Student Number: 0316733E Master of Arts (Industrial Psychology) Faculty of Humanities / The aim of this research project was to investigate final year university students’ attitudes towards affirmative action. In particular the current research investigated the final year students’ justice perceptions and attitudes towards affirmative action as well as their perceptions of job opportunities. The study also incorporated the role of locus of control in relation to the above mentioned variables. Prior research indicated that affirmative action is perceived as controversial in nature and has been accused of promoting inherent unfairness of practices and procedures that give preferential treatment to certain groups of people based on gender, race and ethnicity (Parker, Baltes and Christiansen, 1997). In addition affirmative action has been accused of reducing job opportunities for non-beneficiaries, as well as stigmatising those it aims to assist (Kravits and Plantainia, 1992). Therefore there arises a need to examine and explore affirmative action within South Africa, as much research has been conducted in the United States and is not applicable to South Africa. The present research was conducted using a quantitative, non-experimental cross sectional research design. The sample consisted of fourth year bachelor of accounting students. Five hypotheses were tested. The results indicted that support was found for three of the hypotheses, indicating that attitudes towards affirmative action differ between beneficiaries and non – beneficiaries. There is a relationship between perceptions of job opportunities and attitudes towards affirmative action as well as a relationship between justice perceptions of affirmative action and attitudes towards affirmative action in both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research. The implications of the research and the limitations of the study are outlined in the research report.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is particularly widespread in South Africa and it is reaching alarming proportions. Violence in South Africa is considered normative. Cognizance needs to be taken of the negative consequences thereof for the lives of men, women and children. Highly publicized acts of violence by men have captured the concern of the country, yet traditional intervention responses continue to focus more on women as victims. This research explored perceptions of non-perpetrating men involved in a GBV gender-based violence prevention programme at Sonke Gender Justice, Johannesburg. A qualitative research approach was used. Purposive sampling was applied when study participants were selected. Twelve participants were accessed from “One Man Can” – a prevention programme at Sonke Gender Justice. All the participants were male and had been involved in the prevention programme since its inception. Semi-structured interviews were used to conduct in-depth interviews. To enhance trustworthiness and rigour, data was triangulated, and in-depth interviews were also conducted with three key informants. The interviews were audio-recorded with the participants’ consent and transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze all data collected, resulting in the identification of themes, sub-themes and categories. The data was subjected to literature control against the existing body of knowledge. The research report indicated that there was awareness by participants in the GBV prevention programme of the multiple forms of GBV as well as the interrelatedness of the different forms. Substance abuse was found to both cause and exacerbate GBV. Prevention programmes were acknowledged to be beneficial to participants in terms of the knowledge and skills that were gained. The research study will make a valuable contribution to social work’s understanding of GBV and the positive role men can play in prevention interventions. Subsequently the recommendations indicate that men can be positively involved as partners in raising awareness and development of GBV programmes.

HIV/AIDS is prevalent among adolescent youth in South Africa particularly among adolescent girls. Numerous efforts have been made to contain the pandemic through HIV prevention information in schools and through community and mass media campaigns, but all these efforts seem not to have an impact on the sexual behaviour of the youth. Reports from various studies concluded that although these programmes increase adolescents’ knowledge they have a minimal impact on their sexual behaviour. The current study explores perceptions of HIV/AIDS among a group of adolescent girls (between 14 and 19 years old) as well as the impact of these perceptions on their sexual practices and development. The results revealed that perceptions of HIV/AIDS appear to have an impact on adolescent girls’ sexual practices.

Student Number : 9603194F - MA research report - School of Human and Community Development - Faculty of Humanities / The primary objective of this study was to explore what primary school learners’ knowledge and fears of HIV/AIDS were. The researcher surveyed 633 primary school learners from four primary schools in Lenasia (Gauteng, South of Johannesburg). Learners were drawn from Grade 6 (n=292; 46%) and Grade 7 (n=341; 54%). The majority of learners ranged from 11 years to 15 years of age, with a mean age of 12.22 years (SD = 0.89). Quantitative methods were employed to analyse the data collected. Most of the assumptions for a parametric test were met, except for the sample distribution, which seemed to have been slightly skewed, i.e. the sample consisted of more Black learners (n=407) than Indian learners (n=226). Concurring with recent evidence, this study found knowledgeability about AIDS among respondents to be moderately high; however, it was evident that learners held misconceptions concerning HIV/AIDS. The answers provided by learners in this study indicated that the awareness of the severity of the disease was higher amongst Black learners than Indian learners. Those learners who were more knowledgeable about AIDS were not necessarily less fearful of contracting AIDS. The results derived from the two-way ANOVA and regression models indicate that there appears to be a significant gender difference, as more females were worried of getting AIDS than males. These were just some of the main findings of the study. The limitations of the study were also discussed.

