Text in Afrikaans / Students who study part time find themselves in a situation, with much pressure, which causes stress. The reason for this study was therefore to investigate the effectiveness of Rational Emotive Therapy as a coping technique for students in order to handle stress. A qualitative analysis was conducted and data was gathered primarily through group therapy and interviewing. The results of the research led to the conclusion that Rational Emotive Therapy could be effectively applied by students as a stresscoping mechanism / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

Text in Afrikaans / Students who study part time find themselves in a situation, with much pressure, which causes stress. The reason for this study was therefore to investigate the effectiveness of Rational Emotive Therapy as a coping technique for students in order to handle stress. A qualitative analysis was conducted and data was gathered primarily through group therapy and interviewing. The results of the research led to the conclusion that Rational Emotive Therapy could be effectively applied by students as a stresscoping mechanism / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

Diploma thesis: Beliefs of actors in relation to preschool education at local level Author: Bc. Petra Kaplanová Abstract The aim of this thesis is to explore and compare beliefs of actors in relation with preschool education at local level and determine how they influence policy of preschool education. Used methodology is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The most significant used theory is a system of beliefs from Paul A. Sabatiera which is a part of theory of avocational coalitions. Four different beliefs were revealed. The first belief called "pro alternatives" did not show deep core beliefs of actors. However, it was obvious that these actors sympathize with alternative education principles. Second belief "traditional collective" is based on conviction that children should have the same conditions for the beginning of their lives. The state education is the best what is for children offered. In the third belief "not interested" are actors convicted not to participate in any level of politics. They believe it can cause either trouble or it will not have any effects. The last belief "traditional individualistic" is characterized with a belief that state form of education is the best what can be provided to children. On contrary with belief "traditional collective" these actors are...

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Learner beliefs, which contribute to attitude and motivation, may affect language learning. It is therefore valuable to investigate the malleability of learner beliefs, and to determine whether potentially detrimental beliefs can be ameliorated. This study examines how instruction of the principles of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) affects students' beliefs about classroom activities and their beliefs about language learning in general. The 68 first-year German students at Brigham Young University who participated in this study were asked to rate the effectiveness of three activities typical of communicative language teaching: Dialogue activities, Peer Interview activities, and Information-gap activities. They were also asked to respond to 11 statements about language learning, seven of which were taken from the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory(Horwitz, 1988). Students responded to the survey three times: once during the first week of the semester, again during the fourth week, and again during the eighth week. During the four weeks between the second and third surveys, students in the experimental group received seven treatment lessons based on some of the basic principles of SLA. A Repeated Measures ANCOVA and a Logistical Regression were used to determine the effects of the treatment, time, and a number of demographic variables. Results of this study show that the treatment did not have a significant effect on any of the beliefs that were measured. However, one language learning belief was significantly affected by time. A majority of the students who participated in this study agreed with the statement, “The instructor should teach the class in German.” After three weeks of class instruction, however, they agreed with this statement significantly stronger. The results of this study also show that many of the demographic variables, such as gender and previous language learning experience, had a significant effect on a number of the students' beliefs.

Les recherches historiques montrent que les croyances en la fin du monde (CFM) sont très anciennes et qu’elles s’adaptent aux cultures et aux époques en fonction de certains risques perçus par les groupes sociaux (Boia, 1999). Sur cette base cette thèse fait l'hypothèse générale d'un système de croyances déjà structuré intégrant ces CFM, système dont l'équilibre pourrait évoluer sous l'influence de certaines peurs humaines. La première partie de ce travail postule donc l'existence d'un système de pensée intégrant les CFM. A partir de questionnaires (881 participants), nous avons pu mettre en évidence trois modalités de CFM : la fin du monde écologique (responsabilité humaine), la fin du monde scientifique (éloignement temporel et totalité), et la fin du monde religieuse (cause religieuse et meilleur monde possible). Chacune de ces modalités est liée de manière spécifique à diverses façons de justifier le monde : les Croyances en un Monde Juste (notamment la Justice Finale et la Justice Immanente ; Maes, 1998), la Justification du Système (Kay & Jost, 2003), la Religion et la Spiritualité. C'est ce système que nous nous efforçons de "déséquilibrer" dans la deuxième partie en intégrant les apports de la Psychologie Existentielle Expérimentale (Greenberg, Koole & Pyszczynski, 2004). Selon la littérature, l’individu mis dans une situation de « menace existentielle » (i.e. Mort et Incertitude) a besoin de se raccrocher à des croyances rassurantes. Nous émettons donc l'hypothèse selon laquelle ces menaces bouleversent la structure de croyances de l’individu. Nos résultats (245 participants) confirment en partie cette idée, et indiquent aussi l’importance de mesurer les affects. Pour résumer, cette thèse montre l'existence et le fonctionnement d'un système de croyances capable de se déséquilibrer sous l'influence de menaces existentielles et de l’état émotionnel. / Historical research show that beliefs in the end of the world (BEW) are very ancient and that they are culturally guided through the risks that are perceived by social groups (Boia, 1999). Thus, this thesis makes the hypothesis that there is a beliefs structure which integrates BEW, and that this structure could evolve with human fears. The first part of the present study suggests that there is a beliefs system that integrates BEW. 881 participants answered to a questionnaire, and results have shown three main BEW: ecological end of the world (human responsibility), scientific end of the world (totality and temporal distance), and religious end of the world (religious causality and possibility of a better world). Each of these beliefs is linked with specific ways of justifying the present world: Beliefs in a Just World (particularly Ultimate Justice and Immanent Justice, Maes, 1998), System Justification (Kay & Jost, 2003), Religion and Spirituality. In the second part of this study, we used the Experimental Existential Psychology to make this beliefs system unbalanced (Greenberg, Koole & Pyszczynski, 2004). According to this theory, individual faced to an “existential threat” (i.e. Death and Uncertainty) needs to cling on to reassuring beliefs. Thus, we made the hypothesis that these existential threats would have an effect on the beliefs system analyzed previously. Results have partially confirmed this hypothesis (on 245 participants) and brought new information about the importance of measuring emotional state. To summarize, this thesis shows the existence of a beliefs system, how it works, and how existential threats and emotional state can unbalance this beliefs system.

