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This thesis is focused on exploring marking and grading in higher education. Using a phenomenological approach 26 interviews were undertaken with a heterogeneous sample of health academics at four universities. The sample included novice lecturers with two years or less experience in the academy to those with academic careers spanning more than 20 years. Two interview methods were utilised, Protocol Analysis (PA) and Cognitive Interviewing (CI). Protocol Analysis enables close contact with the marking and grading, in the moment, whilst Cognitive Interviewing is a novel method for exploring lecturer practices in higher education. Analysis was completed by applying a modified framework analysis to both data sets, facilitating synthesis of the two series of research findings. A wealth of rich data was gathered which resulted in close exploration of marking and grading practices, with the production of corroboratory evidence for issues previously identified on these phenomena. Close connection as an insider practitioner researcher has enabled close exploration and the gaining of new insights into practice, resulting in the identification of previously unexplored areas. My original contributions to knowledge in this area are: identifying the messiness of marking and grading and troublesome knowledge, the ‘rubric paradox’, importance of communities of practice, dual identity of health academics, working environments, experience recast as expertise, and using current interview techniques (PA and CI) for supporting continuing professional development. This thesis develops these themes suggesting ways in which they could impact upon contemporary marking and grading practice.

The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between extracurricular activity participation and concurrent and longitudinal youth academic and psychosocial development in academically gifted youth. Extracurricular activity participation as a potential protective factor against the negative effects of life events, and the theoretical role of personality/activity fit as a determinant of positive developmental benefits in youth were also explored in this study. Secondary data analysis was conducted using data provided by two cohorts of middle school youth from a public magnet school in Philadelphia. After controlling for sociodemographic selection factors, Study 1 revealed that music was the only type of activity that was related to academic achievement. Time spent in music significantly contributed to predicting performance on reading, language, math and science standardized exams. Sport made significant negative contributions to predicting reading and language exam scores. These findings were limited by a ceiling effect caused by high mean scores on grade point average and standardized exams. Sport/dance was the only activity associated with well-being, significantly contributing to the prediction of positive affect. The results also revealed nonlinear associations between time spent in activities and standardized math scores, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and grit. The results of Study 2 revealed support for the protective role of activity participation on the negative academic and psychosocial impact of life events stress, which was a significant predictor of poorer adolescent outcomes across all of the domains. Accounting for the impact of life events, music positively predicted academic outcomes, and sport/dance positively predicted higher life satisfaction, positive affect, and self-esteem, and lower levels of negative affect. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed that youth participated in activities that appeared to be compatible with personality characteristics. For example, sport was associated with higher extraversion and music with higher openness to experience. / Kinesiology

The transition to adolescence is considered to be a period filled with increased turmoil, often disrupting youth's psychological well-being and resulting in numerous poor outcomes. This study examined the relationship between aspects of mental health and students' academic performance and their beliefs about their academic capabilities among a normative sample of middle school girls. Measures of mental health problems as well as emotional strengths were included. Forty middle school girls from two schools were included in this study. Sixteen of the participants attended a small, predominantly White private school and the remaining 24 students attended a larger and more diverse public school. Pearson correlations were run with the entire sample and at the two schools separately to identify the relationship between the mental health variables and the academic outcomes. Results indicated that mental health functioning was significantly related to students' feelings about their academic abilities, such that students reporting high levels of distress reported more negative attitudes about their own abilities and students reporting high levels of emotional strengths reported more positive academic attitudes. The psychological variables were not, however, correlated with students' true performance on math and reading tests. Results were more pronounced at the more diverse public school than they were at the small private school. These results suggest that more comprehensive screening procedures that look at students' psychological and academic functioning may be important to better understand students' needs and to provide appropriate school-based interventions. This study also examined the effectiveness of a school-based depression prevention program, the Girls in Transition program, which is designed to promote resiliency among middle school girls. Students at the two schools were randomly assigned to receive the intervention immediately (n = 17) or were put into a wait-list control group (n = 20). Data were collected at three separate times: before the intervention began, immediately following the intervention, and at a six-month follow-up period. Paired samples t-tests and one-way ANOVAs were run to examine changes in the study variables over time for each group and group differences at both follow-up periods. Results revealed that students who participated in the program reported increased use of adaptive coping strategies at both follow-up periods. They also reported reductions in symptoms of anxiety and anhedonia and increases in social self-efficacy. Scores among students in the wait-list control group remained stable, though two unanticipated findings were observed. Differences between the two groups at either follow-up period were not detected. Despite evidence of a relationship between mental health factors and academics, participants did not demonstrate gains in any of the academic measures included in this study. Results from this study offer encouraging support for the effectiveness of the Girls in Transition program, though they were severely limited by small sample sizes and high attrition rates. / School Psychology

