3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Evaluation of the involuntary 72 hour assessment of mentally ill patients at Kalafong regional and Tshwane district hospitals(2012-01-17) Mabena, Morwa AsnathItem Assessment of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality(2011-02-01) Moji, Teboho DouglasIntroduction: VCT services are a meaningful entry point to a continuum of care, in treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and related illnesses. Although VCT has been available at some sites across the country even before 2000, there have been very few studies conducted to evaluate its implementation at local municipality level. This study describes the status of VCT implementation in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality between January 2004 and March 2007. Methods: Using a questionnaire, checklist and data collection sheet, data was collected between April - May 2007 in a sample of 14 VCT sites. These were government funded sites that included three hospitals, three community health centres, three clinics, three non governmental organisations and two hospices and were selected from all three service delivery regions in Ekurhuleni. Areas assessed were demographics of facility managers, staff and training, referral system, guidelines, supervision and support and VCT registers. Results: Over ninety percent of the VCT sites had closed areas for HIV counseling and testing. Majority of the VCT service providers were lay counselors (52.9%) and others were nurses, doctors, dieticians, social workers and health promoters. Most of the counselors had received both formal and in-service training. Almost all sites (92.8%, N=13) had the relevant guidelines in place and in-service training and use of checklist were methods used to ensure adherence to guidelines. The majority of the sites (71.4%, N=10) regularly evaluated the quality of counseling offered to clients through direct observation (50.0%), exit interviews (20.0%), self evaluation (10.0%) and combination of direct observation and interviews (20.0%). Close to two thirds of the sites (64.3%, N=9) were satisfied with supervision received from the district office. All the sites used a formal letter to refer clients to other outside facilities. There was no uniformity in the data elements of VCT registers across sites and the registers had many gaps. iv Conclusions: The VCT sites in this study had the necessary set up for the implementation of basic VCT services. However, because of the small sample size, this conclusion may not be true for the whole of Ekurhuleni. There needs to be improvement in VCT record keeping and data management in the sites. Further studies are needed to evaluate factors influencing uptake of VCT services.Item Learners' competencies in new forms of assessment: A case study(2007-02-28T13:30:19Z) Rodwell, LynnThis small-scale case study researches the importance of analysing the mathematics competencies assessed by a selection of tasks developed for a portfolio in Grade 9 during 2003. The tasks are analysed according to the cognitive demand placed on the learners, plus their open-ended versus closed nature. This research reveals that the weaker ability learners experience a greater apparent benefit, compared to the stronger ability mathematics learners. Although there are other mathematical competencies assessed in this research report, those of ‘thinking and reasoning mathematically’ and ‘representing and explaining mathematical entities’ are most problematic, compared to the more traditional competencies of ‘memorisation’ and ‘manipulation of mathematical symbols and formalisms’. Assessing the tasks from the perspective of mathematical competencies, may serve to provide an alternative framework for analysing the appropriateness or not of tasks used in the development of portfolios and thus improve the practises of mathematics teachers in general.