Student Number : 9410914W - MA research report - School of Social Work - Faculty of Humanities / The study aimed at exploring the perceptions of occupational social workers on how their service provision has been affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The focus was on whether they thought that the increasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the workplace had led to a shift in their service provision. That was done through: - An investigation of ways in which social worker’s service provision has had to be adjusted in the context of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. - An assessment of the extent to which occupational social workers perceive their HIV/AIDS services at macro level to be acknowledged as valuable by management and the workforce. - An exploration of perceptions of occupational social workers on how HIV/AIDS has affected their relationship with management The research was quantitative and qualitative in approach and the design used was descriptive. Various sectors like manufacturing, government departments, para-statal, military and finance that employ social workers were identified. A list of occupational social workers was obtained from the School of Social Work, University of the Witwatersrand and from the Gauteng EAP Association. A non-probability sample of twenty seven social workers participated in the study. Semi structured interviews lasting for approximately forty five minutes were used as a form of data collection. Data collected was analysed through simple descriptive statistics and development of core themes and common concerns. The findings indicated that most occupational social workers perceived their services not to have been affected by HIV/AIDS, management and employees to have regarded their HIV/AIDS macro practice as valuable and their relationship with management have not been affected negatively by HIV/AIDS.

Literature has shown that assessment has various purposes in education, ranging from establishing the starting point, to monitoring and evaluation, while the role of assessment in supporting learning is yet to be explored. In this study I explore the influence of assessment on teaching in the Lesotho junior certificate science curriculum. I achieve this by exploring the nature tools of summative assessment, teachers’ views on these tools and how teachers engage the tools once they have served the summative assessment purpose. In exploring the nature of tools of assessment I conducted a documentary analysis of junior certificate science papers written over three years, and obtained teachers’ views on the papers and their uses through a questionnaire and a focus group interview. The study is predominantly qualitative and interpretive and is informed by three theories; curriculum theory; which explains the cyclic relationship of the curriculum elements, Bloom’s taxonomy which guides the drawing of educational objectives and construction of tools of assessment and social theories explaining reflection on and understanding of one’s social practices. Analysis of the past examination papers showed that they are relatively valid for the syllabus for which they are designed, though there are some discrepancies. Teachers find the questions in the examination papers appropriate for use in teaching, though they need to be simplified at times. The question papers also assess the understanding of science in the context of life around the learner. The uses to which teachers put past examination papers range from planning to testing and the most common uses are teaching and testing. According to the findings, past examination papers do have an influence on what teachers select for teaching and how they approach what they have selected. Further recommendations that I can make on the basis of this study are; that teachers can derive themes for action research from which they can build pedagogical content knowledge for various topics. Finally, they can also be used as a source of a variety of tasks for learners.

