The main focus of this research was to determine the functional relationship that exists when mental ability and language competence are separately and simultaneously measured with regard to their influence on the effective treatment of verbal information. The subject sample comprised 100 men and women, aged 20-60 years, who were chosen to be representative of the employable population of the Greater Vancouver area. The assessment of language in these subjects included skill in .syntax, exemplified by verb-form competence, the variety of clausal structures employed, and the presence of other modifying devices common to adult language. The procedures for assessing these competencies were originally developed by the author from raw data supplied by Koopman (1985). Comprehension was measured by means of a standard reading comprehension test, which comprised a series of graded paragraphs. Multiple-choice questions were posed on specific information regarding the characters and events, inferences and implications of the content, and recall of the actions and settings presented in the paragraphs. Intelligence was measured by a non-verbal intelligence test, which called for the identification of geometrical patterns and learned skills in matching, analogies, classifications, intersections, and progressions. Skill in processing verbal information was assessed from the subjects' written productions. Six controversial topics were presented to the subjects by means of questions and related collages. The subjects were asked to present, in writing, a solution to one of the issues. The time suggested for this task was approximately fifteen minutes. The compositions were scored for quality of argument and maturity of judgment. All scores were analyzed by regression and multiple regression procedures. Demographic data were investigated by canonical correlation analysis. The main finding of this present research was that skill in syntax is the major component in English composition, particularly in exercises which call for critical analysis and the making of sound judgments. This finding suggests that the assessment procedures used in this research may be a feasible means of judging the quality of adults' written language. The results also indicated that skill in the use of language is of greater significance than is mental ability in the treatment of verbal information. The demographic variables of the subjects do not serve to differentiate between high and low performance in language in any reliable way, although level of education has some bearing on ability in language and category of occupation among the middle and upper age-groups. Finally, practical application of these assessment procedures in education and suggestions for further research directly concerned with this study and with issues in related fields are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Bibliography: leaves 160-178

Internationally, there is a growing body of research that focuses on teachers’ informal learning. However, there is very little research in South Africa on informal learning and most research focuses on formal professional development initiatives. The purpose of this study is to address the gap in South African literature on the contemporary educational phenomenon of informal teacher learning. The study aims to investigate how teachers learn informally at school. The key research questions, 1. What do the selected teachers understand by the concept teacher learning? 2. In what ways do teachers learn informally at school? 3. What kinds of knowledge do teachers learn informally at school? were used to frame the study. The body of literature surveyed for this study makes reference to the variety of ways teachers learn informally in school and the benefits derived from this alternative form of learning. In South Africa, studies undertaken by Abrahams (1997) and Graven (2004) seem to suggest that there is some kind of support for collaboration and communities of practice as models of teacher learning. This study was conducted with a group of five teachers, both novice and experienced at a suburban government girls’ high school in KwaZulu-Natal. The study used the exploratory, descriptive style of case study methodology where the case is teacher learning in a high school. It was designed to unfold in four different stages and a data collection instrument specific to each stage was used to generate the necessary data: Journals (Stage 1), Photographs (Stage 2), Photovoice (Stage 3). The data were analysed in three steps: (1) Identifying patterns and themes emerging from the interview transcripts and journal entries. (2) Content analysis to give a rich, textured description of all the details of the participants’ experiences and reflections through the narrative written about each participant. (3) A deeper analysis then followed linking data to literature by looking across narratives of the five participants for what was similar or different about what knowledges they learnt and in what ways they learnt these knowledges. Some of the key findings indicate that these participants are self-motivated and that each of them took the initiative in an individual capacity to engage in informal teacher learning to either enhance or develop their content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge or contextual knowledge. They learnt these knowledges by engaging in either individual learning (planned or unplanned) or social learning (planned or unplanned) from or with colleagues. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.