The educational plight of the urban student athlete is often associated with academic underachievement. This study researched the effects of minimum academic standards on athletes to increase their academic success, attendance rates, reduce discipline infractions and subsequently, increase graduation rates. Vidal- Fernandez (2011) conducted a study on the effect minimum academic requirements to participate in sports had on high school graduation. Students who were involved in a sport had significantly higher grade point averages during their sport season compared to their grade point averages when the students were not in season. Schools invest large amounts of resources into sports activities under the well-supported assumption that these activities increase levels of student outcomes. If engagement in athletics significantly improves the likelihood of academic success, then school leaders should choose to target resources and efforts at increasing participation, especially for at-risk and failing students (Vidal-Fernandez, 2011). In this quantitative study to determine what impact athletics have on the student's academic performance, the researcher collected existing data on the high school football teams for two semesters prior to a system wide 2.0 GPA policy to play and two semesters after the implementation of the 2.0 GPA play policy. Independent variables (attendance, discipline and GPA) and dependent variables (participation in football, academic coach or no academic coach, and athletic coach) were collected, and these variables were then measured and analyzed using relevant statistical procedures. Many of the student athletes in this study increased their accountability for their academic achievement in order to achieve higher GPAs in order to participate in athletics. Although not statistically significant, the data showed there was an increase in the overall district GPA for football players in the division after the implementation of the 2.0 GPA rule. Another important finding, student mobility (transiency) was notable at each high school during the three-year span of the study. While the present study only analyzed a district sample of athletes, the results could assist parents, coaches, and school administrators in monitoring the academic success of the school system's athletes. / Ed. D.

Yes / While widening access is high on universities' agendas at undergraduate level, class barriers still prevail in the academy. Here, ... working-class scholars describe their experiences of 'otherness' / A section of the article 'Being working class in the academy' is reproduced here in line with the publisher's copyright restrictions.

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No / Awareness is growing of the importance of patient centered care (PCC) in diagnostic radiography. PCC is embedded within professional body publications and guidance documents, but there is limited research evidence exploring the perceptions of student radiographers and radiography academics. Methods: This paper reports Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the project from the perspective of radiography academic and student radiographer participants, and compares these to the perspectives of service users, clinical radiographers and radiography managers reported previously. Stage 1 used an online survey tool to gauge participant agreement with a series of attitudinal statements. Stage 2 used situational vignettes to promote discussion and debate about PCC approaches. Results: Response rates to the Stage 1 survey were above the minimum threshold, with 50 responses from student radiographers and 38 responses from radiography academics. Stage 1 participants were asked to participate in Stage 2 on a voluntary basis. As with service users and service deliverers, care communication, event interactions and control over environment were the key influences on PCC. However, students highlighted differences between reported and observed levels of PCC. Conclusion: There is some way to go to embed PCC in diagnostic radiography practice. As impartial observers of radiography practice, student radiographers highlight the difference between service users and service deliverer's perceptions of PCC. Whilst the focus of clinical radiographers remains on efficiency, it is difficult for student radiographers to challenge the accepted norm. Role models are required to promote PCC behaviours and a holistic approach in radiography practice. Implications for practice: A package of educational support and audit tools will be made available to support both service deliverers and student radiographers to deliver PCC

