Thesis (M.A.)(Information Science)--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Summaries in Afrikaans and English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-104).

The purpose of this study was to explore how public elementary school principals develop teacher leadership capacity within their schools, as well as the effect of this effort on a school's performance. After examining a variety of sources, such as journal articles and web-based search engines, the researcher determined that there was scant information explaining the process principals undergo to create teacher leadership roles in an effort to develop a high-performing school. To accomplish the goals of this study, salient reports in the field of teacher leadership were reviewed. The insights afforded from these reports guided the researcher in developing a field-based investigation focusing on school leaders and teachers employed in three high-performing elementary schools in central Florida. The researcher explored features of teacher leadership that were evident in high-performing schools and sought to discover the characteristics principals seek in selecting new teachers. Also investigated were the teacher leadership opportunities created by the principals and the ways in which these roles helped to sustain the elementary schools' high performance. Furthermore, recent school-based decisions made by the school leaders were studied. Throughout the data, school administrators provided opportunities for teacher leadership within their schools, primarily by forming school-based committees. The results showed that principals solicited opinions from teachers, especially when it came to curriculum and instructional concerns. In addition, when sharing best practices or participating in staff-development opportunities with colleagues, teachers felt satisfied with their work environments. School leaders and teachers understood the roles they played in the overall success of their schools. Based on the results of this qualitative study, principals can build leadership capacity at schools by first establishing a culture of trust, honesty, and professionalism between themselves and the teachers. Next, school leaders provide and support opportunities for leadership by aligning teacher strengths and roles. The researcher recommends that future research in teacher leadership examine whether the principal's impact on teacher leadership has an affect on retention at the school level.

This mixed-methods action research study explored the congruence between mentor and mentee perceptions of the importance and effectiveness of 12 district-specific focus areas of mentor support. While reviewing current data pertaining to teacher attrition, the researcher observed a limited availability of investigations relating to the perceived role of the mentor teacher based on the experiences and observations of both the novice and mentor teacher.The target population for this study was 70 novice and mentor special education teachers during the 2005--2006 school year employed at 13 middle schools in a school district located in Florida. Of the 70 beginning and mentor teachers, 4 mentor teachers and 2 novice teachers from 4 of the 13 middle schools within the district volunteered to participate. The mentor and mentee teachers who chose to take part were not mentoring pairs during the 2005--2006 school year.Obtaining Institutional Review Board approval, the researcher contacted middle school principals to attain administrative support for the study. Novice and mentor middle school teachers alike were then contacted via postal mail requesting their participation. Concerted efforts were made to secure mentor--mentee participation.The researcher relied on multiple data collection methods---a demographic and multi-item survey for the novice and mentor teacher (Appendixes D & E) and standardized open-ended interview questions for the novice and mentor teacher (Appendixes F & G). Lastly, the researcher conducted an analysis of pertinent district documents, more specifically thoroughly examining the information presented in the ESE Mentor Program Resource Manual for mentor and mentee teachers.The major findings of this study include the following: (1) formal and informal mentoring of beginning special education teachers by experienced mentors and colleagues is a useful and productive endeavor; (2) ESE paperwork demands are rigorous for novice teacher; (3) the needs and concerns of ESE teachers vary based on classroom assignment and student population, and (4) the ESE Mentor Program Resource Manual provided useful information referencing the 12 areas of mentor support for beginning special educators, but did little to guide mentor and novice teachers in facilitating the mentoring process.

“Fresh Fuel: The CanU Food Club” (Fresh Fuel) is the food and nutrition component of the larger CanU program aimed at improving the future well being of vulnerable children. A mixed-method case study evaluation was conducted with Fresh Fuel, employing a Utilization-Focused Evaluation approach. Results suggested that there were some gains in Fresh Fuel Participant (FFP) food and nutrition outcomes. Also, there were a variety of social benefits to FFPs, such as positive interaction with volunteers and peers, and having fun. Volunteers and practicum students developed career goals and skills. Results identified incompatible program goals, time limitations, inconsistent program implementation, and lack of direction in nutrition education; however, Fresh Fuel provided a supportive environment, hands on learning, and included positive nutrition discussions and food preparation experiences. The Utilization-Focused Evaluation approach has resulted in a meaningful report. Rigorous evaluations of Fresh Fuel and other food and nutrition programs are recommended. / October 2015

Positioned between the engagement rich secondary school and the highly social four-year institution, the community college has limited opportunities to connect with students. If community colleges are to meet challenges of providing access to education for students who have traditionally been underserved by higher education, and hold up to new measures of accountability in graduating students, two-year institutions must recognize that faculty-student engagements occurring in the classroom are crucial. Perception and appreciation of student’s capital by faculty through purposeful engagements grounded in theory provide opportunity for understanding capital disparity that exists in the community college classroom. Active participation of experienced faculty in an action research study was conducted and identified potential gaps of student-faculty interactions in the classroom, determined best-practice methods for increasing student-faculty interactions, incorporated identified best-practices in the classroom, and reflected upon their efficacy in improved student engagement. Sharing lessons learned by participants in an action research process with other practitioners, holds promise to increase our understanding of faculty funds of knowledge in the community college setting as well as processes that can be employed to help bring up capital and level out disparity.

