While approximately 62% of high school graduates enroll in college, almost half of these students do not return for their second year in school. This demonstratable gap in college interest and reaching actual goals speaks to a need for information on how to facilitate the precollege guidance process to achieve more successful high school graduate and postsecondary institution matches. Much information is available in regard to the college choice process of high school students considering four year colleges and universities; scant information is known about how students discover information about the complete range of postsecondary educational opportunities. In particular, the community and technical college postsecondary education options have received minimal attention. Providing precollege counseling and information to students is considered a function of the high school counselor. Therefore, their perceptions and knowledge of postsecondary educational institutions are important in understanding the information they relate to their students. The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe high school counselors' perceptions of community and technical colleges as viable and valued postsecondary education options. The study probed into the unique experiences of high school counselors from a major school system and examined how their perceptions were informed and shaped. A qualitative research design incorporating one-on-one interviews was conducted. The conceptual framework guiding this study was informed and developed by integrating three respected models: McDonough's (1997) model of building a comprehensive college culture in the high school, McClafferty and McDonough's (2002) model, and the American School Counselor Association National Model. The perceptions of the high school counselors resulted in five themes which included experiences with university bound students, experiences with community and technical college bound students, pathways of awareness of community and technical colleges, precollege counseling, and perceptions of community and technical colleges. The study concludes with implications for policy, practice, and recommendations for further study.

