3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Distortions of the concept of discipline in education(2011-10-11) Jeevanatham, Louis SolomonItem A critique of the concept of Popagano in Bophuthatswana teacher training and university education(2011-09-29) Rangaka, DialeItem Educating for peace in South Africa: the design, development and evaluation of a pre-school peace education programme(2011-06-13) Maxwell, Anne-MarieItem A cross-sectional study of newborn feeding practices and support at healthcare facilities in Gauteng(2011-02-02) Jordaan, Mimie MargarethaBackground: Although breastfeeding is a key child survival strategy, breastfeeding practices in South African health institutions can generally be categorised as being poor. The global Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), led by UNICEF and the WHO, aims to create a health care environment that promotes breastfeeding as the norm. This study aimed to document practices around breastfeeding support and compliance with the BFHI’s “10 steps to successful breastfeeding” in both baby-friendly accredited and non-accredited facilities. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, conducted in nine facilities in Gauteng, including tertiary, secondary and districts hospitals, and midwife obstetric units. Convenience sampling was used. Study questionnaires were based on the generic BFHI assessment tool, but were modified to include more detailed investigation of HIV related factors. The questionnaire was verbally administered on-site to 165 mothers of well infants, and 65 nursing staff. Results: Suboptimal practices were identified in both baby-friendly and non-baby-friendly accredited facilities, but more so in the latter. None of the facilities passed all of the 10 BFHI steps. None of the baby-friendly certified institutions achieved a score sufficient to be still deemed baby-friendly. Steps that required advice and support from nursing staff, viz. step 5 (showing mothers how to breastfeed), step 8 (encouraging breastfeeding on demand), and step 10 (breastfeeding support after discharge from the facility), were particularly poorly done in the majority of facilities. Baby-friendly certified institutions were significantly better than non-accredited facilities for steps 2 (training), 4 (initiating breastfeeding within 1 hour), and 7 (rooming-in). Conclusion: Although baby-friendly accredited facilities generally performed better than non-accredited facilities, their performance failed to justify maintenance of their accredited status based on this assessment. However, some positive practices were sustained over time. There is a dire need for greater attention to be directed to the promotion of good breastfeeding practices by health professionals and institutions.Item Instrument validation and evaluation of problem-based learning tutorial performance of undergraduate nursing students(2010-06-29T10:43:49Z) Lack, MelaniePURPOSE: The purpose of this two-phased study was to determine the performance of undergraduate nursing students in problem-based learning (PBL) tutorials using a validated evaluation instrument. RELEVANCE: to determine the effectiveness of the PBL learning approach relative to the South African student. Phase 1 led to the validation of an instrument and Phase 2 evaluated the performance of nursing students in PBL tutorials using the validated instrument. PARTICIPANTS: Phase 1 participants included academic experts (n=8) selected by means of purposive, maximum variation sampling. Phase 2 participants included the total population of undergraduate nursing students (n=53) and facilitators (n=6). METHODS: A quantitative research approach was used to inform the overarching design that was descriptive and comparative in Phase 2 of the study. Phase 1 employed statistical techniques for instrument validation and refinement. Phase 1 data were collected in three round of a Delphi survey. After completion of the first two rounds a rating instrument with a 4-point (0-3) rating scale was developed referred to as the Tutorial Performance Rating Instrument. During the third and final round of the Delphi survey ‘weighting’ of each main-item, sub-items and the rating scale took place, incorporating the Subjective Judgement Model using pair-wise comparisons on linear visual analogue scales. ANALYSIS: Relative weights were determined and following statistical analysis ratio scales were developed creating a unique ‘weight’ to each item and the rating scale. This ‘weight’ was represented in a percentage allowing each main-item construct and each sub-item to be placed in a hierarchy from highest to lowest percentage. Calculation on a student assessment would become time consuming and subject to error if done manually. A computer-based program referred to as the Tutorial Performance Evaluator was developed to carry out all the calculations of the percentages allocated to the items and rating scale. A replica of the Tutorial Performance Rating Instrument was built into the programme. In Phase 2 of the study a self-assessment and facilitator-assessment on each student’s tutorial performance first-to fourth-year was carried out using the Tutorial Performance Rating Instrument. Following a one on one meeting between the student and the facilitator consensus agreement was reached on an acceptable rating against each item on the evaluation instrument. The latter was entered into the computer and a percentage for each main-item construct and a total percentage was calculated efficiently and accurately in 20 seconds. RESULTS: The results showed that first-year students struggled in all aspects of the PBL tutorial. Furthermore they did not possess the skills required for self-assessment. A small group of the second-year students struggled in the tutorials but were better able to carry out a self-assessment. The third-year students showed a slight drop in score when compared with the second-year students and this could be attributed to the new subjects introduced in the third-year of study. There was a substantial improvement in the results achieved by the fourth-year students in all the aspects of the PBL tutorial and showed a good correlation in carrying out a self-assessment when compared with the facilitator assessment. iv RECOMMENDATIONS: This was a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study should be carried out in future research to assess the individual’s progress from first-to fourth-year in the PBL approach to learning. Greater academic support should be given to first-year students or alternatively the ‘at risk’ students should be given a foundation course to assist them with communication skills and learning skills.Item Salience strategy: connectivity, aesthetics and the learning mind(2009-05-29T10:23:41Z) Burnett, Richard Leslie