Sustainable Development: A Comparison between the Finnish and the Italian Education Systems

Abstract

The quality of education is a political priority. The European Union contributes through the principle of subsidiarity. In the Finnish and Italian education systems, assessment becomes fundamental and is closely connected to qualitative organization and to the objective of providing reliable information to plan effective policies with an increase in learning outcomes at various levels (i.e., local, regional, and national). This research explores the Italian and Finnish education systems to outline how they facilitate creating schooling systems that follow the objectives set by Agenda 2030 and are increasingly aimed at sustainability, an essential element in the relationship between humans and the environment. This study was enriched by new ideas and further research perspectives through field experience from a methodological point of view, starting from the international debate linked to the issue of sustainability and examining the OECD survey (PISA, in which European countries took part, specifically the experience of job shadowing in the city of Oulu). This investigation has highlighted the actions carried out in the Finnish educational path with the aim of tracing a “sustainable path” as an international model to follow.

Factor Structure of Student Science-Learning Motivation: Evidence from TIMSS U.S. Data

“…We constructed sciencelearning motivation in this study in a general science domain; therefore, for future researchers conducting studies in specific science subjects, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, the items should be verified. Next, although our results regarding the factor structure of science-learning motivation can be considered more robust than previous TIMSS studies examining science motivation measurement models, in terms of the latent approach utilized in CFA analyses and the integration of multiple motivational theories, we acknowledge that these findings may lack generalizability given that students in this study were specific to the U.S. International large-scale datasets are always used to compare teaching and learning outcomes among various educational systems (e.g., Messina, 2023;Saal and Graham, 2023;and Zhang et al, 2023) [67][68][69], and the current study used U.S. data specifically; therefore, cultural differences should be taken into account in further studies. Considering the discrepancy of cultural and educational backgrounds and the complex nature of student motivation as it relates to their learning ecologies, future research, particularly studies that examine students' science-learning motivation from Eastern cultures, is warranted to generalize the findings in this study.…”