Social services students' education and purposes in life : A case study from Finland

The objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to examine the life purposes of Finnish social services students. In particular, the students’ life purposes and their experiences of purpose are examined from the viewpoint of how helping unknown others and advocating for social improvements are integrated into personal meaning and how a focus on benefiting others appears in the students’ perspectives. Life purposes are personally meaningful, but also intended to benefit others (Damon, Menon, & Bronk, 2003). The thesis is based on research presented in three articles. Article I addresses the content of students’ life goals and how the students’ justify their goals through focus on self and on others. Article II presents students’ purpose profiles, their perceptions of the role of purpose, and why these students want to help unknown others. In Article III the focus is on students’ most influential field education experiences and how learning in service influenced their experience of purpose, especially from the standpoint of helping and social advocacy. The context of this case study is the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and its social services degree whose framework is social pedagogy. The analysis is based on survey data, which included both fixed and openended questions. A mixed-methods approach is operationalized by using both qualitative and quantitative data analyses. The results presented in Articles I and II are based on a semester start survey (N=151) during the fall of 2015. Article III (N=113) presents the responses of preand post-field education surveys during the same semester. Validated instruments are used as are both deductive and inductive content analyses. The analysis shows that the most important life goals for the students were close relationships and hedonistic goals, such as leading an exciting life. Helping was rated as the third-most important life goal on a Likert scale, yet other-focused, valuebased justifications for it are somewhat lacking in the open answers. Primarily, the students mostly provided self-focused justifications for their long-term life goals, and perceived the role of purpose as leading to a happy and pleasurable life rather than to a value-driven life. Overall, it appeared that the students perhaps aimed at finding purpose in familial matters and, to some extent, in the pursuit of happiness and helping others. Most of the students could be described as representing a Dabbler profile. They had already experienced a sense of purpose in their lives, but were still seeking new purposes. They felt confident and skillful in actualizing their life goals, yet they did not seem to be aware of the values that steer their lives. Approximately one-fourth of the students represented the profile of the Purposeful and approximately onefifth fit the profile of a Dreamer. Purposeful students define the values that direct their lives and their helping activities more often than other students. Through field education, the students’ sense of purpose developed, but the importance of helping goals remained the same, albeit on a relatively high level. The students’ confidence in helping and in social advocacy as lifetime pursuits increased during field education. It appears that the increased sense of purpose after field education is in some ways related to the experiences of a sense of community, learning professional competencies, and increased self-awareness. It seems important to develop social services students’ understanding of their purpose in life and the values that could direct their lives and their abilities to help others. This could promote the students’ satisfaction and commitment to their future profession in helping and increase their overall wellbeing. Integrating a life purpose approach into social pedagogy seems not only relevant, but also imperative in order to support students’ understanding of themselves and their connectedness to the social, communal aspects of genuine purpose.