Background: The recent political agenda for health and social care requires more client-centred, personalised services. Self-Directed Support, encompassing Direct Payments and Personal Budgets, is designed to provide people with more choice and control over how their needs and outcomes are met. Personal budgets are available for eligible people however take-up is low in mental health services. Research Aims: The study was set in an NHS Health and Social care Trust covering a large predominantly rural area.The aims of this study were: (1) to develop Self-Directed Support within one mental health Trust and; (2) understand more fully service user and carer involvement in the process. Methods: This study used action research incorporating: a spiral methodological framework; a project steering group; and service user and carer co-researchers. Data collection took place between 2007 and 2011, and the project ran in three sequential spirals using qualitative methods to triangulate the findings and identify any divergence in data. Findings: Findings showed that organisational language, structures and power relations provide barriers to effective involvement of service users and carers. Action research is very relevant for researching projects involving transformational change in health and social care, and including service user and carer co-researchers adds rich and authentic data. Findings concerning Self-Directed Support concluded that it afforded people more choice, flexibility and control than previous policy, and an improved quality of life. Concerns about bureaucratic processes, lack of information and knowledge of Self-Directed Supportwere found. Workforce concerns about safety of service users under Self-Directed Support and cultural shifts to more democratic methods of working were reported. Conclusions: This study's results correspond closely with national studies: staff attitudes and culture need changing to empower people to take up Self-directed Support. Concerns about quality assurance and safety are prevalent. Mental health services pose additional obstacles in their structures and reliance on the medical model. Social care knowledge cannot be assumed for all mental health Trust practitioners.

This thesis explores the use of feminist participatory action research (FPAR) within women-only youth and community work settings. The project investigated possibilities for flexible sports participation with non-sporty young women. Underpinned by poststructural feminism, the research considers the complex ways that gendered subjectivities are contested and constructed in relation to sporting embodiment and broader power relations. FPAR's, explicit aim is to affect positive social change. It is: participatory; defined by the need for action; and creates knowledge but not for the sake of knowledge alone. FPAR combines the sharing of common experiences of oppression with collective action. By using FPAR within youth and community settings over the course of 12 months, a group of young mums and a group of young women were encouraged to examine their relationship with physical activity and develop physical activity projects that suited their own needs. Research proceeded through three broad phases: interactive group discussion activities; planning of and participating in needs-led physical activity projects; and project evaluations. This project sought to find new ways of understanding young women’s engagement in physical activity and open up safe spaces for them to consider and experiment with new subjectivities and physically active subject positions. The thesis illuminates the highlights and challenges of implementing physical activity through participatory action research in youth work settings. Findings from the study outline the ways in which young women’s ‘non-sporty’ subjectivities are constructed in relation to discursive practices of gender. Young women’s critical reflections of previous experiences of physical activity revealed the workings of conflicting perceptions of valued emotional capital. The participatory projects provided opportunities for cross-field experiences, which shifted the social field of physical activity, and readdressed relations of power.

This is a study in and about systemic coaching in social work – systemic, and, as it unfolded, dialogical coaching, later named Dialogue Coaching (DC). Focus lies on what the conducted coaching brought forth, generated and created in the context of social work and for the members of the participating social welfare organisations. My specialities as coach became to inspire social workers to invite clients and especially children into partnership, making their voices heard, both in the written text and in the process of social investigations. The study was integral parts of commissions (and vice versa) of the County Administrative Board of Scania, Sweden, in my profession as systemic consultant and supervisor in Sweden. It was a study in how dialogical communication could improve how social workers, listening to the children’s invitation, could make children’s voices more heard in social investigations. In all, 55 social workers in seven municipalities participated in the dialogical participatory action research (DPAR) study, developing coaching and improving the dialogical interaction in social investigations. Focus moved from collecting data for decision-making, about what would be best for the child and other clients, to focusing on the changing process in relation to the participating clients, including children when they wanted to and could, co-creating new orientation on how to go on. The focus on communication and dialogue in the coaching changed and developed the participants’ approach in relation to clients and one another and others. In the emerging awareness of how we reciprocally and reflexively cocreate occurrences and outcomes, including who we become in relation to one another, the participating social workers’ awareness of the impact of their own contributions, and their own importance in relation to children and other clients, also improved. The expressions listening ears and listening questions were invented, capturing my, the coach’s, participation of placing myself completely 8 at the other participants’ disposal, completely accessible in the mutual responsiveness in the moment – being here and now in the present. The systemic methods and techniques were reflexively influenced and adapted from within the relational dynamic of joint actions in the dialogical interplay, metaphorically presented as peloton cycling in a voyage tour, becoming living tools in both the social workers’ practice and the coaching researcher’s practice, facilitating learning-by-doing with methods and approach connected to Appreciative Inquiry (AI). One of the living tools was reflecting teams emerging also into so called delta-reflecting teams with open narrating included.