Considered as the ―...central organizing method‖ (Fuss, 1991:1) in terms of gender and sexual orientation particularly in the Western world, the heterosexual/homosexual binary, emphasises the centrality of ―compulsory heterosexuality‖ (Rich, 1993:227) in the everyday lives of social and sexual actors. In doing this, homosexuality is not only differentiated from heterosexuality, but may rather be ‗banished‘ to a lower and subordinate stratum of so-called sexual ―respectability‖ (Rubin, 1993:13). Using it as a point of departure, this particular sociological inquiry sought to critically explore the influence of a binary logic on the identity construction of gay male academics and students in South African tertiary education. This study provides an in-depth qualitative discussion of the lived experiences of these men on university campuses in order to redress the limited focus on the subject matter in South African sociology. Informed by the metatheoretical principles of phenomenology and central features of a symbolic interactionist methodology, three specific subthemes guided the research. These included the rationalisation of sexual orientation, self-reflexivity and, as my inductive contribution, a consideration of the deprofessionalisation and/or professionalisation of the gay male academic identity in South African higher education. In adopting Jackson and Scott‘s (2010) conceptualisation of the rationalisation of sexuality, the study sought to explore its role in the identity construction of gay men through, amongst others, ―sexual scripting‖ (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), ―doing gender‖ (West & Zimmerman, 2002), ―using gender‖ (Johnson, 2009) as well as ―doing gay‖ (Dowsett et al., 2008), to (de)construct a ―gay sensibility‖ (cf. Seidman, 2002a) within and between their private and professional contexts. Secondly, such negotiation of their homosexual ―performativity‖ (Butler, 1990) presupposed an undeniable degree of ―reflexiveness‖ (cf. Mead, 1962) on the part of the gay male, to adhere to the expectations of other individuals in a specific social context. Given the findings from a thematic analysis of fifteen (15) in-depth interviews with academics and seven (7) with students, as well as two (2) self-administered questionnaires completed by academics and seventeen (17) by students, the influence of heteronormativity, heterosexism and homophobia, was again reiterated. The participants mostly opted to professionalise their gay male identities (thus differentiate between their private and academic gay male identity), regardless of the fact that their narratives reflected an internal diversity, plurality and potentially non-subordinate otherness, akin to Plummer‘s (1998b) reference to ―homosexualities‖ rather than only one homogenised version of ‗homosexuality‘. Their choice to do so was attributed to a conscious effort to either ‗pass‘ as heterosexual, assimilate into the dominant sexual and gendered culture of the campus, or conform to a stereotypical gay performance in homosexually-segregated academic departments because of anxiety, fear or shame. As such, the potential of mastering an uncategorised ‗queer‘ inclination in tertiary education, becomes all the more difficult, if not improbable. / PhD (Sociology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Considered as the ―...central organizing method‖ (Fuss, 1991:1) in terms of gender and sexual orientation particularly in the Western world, the heterosexual/homosexual binary, emphasises the centrality of ―compulsory heterosexuality‖ (Rich, 1993:227) in the everyday lives of social and sexual actors. In doing this, homosexuality is not only differentiated from heterosexuality, but may rather be ‗banished‘ to a lower and subordinate stratum of so-called sexual ―respectability‖ (Rubin, 1993:13). Using it as a point of departure, this particular sociological inquiry sought to critically explore the influence of a binary logic on the identity construction of gay male academics and students in South African tertiary education. This study provides an in-depth qualitative discussion of the lived experiences of these men on university campuses in order to redress the limited focus on the subject matter in South African sociology. Informed by the metatheoretical principles of phenomenology and central features of a symbolic interactionist methodology, three specific subthemes guided the research. These included the rationalisation of sexual orientation, self-reflexivity and, as my inductive contribution, a consideration of the deprofessionalisation and/or professionalisation of the gay male academic identity in South African higher education. In adopting Jackson and Scott‘s (2010) conceptualisation of the rationalisation of sexuality, the study sought to explore its role in the identity construction of gay men through, amongst others, ―sexual scripting‖ (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), ―doing gender‖ (West & Zimmerman, 2002), ―using gender‖ (Johnson, 2009) as well as ―doing gay‖ (Dowsett et al., 2008), to (de)construct a ―gay sensibility‖ (cf. Seidman, 2002a) within and between their private and professional contexts. Secondly, such negotiation of their homosexual ―performativity‖ (Butler, 1990) presupposed an undeniable degree of ―reflexiveness‖ (cf. Mead, 1962) on the part of the gay male, to adhere to the expectations of other individuals in a specific social context. Given the findings from a thematic analysis of fifteen (15) in-depth interviews with academics and seven (7) with students, as well as two (2) self-administered questionnaires completed by academics and seventeen (17) by students, the influence of heteronormativity, heterosexism and homophobia, was again reiterated. The participants mostly opted to professionalise their gay male identities (thus differentiate between their private and academic gay male identity), regardless of the fact that their narratives reflected an internal diversity, plurality and potentially non-subordinate otherness, akin to Plummer‘s (1998b) reference to ―homosexualities‖ rather than only one homogenised version of ‗homosexuality‘. Their choice to do so was attributed to a conscious effort to either ‗pass‘ as heterosexual, assimilate into the dominant sexual and gendered culture of the campus, or conform to a stereotypical gay performance in homosexually-segregated academic departments because of anxiety, fear or shame. As such, the potential of mastering an uncategorised ‗queer‘ inclination in tertiary education, becomes all the more difficult, if not improbable. / PhD (Sociology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014