ETD Collection

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Self-efficacy

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    First year student success and dropout: an investigation into full and part-time students’ experience at the Namibia University of Science and Technology
    (2024) De Waldt, Indepentia
    First-year student success is a concern globally and has become a prominent feature of the higher education landscape. This study used Tinto’s longitudinal model of student departure as an analytical framework to investigate the internal and external factors affecting first-year full and part-time student success in the Faculty of Management Sciences (FMS) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). This study contributes to existing research on the first-year student dropout phenomena and provides empirical evidence in the Namibian context. In this mixed-method approach, data were collected through an online survey containing close and open-ended questions from first-year full and part-time students in the FMS. The results highlight the complexity of the first year at university. The results further show the impact of finances and online teaching and learning on students’ dropout decisions. Using Pearson’s chi-square test, the pre-entry attributes of age, gender, high school results, type of high school, regional presentation, source of finance and living arrangements were found to affect the academic performance of first-year students. The thematic analysis used for the open-ended questions shows the factors of online teaching and learning (lack of technical devices and stable network); under-preparedness (time management, heavy academic workload, adjusting to the lecturing style, prior content knowledge); and psychological (motivation and isolation) as challenges first-year students experience. The findings of this study show the complexity of the first year at university and require NUST to reimagine first-year student success. The findings allow for several recommendations to inform national and institutional practices and policies. This dissertation proposes implementing a First-Year Experience programme in the FMS.
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    The mediation of the integrated approach to literacy instruction programme to grade eight learners in an independent secondary school in South Africa.
    (2013-09-17) Andrews, Douglas Peter Spencer
    The role of literacy skills in learning and the ability to have the cognitive learning skills necessary to receive, process and make meaning of information is core to academic achievement at school. Many learners whose underdeveloped literacy skills prove to be a considerable barrier to learning struggle to make any significant progress at school, particularly at secondary school if these learners have come into their grade eight year from a remedial primary school where only a limited curriculum is taught. Often these learners drop out of the educational system altogether with no real alternatives available to them. Inclusive education policy states that schools must do everything they can to make the curriculum accessible to all learners regardless of their barrier to learning. This research project examined the critical success factors of implementing a one-on-one mediated literacy programme to eight selected grade eight learners as part of their school programme. The learners selected to be participants on the programme were identified from an analysis of background history, educational testing, and parent and teacher recommendations as learners whose specific barrier to learning was associated with inadequate literacy skill ability. The programme was called the Integrated Approach to Literacy Instruction(IATLI), and it combined the mediation of literacy skills simultaneously with metacognitive learning strategies. The research project was participatory in nature, as the researcher was the mediator of the programme to the eight learners. The project was based on participatory action research theory, and was a case-study design implemented at an independent secondary school in Johannesburg. The methodology used to evaluate the research project was a mixed research design incorporating structured surveys of the teaching staff, pre- and post-testing of the eight learners using standardized educational tests that evaluated literacy ability, semi-structured interviews with the teachers who taught the eight learners, and commentary from the learners themselves recorded in the researcher’s journal. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data indicated that the programme was a worthwhile initiative, and that certain critical success factors of the IATLI programme’s implementation emerged. Of these critical success factors, highlighted in the research sub-questions, success was often more evident in some learners than others. The data also highlighted a number of challenges that the programme’s implementation exposed, notably sustainability of the programme in the long term, as the programme was driven by the learning support specialist and the factor of burnout with regard to the intensive nature of the programme and its demands on the learner participants and the school’s internal structures. Other challenges that emerged were the practical aspects of integrating an inclusive education initiative into the demanding high school curriculum, and addressing the paradigm shift necessary to get all educators collaborating with learning support programme outcomes and then supporting initiatives in their own teaching.
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    Structural implications of the activation of moral disengagement in social cognitive theory.
    (2013-08-01) Garbharran, Ameetha
    This thesis was constructed on the foundation of two broad theoretical criticisms levelled against Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory. The first was the lack of clarity about what constituted the building blocks of the theory and the second was the lack of clarity about how these constituent components interacted in consistent and predictable ways as an integrated model of human behaviour. These ‘theory-level’ criticisms, which detracted from the empirical testability of social cognitive theory, seemed to have filtered down to the level of its individual building blocks. Therefore, moral disengagement, which constituted the focal variable of interest in this investigation, was not unaffected by them. Bandura’s (1986) theoretical presentation of moral disengagement as either an eight or four-dimensional construct and the empirical treatments of moral disengagement by Bandura and his colleagues as a uni-dimensional (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 1996a; Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli & Regalia, 2001b) and a four-dimensional variable (McAlister, Bandura & Owen, 2006), raised questions about its dimensionality. The first objective of this study was to examine moral disengagement’s dimensionality and the stability of its internal factor structure (i.e. longitudinal measurement invariance) over time. The general lack of clarity about how the constituent components of social cognitive theory were expected to cohere as an integrated framework of human behaviour had specific implications for the moral disengagement construct and its temporal position relative to other social cognitive variables. The second objective of this study was to examine moral disengagement’s temporal sequences relative to select social cognitive constructs (viz. proficiency-based self-efficacy, intention, and past and future behaviour) in order to comment on the likely temporal positions of these constructs relative to each other in the context of a model for predicting antisocial behaviour. Due to the exclusive activation of moral disengagement in antisocial contexts, the examination of its dimensionality and temporal sequences was contingent on an antisocial context. Software piracy, as a specific instance of antisocial behaviour, served as the context in which moral disengagement was researched in this study. A pilot investigation was conducted to test the psychometric properties of the scales that were developed to measure moral disengagement, proficiency-based self-efficacy, intention and behaviour in this study. Once their psychometric robustness was established, these scales were used in the context of a main longitudinal investigation separated by a three to four month time-lag in order to achieve the two main research objectives. Using the structural equation modelling family of data analysis techniques (specifically, confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis), the results of the main longitudinal study revealed that moral disengagement emerged as most meaningful as a uni-dimensional construct which consisted of four aggregated sets of items which represented the clusters of moral disengagement mechanisms that were likely to be activated at the four points in the self-regulation process envisaged by Bandura (1986). The findings suggested that this factor structure was longitudinally invariant when moral disengagement was measured across two assessment waves. Moral disengagement appeared to temporally precede intention and future behaviour and to temporally follow past behaviour. Self-efficacy, however, seemed to temporally precede future behaviour and to temporally follow past behaviour but unlike moral disengagement, self-efficacy appeared to temporally follow intention. Therefore, intention appeared to completely mediate the interaction between moral disengagement and proficiency-based self-efficacy in this study. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings were examined and directions for future research were proposed.
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    Relating identity processing styles and self-efficacy to academic achievement in first-year university students.
    (2012-03-08) Leader, Samantha
    The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between identity processing styles and self-efficacy to academic achievement in first-year university students. The sample included one hundred and twenty-seven first-year university students (n=127). Non-probability purposive sampling was used to select the participants on the basis of their status as first-year university students. Participants completed a Demographic Questionnaire, Identity Style Inventory Revised (ISI3) and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE). The research findings indicated a non-significant relationship between the normative and diffuse-avoidant identity processing styles to academic achievement. However, a significant relationship was found between the informational identity processing style and academic achievement. More specifically, a weak, negative correlation between the informational identity processing style and academic achievement was noted. With regard to General Self-Efficacy, a significant relationship between identity processing styles and General Self-Efficacy was indicated. With reference to previous research studies, the results of the current research study are discussed.