In May, the upper secondary students of Vesannon yhtenäiskoulun lukio were asked to evaluate the second year of the Erasmus+ program YEW. 33 students altogether answered a questionnaire in Finnish. Here is a short summary of the main findings in English, followed by some statistic in Finnish.
61 % of the students found the topic body image to be interesting. They thought that the most useful activity was studying the eating disorders (27%) and exploring the body image in media (24%). The most interesting activity was eating disorders (18%) and exploring body image in art (18%). However, the results in this question were quite evenly divided. They found that the least useful activity was exploring the body image in art (33%), and it was also found to be the least interesting (33%).
Most students thought that their idea of what a beautiful body looks like didn't change during the project, as 33 % slightly disagreed and 45% disagreed with that statement.
42% thought that their language skills somewhat improved during the project and 18% thought that their language skills improved a lot. 33% thought that their language skills improved a little and 6 % found that their language skills did not improve.
76 % of the students think that they are satisfied with their body at the moment. All students agreed with the statement that many kinds of bodies can be beautiful, 94 % agreed that media has an impact on what we perceive as beautiful, 85% think that friends affect the formation of body image, whereas 79% think that family has an effect on the formation of body image. Only 9 % think that only a slim and tight body can be beautiful and only 15 % could consider having some kind of plastic surgery. 97% think that you can learn to love your body as it is without changing anything in it.
When the students were asked freely to tell about that they have learned from the activities during this school year, following kinds of answers appeared:
"I learned all kinds of new things, especially about the ideal body images in different times."
"I learned new English vocabulary, and some information related to history, some of which I have already forgotten though."
"It was nice to learn new things about plastic surgeries and eating disorders."
"I learned about different opinions about a beautiful body."
"I have learned a lot about eating disorders and a healthy lifestyle."
"I learned to use English in the exercises and in eTwinning."
In some answers it was stated that the students didn't learn anything or anything new. This was expected, however, as not all students were that actively participating in the project activities.
48 % of the students would give the second year of the project a school grade 8 in a scale from 4 to 10. 21% would give it the grade 7, and 18% would give it a 9. Thus, the students seem quite pleased with the second year all in all.
In some open answer questions, where the students were asked to comment freely on the project, following kinds of answers occurred:
"Some of the instructions given for the activities were a bit unclear, which made me give the second year a bit lower grade. Some activities seemed pointless to me."
"Some of the things we went through were not new, but we had already talked about the earlier."
"The nicest thing was the student meeting in Torun."
"Compared to last year, this year's topic was more interesting and I learned more."
"The topics were interesting and the trip to Poland was amazing."
"The subject was boring."
"The activities were nice but I didn't get a lot of new information."
"The whole thing was great!"
"I gave the project quite a high grade because of the amazing people and the great goal of the project - to get the young people to talk and to learn about important things."
"It was unfortunate that not everyone could participate in all activities Otherwise the topic was executed in an interesting and various ways. The exercises were quite diverse and included a lot of one's own reflection."
"The topics could have been more interesting and could have been executed in a more interesting way."
"Activities related to history were a bit boring."
"We could have discussed more with the other schools."
Thus, next year we should pay attention to how we give the instructions to the students and we could try to use TwinSpace a bit more for online discussions. We could also look into ways to include more students in some of the activities if possible. However, the nature of some of the activities only allows a certain number of students and some activities are linked to specific upper secondary school courses, so the participation of the students depends partly on their course selection.
The students who travelled to Torun were also asked to answer questions specific to that trip. Here is a short summary of those findings.
All 14 students felt that working in multicultural groups went smoothly or quite smoothly. 71% of them somewhat agreed with the statement "I learned new things about body image during the students meeting in Torun", 7% agreed with the statement and 21% somewhat disagreed.
Most students felt that their idea of a beautiful body didn't change during the student meeting, as 43 % somewhat disagreed and 36 % disagreed with the statement.
All students agreed or somewhat agreed that they got to use a lot of English during the student meeting. 43% think that their English skills developed during the trip, and 50% think that their skills slightly developed.
79% agreed that they got more confidence to communicate in English during the trip and 14% somewhat agreed.
86% agreed that there was a good balance between working and free time during the student meeting in Torun. All students agreed or somewhat agreed that they got new friends during the trip. 57% agreed and 36% somewhat agreed that the trip to Torun was well planned. All students agreed or somewhat agreed that as a whole, the student meeting was a success. 93% of the students stated that the trip met their expectations.
When asked to list the best things about the student meeting, the students mentioned things such as new acquaintances, free time, friends, practising their English skills, new people, living in host families, organized activities, getting to know the culture, and food.
The most memorable things from the trip were bowling together, going to the climbing park, the last night, the basketball match, working in groups, and all the joyous moments spent with Finnish, Italian and Polish friends.
When the students were asked if they wished something had been done differently, most of them answered no, but some had a few points. One student wished that the Polish host family students would have been better informed about what kinds of activities would take place at school. Another student wished that there would have been more variation in the ways the students were divided into groups, so that they could've had more contact with different people. One person wished that the free time would have been planned better and that the students would have been more of the same age. The Polish students were a bit younger that Italian and Finnish students.
Lastly, the students were asked to freely comment on the student meeting. Following kinds of anwers appeared:
"The trip met my expectations and it was really nice to get to know new people and make new friends. I liked the student meeting very much, although at times it was a bit tiresome as well."
"It was a nice trip, but it was nice to come back home, too."
"The trip was great and it was an eye-opening experience!"