In view of the rapid decrease in the number of students opting to train as teachers and the increasing numbers of teachers leaving the profession; the teaching profession in South Africa is indeed what Duke (1984) termed “imperilled”. While quantitative research identifies remuneration to be the foremost factor attributed to the dissatisfaction of teachers in South Africa as elsewhere; the main purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of remuneration. Nine qualified women teachers aged between 25 and 35 years of age, who had been teaching for at least two years and less than ten, volunteered to take part in this study. The sample was drawn from government schools in a suburban part of Johannesburg. This research was based on the information gathered from a short biographical questionnaire followed by in-depth, semi-structured interviews. A process of language sensitive thematic content analysis was employed in order to analyse the data from the interviews. The research indicates that in the decision to enter the teaching profession, notions of the perception that teaching is a vocation predominate. An emphasis on the related intrinsic rewards to be gained from teaching was found to receive greater focus than monetary concerns on entering the profession. The participants expressed that women are more likely to enter the teaching profession while even though men may share the passion to teach, they are seriously deterred by the poor levels of remuneration. The participants explained that as the contexts of their lives changed, so too did their perceptions of remuneration, often resulting in an increasing emphasis on the importance of better remuneration to meet their and their families’ financial needs. Related to this, it was found that as South African teachers were exposed to an almost overwhelming number of challenges, the participants began to experience fewer intrinsic rewards which seemed to impact negatively on their perceptions of remuneration. Thus of the nine participants, only two indicated their long-term commitment to the teaching profession whereas the remaining seven all had plans to leave the profession in search of better remuneration.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate perceptions on quality of care delivered by service providers to families of children with disabilities, attending the cerebral palsy (CP) clinic at Dr George Mukhari hospital. The objectives of this study were to 1) determine the demographic and socio-economic profile of the caregivers; 2) establish how the caregivers perceive the provision of care as identified by the subscales of the Measure of Processes of Care-South African (MPOC-SA version), by Saloojee (2007); and 3) determine the overall perception of caregivers with regard to their satisfaction from the service they received. METHODS: A correlation study design using structured interviews was used. Purposive sampling technique was used to recruit participants who gave informed consent to participate in the study (n=67). Caregivers completed the demographic and the MPOC-SA version questionnaire through structured interviews conducted by two trained assistants. The researcher completed the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) for each child diagnosed with cerebral palsy guideline and eliciting developmental and functional abilities of the child using the Neurodevelopmental therapy (NDT) clinical approach. RESULTS: Ninety-nine percent of caregivers were females, and approximately 45% of them were 30 years old and younger. Just over forty percent of them were married, with 34.33% married to the father of the child. Thirteen percent of caregivers were exposed to tertiary education, and 34.33% of families were receiving less than R500 per average month. Caregivers perceived that the MPOC-SA domains of Respectful and Supportive Care together with Providing Specific Information to have been experienced to a great extent at 5.34 (±0.61) and 5.09 (±0.82) respectively. The weak domains were perceived to be Providing General Information, Enabling and Partnership and 2.34 (±0.95) and 3.26 (±1.10) respectively. Satisfaction with services rendered was at an average of 5.33 (±1.00). There was a positive correlation between Satisfaction and of the all the MPOC-SA domains. CONCLUSION: Service providers need to improve on the interpersonal aspects of service delivery to ensure healthcare provision of high quality with better outcomes and higher satisfaction for users. The identified aspects that need immediate improvement are ‘Providing General Information’ and ‘Enabling and Partnership’ respectively. Providing General Information focuses on activities that meet caregivers’ general information needs such as grant applications, accessing assistive devices, and other resources that may support the family of a child with cerebral palsy such as non-governmental organization. Enabling and Partnership focus on activities where caregivers are involved in decision-making about the appropriate treatment for the child, and in giving input, sharing their concerns and opinions about services they receive.

Perception of risk was used as an independent variable and behaviour as the dependent variable in the research with the assumption that level of precaution used during sexual practices to safeguard against HIV infection will be positively related to the perception of risk to HIV. The conclusiveness of this approach was dependent on evidence that participants know what risky behaviour can contribute to contracting HIV/AIDS and on their willingness to report their risk perception honestly. A snowball sample consisting of 15 Zimbabwean women living in and around Johannesburg was employed. Research objectives were addressed through semistructured interviews. For all participants, perception of risk was qualified by a number of factors. Common precautionary strategies identified by women were to remain faithful to one partner and being more contemplative when choosing bed partners and using condoms. High risk perception was marked by having had various sexual partners, inconsistently using condoms, fear of sexual violence, mistrust of partners, feeling of fear of vulnerability to HIV whenever they had sex and survival concerns. Migrant women’s adoption of safe sex was limited by their circumstances and strategies of risk management and in particular their biases in assumptions about their partners’ sexual histories. This exposes them to the vulnerabilities of HIV/AIDS. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data.

Prescribing medicines is the primary intervention that most doctors offer to influence their patients’ health; however concerns have been expressed about the extent to which graduates are prepared by medical schools to assume prescribing responsibility. Both students and clinical teachers have identified a gap between workplace prescribing demands placed on newly qualified doctors and their preparation for this complex activity during undergraduate training. This study explored the exit-level prescribing performance of final-year students in the Graduate Entry Medical Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand compared with students’ perceptions of their prescribing competence. The results indicated a disparity between students’ competence and confidence. Examination marks showed that 83.6% of students were competent to prescribe according to the graduating standards of the University; however, questionnaire data revealed that 66% of students did not feel that their training had enabled them to prescribe rationally. This inconsistency was explored by analysis of the examination papers according to Bloom’s Revised and the SOLO Taxonomies. It was concluded that students score well on questions which test recall and application of knowledge, but some do not manage questions involving evaluation. Since prescribing is a complex skill that requires evaluative competence, this may explain why, despite high examination scores, students remain insecure. Exploration of the structure of knowledge through a Bernsteinian lens revealed that curricular components including problem-based learning and horizontal integration constrain epistemic access to the structure of rational prescribing knowledge for some students. It is recommended that rational prescribing skills should be taught as a synchronous strand within the curriculum, rather than in the current integrated mode. Learning could also be improved by innovative pedagogies associated with active learning and improved feedback.