The study explored whether or not to delay introducing Chinese characters as part of first year Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) courses in post-secondary institutions in the U.S. Topics investigated: a) timing structures of current CFL programs in the U.S.; b) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs and rationales of an appropriate timing to introduce characters; c) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the importance and difficulty of different Chinese language skills; and d) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the requirement of handwriting in beginning-level CFL courses. Data were collected through a large-scale online student survey with 914 students and a large-scale online teacher survey with 192 teachers. At the same time, a total of 21 students and five teachers from a delayed character introduction (DCI) program and an immediate character introduction (ICI) program were interviewed. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that the majority of CFL programs did not delay teaching characters; most of teachers and students believed that speaking and listening were the most important skills and reading and especially writing characters were the most difficult skills; and most of teachers and students did not favor alternative methods to replace the handwriting of characters even though they considered handwriting to be the most difficult skill. With few studies carried out to investigate the timing issue of character teaching, results from the study provided foundational knowledge for CFL educators to better understand CFL teaching and learning in general, along with the teaching and learning of written Chinese characters, in particular.

This thesis is set to investigate the factors that affect the intention to disclose personal information to SNS providers. The purpose of this study is to identify factors and how these factors affect the behavioral intention to disclose personal information to SNS from a new angle of analysis, namely through a user-to-organizational approach. By examining this phenomenon in a new context, this study seeks to provide an understanding of this phenomenon in a new setting and test if previous research can be used to explain the stated behavioral intention. With this argumentation in mind, the thesis aims to contribute to existing theory in consumer behavior, social networking sites, privacy concerns and personal information disclosure. In order to do so this paper is built on a quantitative research approach where the main research strategy is based on the results of a questionnaire. Through the questionnaire, a proposed framework was tested in order to identify factors affecting peoples’ intentions to disclose personal information to SNS providers. The model was built upon the structure of privacy calculation theory, which has been proven to identify intentions to disclose personal information in online settings. The results show that the factors that significantly affect behavioral intentions are trusting beliefs and self-presentations. They are factors leading to personal information disclosure to SNS providers. Limitations of this study is that it suffers a sampling restrictions due to its sampling of only Swedish inhabitants. This paper is the first to develop and empirically test an integrated model of personal information disclosure to SNS, taking on a user-to-organizational approach to privacy. Since SNS are financially evaluated by number of active users of their SNS it is crucial to understand the factors that affect consumers’ intention to disclose their personal information. From the empirical findings, this study proved that trust and self-presentation determine the intentions to disclose personal information to SNS providers. The results shows a discrepancy of existing literature, explaining differences between user-to-user and user-to-organizational context, and thus broadening the context of personal disclosure in the SNS realm. Practitioners can, by using the insights, tailor their strategies in order to maximize the efforts of affecting potential users’ to disclose their personal information, which SNS providers are dependent upon.

To understand learners’ beliefs about language learning and strategy use in an EFL exit test environment, this study investigated Taiwanese university students’ language learning beliefs; EFL exit test beliefs; language learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies; the relationships among their beliefs and strategy use; and the differences in students’ beliefs and strategy use according to their major, gender, grade level, entrance exam English score, and EFL exit test experience. A total of 518 Taiwanese university students participated in the questionnaire study. Two major instruments were developed and used to measure students’ beliefs and strategy use in the Taiwanese EFL exit test context: (1) the Belief about Language Learning in an EFL Exit test Context (BALLIEETC), and (2) the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning in an EFL Exit test Context (SILLEETC). Analysis of the questionnaire data involved descriptive statistics, factor analysis, canonical correlation analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance. The questionnaire results suggested the following: (1) students believed in the importance of speaking English well, repeating and practicing, learning vocabulary words, acquiring excellent pronunciation, and correcting errors; (2) students primarily used memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies to learn English, prepare for the EFL exit test, and take the test; (3) students’ beliefs were associated with their strategy use; (4) English majors had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than non-English majors; (5) students with higher entrance exam English scores had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than those of lower scores; (6) college seniors believed more in foreign language aptitude and use test-taking strategies more often than freshmen; (7) students who had taken and passed an EFL exit test had stronger beliefs and higher levels of strategy use than those who had not taken a test. The results of this study support an association between learners’ beliefs and strategy use. Understanding students’ beliefs about language learning and the EFL exit test, as well as their use of language-learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies, may enable EFL teachers to help students develop effective language learning, test-preparation, and test-taking strategies and improve their English abilities and EFL exit test performance. The field of second language acquisition may also benefit from insights into students’ beliefs and their use of strategies in an EFL exit test environment. The EFL exit test may affect students’ beliefs about language learning and strategy use, such as their having stronger beliefs about the importance of vocabulary and higher levels of memory strategy use. / text