences in 2011–2013. She took on her current position as a senior lecturer of physiotherapy at the University of Brighton in September 2013. She is a doctoral Cotutelle student in two different countries and universities: Macquarie University in Australia and the University of Lapland in Finland.


More information:

Pirjo Vuoskoski
P.Vuoskoski (at) brighton.ac.uk
Tel. +44 72 64 15 85 48

Press copies of the doctoral dissertation are available in the Lapland University Press, tel. +358 40 821 42 42, publications (at) ulapland.fi


Publication data:

Pirjo Vuoskoski: Work-placement assessment as a lived-through educationally meaningful experience of the student: an application of the phenomenological descriptive approach. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 290. University of Lapland: Rovaniemi 2014. ISBN 978-952-484-776-6. ISSN 0788-7604. Online version (pdf): Acta Electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 158. ISBN (pdf) 978-952-484-777-3, ISSN (pdf) 1796-6310.


Sale:

Academic and Art Bookshop Tila (ULapland Main Library, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi), tel. +358 40 821 42 42, publications (at) ulapland.fi, online orders www.ulapland.fi/lup


ULapland/Communications/RJ