Bakgrund: Hjärt- och lungräddning (HLR) är den första hjälpen för att behandla ett hjärtstopp. Etiska riktlinjer för HLR i Sverige rekommenderar anhörigas närvaro om det finns bra förutsättningar. Sjuksköterskor har olika roller vid en återupplivningsinsats som bland annat deltagande i HLR och stöd till anhöriga. Anhöriga ska inkluderas i ett patientperspektiv och deras delaktighet är viktig att beakta av sjuksköterskorna genom interpersonella relationer och ömsesidighet i förhandling med anhöriga.  Syfte: Att beskriva sjuksköterskors uppfattningar om anhörigas närvaro vid hjärt- och lungräddning på vuxna patienter i sjukhusmiljö. Metod: En litteraturöversikt där 13 vetenskapliga artiklar har analyserats, varav 7 kvalitativa, 4 kvantitativa och 2 kvalitativa/kvantitativa. Resultat: Ur analysen av datamaterialet framträdde tre kategorier: Ett svårt beslut, En utmaning att hantera anhörigas närvaro och Tillfälle som medför möjligheter med 7 underkategorier. Konklusion: Anhörigas närvaro uppfattas som ett svårt beslut när det gäller att tillfråga eller inte anhöriga. Strukturella hinder i organisationen och emotionella reaktioner hos anhöriga är faktorer som sjuksköterskor anser försvåra beslutet. Sjuksköterskor uppfattar att det är en utmaning att behandla med anhöriga närvarande eftersom det skapar osäkerhet och kräver en extra sjuksköterskeresurs. Anhörigas närvaro uppfattas som ett tillfälle som har flera potentialer, vilket innebär att anhörigas engagemang och sjuksköterskors professions utveckling möjliggörs. / Background: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is the first emergency procedure for a cardiac arrest. Ethical guidelines for CPR in Sweden encourage family presence during appropriate circumstances. Nurses have different roles during a resuscitation effort which includes: participation in CPR, supporting the family, etc.. Nurses should include family members in the patient's perspective and they should implement family members’ participation through interpersonal relationship and mutuality in negotiation. Purpose: To describe nurses' perceptions of family presence during CPR on adult patients in a hospital setting. Method: A literature review with 13 articles, consisting of 7 qualitative, 4 quantitative and 2 qualitative/quantitative analyzed. Results: Three categories emerged from the analysis:  A difficult decision, A challenge to deal with family members’ presence, and Opportunity with possibilities, with 7 subcategories. Conclusion: The decision to ask family to be present during CPR is perceived by nurses as a difficult one. Organizational barriers and the emotional reactions of families are factors that influence their perceptions about asking family to be present or not. Nurses perceive that it is a challenge to deal with family presence because it creates uncertainty and requires additional personal. Family presence is perceived by nurses as an opportunity with considerable potential to involve the patient’s family and for the nurses themselves to development within their profession.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Long waiting times have, for many years, been synonymous with primary health care in South Africa, and this is evident by the long queues and consistent client dissatisfaction. There are multiple contributing factors that exacerbate waiting time in Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities such as shortage of health care providers, increase in the uninsured population and South Africa’s quadruple burden of diseases. Health establishments have initiated numerous strategies to reduce long waiting times with varying degrees of success. These strategies have mostly been quantified and linked to indicators to measure their level of success in relation to quality healthcare. This research explores the clients’ perception of one such intervention, which is the implementation of an appointment system in primary care facilities in the City of Cape Town. Qualitative, exploratory descriptive methods were used to gain understanding of the impact the appointment system has had on the clients’ experience of attending health care services. The researcher also explored how clients perceive their role with regard to the shaping of their clinic’s appointment system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen purposively sampled clients from five City Health clinics, who have implemented an appointment system through the guidance of the Appointment System Learning Initiative (ASLI). Maximum variation in sampling ensured the inclusion of small, medium and larger facilities within different geographical settings. Data analysis was done using a thematic coding approach, the themes were derived from the emerging data and were used to guide the researcher in gaining a rich picture of the clients’ experiences within the clinics. Ethical approval was requested and received from both the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and City Health prior to engaging any participants.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / HIV and TB are major problems in the South African context and the burden of these diseases is proving detrimental to the development of the country. These diseases have been evident in the country for many years and in recent times the infection rates of TB and HIV has been alarming. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified TB as a problem and the world was to actively implement strategies to combat this epidemic. The issue with TB control strategies is the emergence of HIV which has been the largest contributing factor to the increase in the TB burden in South Africa and many countries like it. South Africa has made great strides in the control of HIV in areas such as mother to child transmission, awareness programs, initiation of ARVs and medical male circumcision which have proven to be successful. In contrast, the TB burden does not share the same fate. The number of deaths caused by TB is continuously rising, as well as the number of new Multi-drug resistant TB cases. Furthermore the emergence of Extreme –drug resistant TB is seen as a sign of a failing health system. Policy makers are now faced with fact that the Directly Observed Therapy Short course (DOTS) program for the prevention of TB is inadequate in an area with a high HIV prevalence, which is what South Africa is faced with. The research objectives are therefore to identify if knowledge from South African TB policies are being disseminated to people who suffer from TB, also to measure if a lack of knowledge may have an impact on treatment success. A policy analysis was done of 5 South African TB policies to identify areas of the policies which are patient specific. The TB policies emphasized a patient-centred approach and the researcher used this concept to motivate that patient-specific areas must be known by the patients. The specific areas identified were: TB specific areas, Treatment specific areas, Adherence specific areas and information/education specific areas. Based on the policy analysis a case study was conducted at Brooklyn Chest Hospital to measure implementation of the policies on the ground. The study found that education was adequate in areas around TB diagnosis, treatment length, signs and symptoms, and family education. The participants lacked knowledge in areas such as TB contacts, monitoring of TB disease, education of TB prior to diagnosis and a high prevalence of non-adherence and multiple cases of TB were found among the participants. Also, the Chi-Square test found no statistical significance between the length of admission to hospital and treatment outcome. The result also shows that of the participants studied, over 30% of the study had not adhered to TB treatment after discharge. The study finds that there are significant shortfalls in the knowledge of participants based on South African TB policies, with a high non-adherence rate before and after discharge. The study shows a lack in the implementation of policy directives on education, following a patient-centred approach, which is evident in the lack of knowledge found in the participants in many facets of the TB disease and the processes to control TB.