Poor sanitation is a huge problem in third world countries today; every year 1,5 million children die due to diarrheal diseases caused by poor sanitation. International policies such as The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will be replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, have been set by the international community as tools to decrease the poverty in the world today, and problems that emerged from it such as poor sanitation. Participatory methods are emphasise to receive the goals as well as new working methods to shift the development paradigm from marked oriented towards sustainable development, which means that also the Earth’s well-being must be included in the SDGs. Ecological sanitation (Eco-san) is a system that reuses the human waste back to grooving activities, and can improve the situation in all three areas of sustainable development, i.e. economical, environmental and social development with it’s reusing approach. Participation in implementation of Eco-san system is important for enabling sustainable projects as well as receive better acceptance for the reuse approach. The research presented in this thesis had the aim to improve the sanitation situation by introducing and implementing Eco-san in a rural area in the Northern part of Tanzania by using an action oriented research approach. The participants together with the researcher developed the project to further see the interpretations of Eco-san and possibilities to implement Eco-san in the area as well as if the action research was a convenient way to introduce such a project. The study was conducted in two cycles were critical theory and diffusion of innovation were used as analysis tools for the introduction and implementation of the toilets. The findings from the first cycle showed that the participants were willing to learn about Eco-san by observing the idea through a demonstration toilet. Therefore the second cycle lead to implementation of Eco-san in a school of the area. These toilets are today in use and managed by the students at the school. Participating approach has therefore been a successful working method were the participants gained the knowledge they needed to develop and improve their situation. This can further be argued as a valuable approach for other development projects and to meet the upcoming SDGs. However, further action and education to other village members outside the school and up scaling possibilities in the community are needed.

The purpose of this research study aimed to critically examine personal and professional issues related to a small group of visual arts MFA graduate students and myself as we participated in a semester-long course entitled, “Issues of Relevance and Character in the Fine Arts,” at a large public university in the United States. In the form of a colloquium series, the course aimed to explore a graduate student’s developing sense of self and its impact on the different roles he or she often embodies while pursuing an MFA in a School of Art. These roles include those of an individual, a student, an artist, a teaching assistant, and a future professional in the field of the visual arts. Employing a participatory action research methodology, I was also a participant in the study. I regularly documented the oral, written, and visual data that emerged from the participants’ considerations of their immediate circumstances both inside and outside the School of Art as well as their interactions with the reflexive pedagogies utilized in the colloquium sessions. This dissertation also reviewed research studies conducted on graduate student development, students in visual arts MFA programs, the historical development of the MFA degree, as well as faculty members in MFA programs and their curricular and pedagogical practices. Findings indicated the following: First, strong convictions seemed to be intrinsic to the participants’ pursuit of their MFA degrees. They appeared eager to learn about becoming a professional in the field, and each participant expressed interest in teaching the visual arts as instructors in higher education. Second, participating in a course such as “Issues of Relevance and Character in the Fine Arts,” seemed to offer the participants a receptive and reflective platform to convey the voices of the “characters” they embodied as MFA students. For example, the participants appeared to clarify intra- and interpersonal priorities, educational goals and artistic aspirations. Their personal and professional development was influenced by the complex relationships they shared with others in their MFA programs. The MFA participants grappled with the connections and disconnections that appeared to exist between their professors, peers, and themselves. A third theme addressed the impact of my participation within the study. With an established background in both teaching and taking courses in the studio arts and Art and Visual Culture Education, the findings suggest that I was able to empathize with the three other participants on several fronts. Fourth, the findings also address the curricular and pedagogical strengths and limitations of the course. The implications of this research study suggest the need for (a) more action research studies of MFA graduate students, as the methodology seemed to enhance the reflexive and exploratory nature of self-inquiry; (b) a series of required courses within MFA curricula that help graduates to systematically reflect upon their roles as graduate students in terms of their immediate goals, as well as their aspirations for the future; (c) research and professional development opportunities for faculty members so that they might become more aware of the ways that their MFA curricula and instructional practices influence a graduate student's sense of self both positively and negatively; and (d) research on how art and visual culture educators can be involved in assisting MFA graduate students and faculty members develop new perspectives related to their instructional and mentoring practices.