Relationskompetens i distansundervisning: : En fallstudie av lärare i den svenska folkhögskolan

Sammanfattning: The competency of relationship-building is an attribute that is vital in many professions that involve interpersonal relations. Nurses, doctors, social workers, and teachers are some of the professions where competency of relationship-building plays an important role. The latter of the professions that was exemplified is the teaching-profession, which also acts as the central study object of this survey. The group of teachers that this survey targets is the teachers of the Swedish residential college for adult education, a school system that in the Swedish language commonly is referred to as “Folkhögskola''. The Swedish residential college for adult education work in a similar way to how the highschool system in Sweden is structured, although it is possible to identify many differences between the schools. One of the central differences between the regular school system in Sweden and the folkhögskola is that a lot of the courses in the folkhögskola are offered remotely. The central purpose and goal of this study is to deduce the methods, traits, and experiences that these teachers possess and manage to use in their teaching linked to their relational competency. The reason for the study objects are teachers in the Folkhögskola, is due to the fact that these teachers exercise remote education to a greater extent than teachers in regular Swedish education. The teachers are challenged due to the fact that a big part of their contact with the students is by distance-connection, that could result in a shortfall of the possibilities to build and sustain optimal interpersonal relations. In conclusion, the purpose is to research the sorts of methods and work-experience based tools that the teachers use to prevent potentially negative consequences of the shortfall of interpersonal relations. The empirical data in the survey is collected with support of self administered questionnaires that are submitted to teachers in the Folkhögskola. To summarize the scope of this study, this essay intends to summarize and analyze the empirical data in context to relevant literature in the research fields of remote education and relational competency with the ambition to generate relevant results to the research field of pedagogy.