GeorgeThis dissertation adds to the many arguments already made for the value of art (cultural artifact) in teaching and learning. The special approach developed here concludes with the articulation of Salience Strategy. The argument firstly questions the value of seeing intelligence as a problem-solving faculty. It continues by examining consciousness, memory and the imagination as both the ground and substance of intellection. It argues that, amongst other things, interconnectedness, reiterative pathways and networks are central to the operation of consciousness and therefore, are central to its epiphenomenal attributes like intelligence. As education should strive for greater intellectual functioning so it should, therefore, strive to harness the paradigms of interconnectedness, reiterative pathways and networks. The art object, (device, gesture, statement), it is proposed, is valuable when deployed as hubs in networks of ideas allowing learners to form patterns of unexpected and creative linkages enhancing both memory, curiosity and a capacity for imaginative and associative thinking. Learning becomes movement through a landscape of complex objects and outgrowths. Two salience itineraries are explored in this dissertation. The first in relation to concepts overheard during learner conversations over the duration of a school week, and a second, exploiting my own work as an artist, selected work by the British artist Richard Long, and some of the issues raised in the theoretical discussion of consciousness and networks.Item An exploratory review of temperament research: Trends and implications for theory and intervention in the fields of developmental psychology and education(2008-05-19T11:07:51Z) Farbach, Karline RoseTemperament research has grown exponentially over the past decades. Diverse though the body of temperament research may be, due to the interest of many fields of study in this construct, fairly considerable areas of consensus in the understanding of temperament as a psychological construct has been achieved over the years. In other words, there is general agreement in the field that the notion that temperament is biological and genetic and that temperament plays a role in developmental contexts. A review of recent temperament research (from 1998 to 2005) was done for this study. An automated search of many databases was conducted, as well as a hand search of well-accredited journals, mostly from the disciplines of developmental psychology and education. Based on selected criteria, 102 studies were chosen for review. The findings of this study, based on an analysis of the selected studies, follow. For example, it was found that the large majority of the studies selected were methodologically sound. It was also noted that the various themes elicited from the analysis tended to follow the trends temperament research was following before 1998, at the beginning of this review. Evidence was also found that suggested there was a shift from using psychomedical frameworks towards constructivist, ecosystemic frameworks for underpinning temperament research, which suggests that contemporary temperament research is more likely to be studied from a developmental stance than it was a few years ago. The findings from this analysis were applied to issues in temperament research and practice in the context of developmental psychology and education.Item Multilingualism and Change on the Kinyarwanda Sound System post-1994(2007-02-26T11:31:57Z) Habyarimana, HilaireThe present study on ‘Multilingualism and change on the Kinyarwanda sound system post-1994’ focuses on sociolinguistic approaches oriented to the effects of language contact to Kinyarwanda sound change. Many studies on various multilingual societies have been conducted, and most of them have focused on multilingualism and language policy, education and social integration in different multilingual societies. In particular, most studies conducted on the new linguistic configuration of Rwanda have focused on language attitudes in a multilingual context, but none of them has tackled the issue of multilingualism and sound change as a result of language contact. The main hypothesis expounded in this research is that Kinyarwanda sound variants that can be heard from current speech arise owing to Kinyarwanda speakers’ language background. In the light of the literature review on multilingualism and sound change, an extensive analysis of the most prominent linguistic variables of sound variation in Kinyarwanda was done, and its evaluation shows that there have been shifts in the sound system of Kinyarwanda post-1994. It has been shown that some sounds were modified or shifted to other sounds which exist in neighbouring languages because of contact. In addition to that, it has been argued that this sound variation has been possible mainly because Kinyarwanda came into contact with other languages which have different sound systems. It is hoped that this research will add a new dimension to studies of multilingualism within Bantu languages and will contribute to yielding a solution to the Rwandan language problem because of suggestions related to how the Kinyarwanda sound system can be standardized.Item The impact of the National Environmental Education Policy initiatives in South African schools(2007-02-19T11:25:26Z) Maluleke, Nash NelsonThe South African environmental policies, NEMA (1998), and the White Paper on Environment and Development (1995) support the incorporation of environmental education into the national school curriculum. These policies propose that environmental education should be interdisciplinary and holistic in approach and should run across all school learning areas and disciplines. The policies further recognize the role of environmental education as a potential tool through which learners and the general public can engage themselves in critical issues related to environmental justice in South Africa. Interviews with teachers, government officials and Delta personnel show that the national policy initiatives, documents and projects have not yet reached schools in the Gauteng region. The triangulated findings from this research show that there is poor coordination between parties responsible for the implementation of policies. This poor coordination has resulted in teachers not being prepared and empowered to initiate, organise, implement and run environmental education in schools. As a result integrated environmental education is not being implemented across the curriculum in the schools that were interviewed in the study. The basic problem seems to be that teachers and school principals have poor understanding of the nature of environmental education. It appears, from the research findings, that this is linked to a lack of training and support.