The introduction of taste regimes into the agriculture literacy and communications literature is explored and discussed in this study. I analyze how college students interpret taste regime indicators (interpretations, personal view alignment, personal action) influence their perceptions of agriculture food production information. More specifically, I look at how media information effects college students’ interpretations of these taste regime indicators. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students at a large research-intensive university who responded to an electronic questionnaire developed specifically for this study. Findings indicate that the college students involved in this study have little to no defined opinion between large-scale and alternative agriculture. This indicates that the agriculture taste regime is not taking the general populations beliefs and preferences into consideration when developing campaigns. Recommendations for large-scale and alternative campaigns are to develop more objective campaigns and for the general population become change agents forcing the agriculture taste regime to take their beliefs and preferences into consideration.

Magister Educationis - MEd / This research study attempted to highlight an in-depth exploration of my own classroom practice as a teacher at a high school in the Western Cape. A key goal of this research study was the quest for professional development and the development of an HIV/AIDS literacy programme for curriculum development. / South Africa

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / The purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of an Information Literacy intervention administered to first year Faculty of Business students at Rosebank College Cape Town. The exponential nature of information has led to students having access to abundant information which often comes unfiltered. This requires them to be in possession of life long competencies to find and apply this information to solve problems. Recent shifts in pedagogy and curricula have also precipitated the importance of independent learners who are capable of constructing their own knowledge. Student centred methods of teaching employed in tertiary institutions such as, problem based learning, evidence based learning and inquiry learning have necessitated the importance of Information Literacy training towards the development of independent learners. The study assesses the baseline incoming skills of the Faculty of Business students. Two intervention workshops are conducted for the experimental cohort and a post-test is administered. After the post-test the results of the control and experimental group are compared. The study uses the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Standards for higher education as a theoretical foundation. The standards are applied as benchmarks when assessing the Information Literacy competencies. The study explores the following research questions • Are the Information Literacy interventions administered to the first year business faculty students effective and do they meet the proposed outcomes? • What are the existing Information Literacy competencies of the incoming students in the Faculty of Business? • How should Information Literacy programmes be delivered? • Are the ACRL standards a reliable tool to assess Information Literacy skills and the effectiveness of the interventions administered? The study found out that offering Information Literacy interventions would result in students accumulating these skills. This is supported by the difference in scores between the control group and the experimental cohort. However it must be noted that Information Literacy training is not an event but rather an on-going process.

The current study examined the impact of an early summer literacy program and the mediating effects of the home literacy environment on the language and literacy outcomes of a group of children at-risk for long-term developmental and academic delays. Participating children (n=54) were exposed to an intensive book-reading intervention each summer (June through mid August) over a 3-year period. The current study implemented an ex post facto, quasi-experimental design. This nonequivalent group design involved a pretest and posttest over three time points for a non-randomized treatment group and a matched non-treatment comparison group. Results indicated that literacy scores did improve for the children over the 3-year period; however, language scores did not experience the same rate of change over time. Receptive language was significantly impacted by attendance, and race/ethnicity. Expressive language was impacted significantly by gestational age and attendance. Results also indicated that language outcomes for young children who are exposed to a literacy program were higher than those who did not participate; however, only receptive language yielded significance at the p This study concluded that at-risk young children do benefit from center-based literacy intervention. This literacy experience, however, is also driven by the children’s home environment, their attendance to the program, whether they were premature or not and the type of caregiver.

Schools and sports governing bodies have added physical literacy in their curricula. However, until recently, there was no validated protocol to assess children’s physical literacy progress. In response to this need, the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy (CAPL) was developed; it measures physical literacy by assessing 4 important domains (physical competence, daily behaviours, motivation and confidence, and knowledge and understanding). The relative age effect (RAE) bias is attributable to age grouping by the imposition of cut-off dates; this age grouping strategy is common in sports and schools. However, despite its objective of providing age-adjusted learning, it promotes a relative age difference that leads to a developmental advantage for children born just after the cut-off date. Analogous to the age grouping in schools and sports, the CAPL protocol uses rounded-down age bands to objectively compare children; however, this type of comparison is also known for being susceptible to the RAE bias. The purpose of this thesis was to determine whether the RAE bias was associated with the CAPL scores (i.e., the four domains individually and the overall score) and all of the physical competence domain assessments individually (anthropometrics, aerobic, strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and movement skills). Participants (n=8,233, 50.2% girls), ages 8 to 12 years, from 7 provinces were tested using the CAPL protocol. Analyses of covariance (controlling for age, testing date, body mass index z-scores and testing sites) revealed a significant RAE bias in boys in 2 out of the 4 domains (physical competence and knowledge and understanding domains) and in girls in 3 out of the 4 domains (physical competence, knowledge and understanding and motivation and confidence domains). However, these significant associations between domain scores and relative age yielded negligible effect sizes, thus no meaningful RAE was observed. Collectively, the results of this thesis suggest that the RAE should not affect the validity of the CAPL in accurately measuring physical literacy.

Against the background of previous research regarding the interplay between pictures and text in teaching materials and picturebooks which shown an ambivalent approach to the use of pictures in narrative texts (Carney & Levin 2002) (Jonsson 2006) I set off to investigate the interplay between pictures and text in childrens litterature with the aim to illuminate how different interplays could be used in teaching. The study proceeded from the following questions: In which ways do pictures and texts interplay in some newly published reading textbooks? In which ways do pictures and texts interplay in some commonly read picturebooks for 8 year-old children? Which didactic consequenses could derive from this? Through a multimodal literacy-theory I analyzed three commonly read picturebooks for eight year-olds and three newly published reading textbooks in which I labeled the pictures using an analyzing-tool created by Joel R Levin, professor of Educational Psychology vid Department of Educational Psychology, University of Arizona where the relation between text and picture can be representative, decorative, organizing or informative, or interpretive as Levin puts it (Levin 1981). The total result showed that most text-picture-interplays are representative och informative, two interplays in which the reader is invited to interpret, make predictions, and make connections to own experiences or other stories. The organizing interplays create preconceptions and invites the reader to summarize the content and retell sequences or the whole story. The decorative interplays could through a multmodal literacy-theory rise questions about genres and social codes. The interplays between pictures and text are found being a great resource rather than an obstacle.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Literacy levels measured against national and international tests indicate that South African learners are performing poorly. Literacy skills are critical in the development of learners, and research suggests that parents play an important role in enhancing these skills. The study takes into account the geographical, socio-economic and historical context of learners and parents, and seeks to determine why children are struggling with literacy activities.

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