Magister Artium (Psychology) - MA(Psych) / Divorce and self-efficacy are areas that have been studied quite widely and extensively in recent decades. Going through a divorce has an effect on how parents actually parent their children, which in turn has an effect on the behavioral, emotional, social and academic outcomes of the child. Divorce is considered a significant factor in determining emotional and social problems that children begin to exhibit. However, few research has been conducted on the relationship of divorce with parental self-efficacy and perception of parenting among divorced parents in South Africa. Therefore, this study used qualitative interviews to explore the impact of divorce on parental self-efficacy and perceptions of parenting among ten divorced parents from working to middle class community in Cape Town, South Africa. . The interviews were analyzed by making use of thematic analysis. Results showed that, although participants experienced an initial period of extreme emotional distress and feeling overwhelmed at being a single parent, their confidence in their parenting increased over time as they began to adjust to their new lives and received adequate and regular support. This was accomplished through various techniques and coping mechanisms employed by the participants, and with their social support structure playing a significant role on their parental self-efficacy. This study contributes to the research that has been conducted on parental self-efficacy, specifically, the research that has been conducted in a South African context, which has been generally lacking in terms of previous research.

Magister Scientiae (Nutrition Management) - MSc(NM) / Introduction: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are among the leading causes of premature death in South Africa. As is the case with many countries in transition, in South Africa the burden of pre-NCDs such as overweight and obesity is increasing. The aim of this mixed method study was to gain an understanding on the knowledge, attitudes, practices and perceptions and related factors of primary and secondary school teachers in Limpopo Province of South Africa regarding nutrition related non-communicable diseases (NR-NCDs). Methodology: A mixed method approach, parallel convergent study design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from a group of randomly selected public school teachers in Rakwadu Circuit, Limpopo, with due consideration of the ethical issues involved. For the quantitative inquiry, a previously validated structured questionnaire was adapted to collect data from 114 teachers, while 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted by the researcher to collect the qualitative data. Information collected included teachers‟ dietary practices, physical activity levels and their knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards nutrition related non-communicable diseases. Each of these variables had a number of questions which were scored and a mean score for each participant was obtained. Anthropometric measurements collected included Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC).

In the 1830s, students at Oxford University began using the word coach as a slang expression for a tutor who carried a student through an exam (Coach, 2011). Nowadays, the word is seen as a metaphor for a person supporting another person to achieve an imagined goal (Johansson & Wahlund, 2009). Hilmarsson (2006) says that everyone acts as a coach from time to time, and Strandberg (2009) argues students in Sweden today want to be coached. However, it is hard to find schools where they claim they practice coaching. Because the word coach is ubiquitously used, many who today work with coaching are in fact inappropriately trained (Grant, 2010; Williams, 2008). Thus, by using a questionnaire as well as interviewing two students and a coach, I wanted to investigate whether coaching made any difference to how students perceived their English learning. 63 students and one coaching teacher participated in this study, where the findings demonstrated that there were other aspects which had a higher impact on students‟ perceptions of their English learning than the terminology used to describe the educational method practiced in their particular school.

Marriage is an important phenomenon that occurs in most societies across the world. Within the Islamic belief system, marriage is regarded as a sacred union and is obligatory on all Muslim people. This qualitative study explored the perceptions that eight young Muslim South African adults have regarding marriage, using semistructured interviews. The data was analysed by following a thematic content analysis framework which highlighted aspects such as the extent to which participants ascribed to their religious beliefs regarding marriage, any societal influences that may have shaped their views on marriage as well as the factors they believed lead to the success as well as the breakdown of marriages. From the results, it was evident that young Muslim South African adults had positive views on marriage, and expected to get married at some point in their lives. This was primarily due to their religious Islamic backgrounds and family upbringings. Moreover, the results indicated that young Muslim adults are more flexible with regard to engaging in pre-marital romantic relationships, yet continued to hold marriage in high regard. Participants outlined factors such as teamwork from spouses, trust, commitment, understanding, honesty as well as communication between spouses as integral in achieving and maintaining a successful marriage. These perceptions are discussed in relation to findings from other studies. The need for pre-marital programmes for young Muslim adults is highlighted.

