The present study was designed to investigate, in an academic situation, the relation between achievement motivation--a "wish to master" or "desire to do well"--and certain psychological needs by the use of two psychometric instruments. These instruments were the Brown-Holzman Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes (SSHA) and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS).

This study was an attempt to determine if subjects differing in anxiety, motivation and stress evidence differential weight discrimination performance. The judged difference in weight discrimination will be affected by a preceding series of discriminations.

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M.A. (Psychological Counselling) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Yrkesprogram är den del av gymnasiet som uppvisar störst andel elever med det underkända betyget F i matematik. Men även mellan de olika yrkesprogrammen finns det skillnader. Syftet med denna undersökning är att få en förståelse för elevers motivation för ämnet matematik inom yrkesprogrammen. Finns det skillnader mellan olika program och möjliga orsaker? Undersökningen genomfördes genom gruppintervjuer där elever från El- och energiprogrammet, Handels- och administrationsprogrammet samt Bygg- och anläggningsprogrammet deltog. Gruppintervjuerna genomfördes program för program och Peter Kloostermans intervjuverktyg användes. Resultatet visade på ganska stora skillnader mellan de deltagande programmen i vissa aspekter. Utifrån resultatet fördes diskussion som pekade på att det kunde vara kulturella aspekter som låg bakom skillnader på motivation mellan de olika programmen. Även studieteknik kan påverka motivationen för ämnet matematik. / <p>Matematikdidaktik</p>

The construction industry is labour intensive in nature. People often work long hours in relatively disagreeable environments, far from their families. Even if workers are not happy to be working in a particular environment they find themselves obliged to work. Fearing reprimands from their superiors, they often find it difficult to express their ideas. It is therefore difficult for management to identify the factors of motivation that affect their workers productivity in a work environment. The aim of this study was to identify and evaluate motivational factors that affect the productivity of workers on construction sites in South Africa, focusing on skilled workers. For this, the scientific management approach and quantitative research methods were used. The findings from this study revealed that the motivational theories apply to construction sites, and management needs to apply these theories wisely in order to achieve improved productivity.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Business Executive Coaching Johannesburg, 2017 / This research was conducted to explore the influence of managerial coaching behaviours on employee engagement. Organisations need to retain engaged people who are productive and energetic to achieve the organisational success within an ever-changing environment. This might be enabled through the coaching behaviours of managers. While extensive research has been conducted on managerial coaching as a tool to support people to achieve performance, attain goals of the organisation, manage organisational transitions, and, achieve learning, research is limited on how managers can create engagement through utilising managerial coaching behaviours. Organisations need sustainable interventions that will positively impact the overall engagement of people. The manager is a crucial point of contact with people, and is able to create or destroy people’s engagement. This research has a constructivist or interpretivist approach and uses a case study methodology where five cases were analysed and cross-case analysed by interpreting the experiences of managers and two of their team members selected by extreme or purposive sampling on their engagement levels; in other words, one engaged and one disengaged person was interviewed per case as well as the manager. The findings established that engaged employees have a higher perception of their manager’s coaching behaviours than disengaged colleagues, and that all the managers were highly engaged yet varied in how they perceived their own coaching behaviours, and in turn, how they influence engagement. The managers’ use of a more empowering coaching style enhances engagement and their coaching behaviours influence fluctuating engagement levels, while a reflective practice within managerial coaching enables deeper understanding of perspectives, and in turn, engagement, but is not a common practice amongst managers. Engagement levels were also influenced by; coaching conversations which occur on a continuum from informal to formal; the manager’s coaching ability to create a sense of accountability and ownership; an agile or flexible managerial coaching approach in response to learning or business needs; and, the relationships and presence of the manager. The expertise of managers was valued irrespective of the perception of coaching behaviours or levels of employee engagement. Positive feedback and praise from the manager makes people feel recognised and significant, while the predominant managerial coaching behaviours falls within the performance coaching paradigm. Organisations need to develop the coaching behaviours of their managers to impact on the organisation’s and the individual’s performance, longer term development, skills acquisition, and wellbeing. / MT2017

Research report is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at University of the Witwatersrand MARCH 2016 / Past studies revealed that the existence of congruence between employees and their organisation produces more favourable attitudes and behaviours. This study sought to highlight the need for an intermediary link between person organisation fit and turnover intention, and to propose the integration of employee engagement as a potential mediating factor. The sample for this research consisted of 426 employees from diverse military units. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to test the direct and mediating relationships between key variables. Four hypotheses were tested. Hypothesis 1 stated that there will be a significant negative relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention and it was statistically supported. Hypothesis 2 stated that there will be a significant negative relationship between employee engagement and turnover intention and it was also statistically supported. Hypothesis 3 stated that there will be a significant positive relationship between P-O fit and employee engagement, this hypothesis was also confirmed through a significant statistical result. Lastly, Hypothesis 4 stated that employee engagement will mediate the relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention. This hypothesis was supported through the finding that employee engagement partially mediated the relationship between P-O fit and turnover intention The results showed that employee engagement partially mediates the relationship between the person-organisation fit and turnover intention. This suggests that person-organisation fit (in terms of value and goal congruence) provides greater meaningfulness and psychological attachment, which then leads individuals to a higher level of employee engagement. So, in short, the study showed that individuals with a higher level of employee engagement would be less likely to leave their organisations.

Thesis advisor: Robert Faulkner / Whereas many modern political philosophies and social science theories emphasize security or fear as the prevailing motivator of states and human beings more generally, Thucydides' political psychology seriously explores diverse motives. A careful reading of his work shows that honor, shame, vengeance, and the desire for liberty exert great influence in political affairs, including relations between political communities. I argue that this broad account of human motivation gives us a better account of many enduring features of international politics than theories which prioritize fear and interest. Thucydides portrays the importance of "spirited" concerns as issuing from the nature of political life. People ground their sense of worth in the exercise of freedom, and participation in political society promises the most substantive liberties. This affirmation of freedom culminates in the association of great worthiness and honor with the exercise of unfettered moral agency. While the powerful city must still bow to natural necessity, its great accomplishment is that it need not regard the rest of humanity as part of an inexorable nature. Ultimately it finds it impossible to relate to others on prudential terms and thus tends to conceive of relations between states as battles of wills. I conclude the dissertation by drawing out the moral implications of Thucydides' study of motives. Because Thucydides does not find the causes of significant conflict to lie solely in hard conflicts of interest or mutual fear, he shows mankind to be more mutually invidious but also more free to resist conflict than it is, for example, in Hobbes' thought. Thucydides' emphasis on spirited motives also shows us that a doctrinaire realpolitik is frequently infected by desires for punitive justice or an irrational intolerance of uncertainty. Most significantly, Thucydides suggests that given the unpredictability of human affairs, an unyielding rejection of moral considerations is as unrealistic as an idealism that seeks reliably to effect justice. His deep realism reopens a space for ethical action in international affairs by reminding us that realpolitik's emphasis on the riskiness of ethical action springs from an optimism that an a-moral doctrine of interest can reliably mitigate risk. Such optimism, Thucydides would urge, is unfounded. Thus in the end, Thucydides grounds a kind of liberality in a deep pessimism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.