Although there is considerable interest in the role of performance management systems (PMS) to enhance innovation and performance, there is limited literature regarding successful implementation in organisations. Most research has focused on the technicalities of performance management implementations, while neglecting the human reactions that influence the outcomes of such systems. This research therefore aimed to examine employees’ perceptions of performance management systems in various organisations and how performance management systems, or the lack thereof, specifically influence performance in the Namibian organisational context. A multiple case study methodology was adopted for the research, where open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from various organisations. Data was primarily analysed by means of qualitative content analysis which was supported by the pattern matching technique. The research findings supported goal setting theory which predicts that performance benefits can be realised by implementing specific challenging goals because they have a motivational effect on employees compared to vague and easy goals. Findings also supported theory which suggests employee participation in goal setting and providing feedback led to higher performance compared to when goals are assigned and no feedback is given. The findings supported predicted positive relationships between rewards and performance. However, findings also suggested that performance management systems, or lack thereof, are unfair because rewards are distributed unjustly, which has a negative effect on performance. Nevertheless, it was suggested that employees are more motivated to perform by intrinsic factors, including achieving challenging goals, than extrinsic factors. These findings not only supported goal setting theory, they supported McGregor’s (1960) theory Y which argued that employees are ambitious and motivated by more than money, yet surprisingly also supported his theory X as it was revealed that some employees would only work harder if rewards, or performance bonuses, are given. Although the research aimed to test goal setting theory, findings also supported Vroom’s (1964) valence-instrumentality-expectancy theory, Maslow’s (1943) and McClelland’s (1975) need theories, which all argue that performance is enhanced by other sources of motivation. The findings supported contradictory theories, yet discovered interdependency among the theories, which created a cyclical notion. This means, Vroom’s (1964) theory argues that an employee can be motivated to perform better when there is a belief that the better performance will lead to good performance appraisal and in the realisation of personal goal in the form of some reward. It, however, implies that goal setting theory has no impact on employees’ performance. Yet, according to the qualitative findings, some employees will only increase performance if their performance is monitored and appraised. Therefore organisations are required to have performance management systems in place, in turn, supporting goal setting theory. The research attempted to generate meaningful insight that would be beneficial to organisations, in and outside Namibia, that are considering implementing or improving their performance management systems by incorporating what employees perceive to be fundamentally important. Communication, management support, performance feedback, education and training, goal setting and employee participation are amongst the factors perceived as essential to effective performance management systems implementation. As literature (Bernardin & Beatty, 1984; Fox & Spector, 2002) has affirmed, these findings stress that the effectiveness of performance management systems depends on employees’ attitudes and perceptions of the systems.

Master of Arts - Arts / Background: With the increasing prevalence of stroke in developing countries, like South Africa, the long-term care of stroke patients living with disabilities has substantial consequences for caregivers and their respective families. Method: This study investigated caregiver perceptions of their experiences, as well as familial implications due to the incidence of stroke within the family system. The assessment, in the form of a semi-structured interview, described the experiences post-stroke as perceived by six primary caregivers. It additionally addressed the challenges the South African context adds to these experiences. This was conceptualised within a systems and biopsychosocial framework, enabling the caregiver and family to be considered in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Results: Prominent themes associated with the caregiving of a stroke patient included: role changes, relationship disruptions within the family system, occupational and social implications, fatigue, anxiety, depression, as well as financial problems. An additional sub theme was that the emotional impact on the family system was greater in cases where younger children were involved. However, social support increased the caregivers’ ability to cope and this additionally assisted the rest of the family in their adjustment. Caregiver experiences were exacerbated by the inadequate support structures available within the South African context, with the lack of post-stroke education being an issue of great concern. Conclusions: Practical implications of this study are discussed, along with considerations of the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.