Magister Educationis - MEd (Mathematics and Science Education) / A large percentage of South African learners held inadequate or alternative conceptions that might hinder them from developing a valid understanding of various scientific concepts and generalizations. This study explored the conceptions of Senior Phase learners on magnetism, chemical change of substances and the environment. More explicitly, the study attempted to investigate the influence of the learners" age, language and gender issues on their understanding of these scientific concepts. The study is underpinned by socio-cultural constructivism as espoused by Vygotsky (1978). The research sample comprised 250 Senior Phase learners (grades eight and nine) from secondary schools in the Metro Central District in the Western Cape. The study used the following six research instruments for data collection: Science Achievement Test (SAT), Context Test, Cloze Test, Picture Test, Science Vocabulary Test and an interview schedule. The tests were administered to all the participants while the interview was conducted with six participants.This study was a descriptive research of a survey type and data was collected and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods.The data collected was analyzed quantitatively using the Statistical Package for Sciences (SPSS) in order to obtain descriptive statistics that were used to explore the conceptions of senior phase learners in magnetism, chemical change substances and the environment in the Metro Central district while data from the tape recorder and notes taken during the interview, were analyzed qualitatively.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-01Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:22:22Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 difelippo_a_dr_arafcl.pdf: 1956757 bytes, checksum: 06fd6b99e881a5fd4644f9556296351c (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Devido a vários fatores, como saliência perceptual e relevância semiótica, as línguas apresentam repertórios diferentes de conceitos lexicalizados (isto é, conceitos expressos por unidades lexicais). As divergências léxico-conceituais dificultam o tratamento computacional das línguas naturais em tarefas como tradução automática e recuperação de informação multilíngüe. Assim, a construção de base de dados lexicais bilíngües e multilíngües em que as unidades de línguas distintas estão inter-relacionadas por meio do conceito a elas subjacente tem recebido muita atenção no Processamento Automático das Línguas Naturais (PLN). Para o português brasileiro (PB), faz-se urgente a construção desse tipo de recurso. Nesse cenário, esta tese visa a investigar os padrões de lexicalização do PB e a construir um recurso léxicoconceitual, ainda que de extensões reduzidas, que possa auxiliar o processamento automático dessa língua em meio escrito. Assumindo-se a concepção de PLN enquanto “uma engenharia da linguagem humana”, utilizou-se uma metodologia tripartida que divide as atividades nos domínios: lingüístico, lingüístico-computacional e computacional. Este trabalho, em especial, não realizou as atividades previstas no terceiro domínio, pois estas não fazem parte do escopo desta pesquisa. No domínio lingüístico, um conjunto de conceitos lexicalizados no inglês norte-americano (AmE), extraído da WordNet de Princeton (WN.Pr), foi delimitado por meio da análise manual de recursos estruturados (base de dados e dicionários) e não-estruturados (corpora textuais). Na seqüência, as expressões do PB (em especial, as unidades lexicais) que materializam tais conceitos foram manualmente extraídas de dicionários bilíngües (AmE-PB), dicionários monolíngües e thesaurus e de corpora textuais do PB. No domínio lingüístico-computacional... / Because of several factors, including, for instance, perceptual salience and semiotic relevance, languages have different inventories of lexicalized concepts (i.e. concepts expressed by lexical units). The lexical-conceptual divergences are a hindrance to computational treatment of natural languages in tasks such as machine translation and cross-language information retrieval. Therefore, the construction of bilingual and multilingual lexical databases, in which the lexical units of different languages are aligned by their underlying concepts, has become a very important research topic in Natural Language Processing (NLP). For Brazilian Portuguese (BP), in particular, the construction of such resources is urgent. In this scenario, this thesis aims to investigate lexicalization patterns of BP and to develop a lexical-conceptual resource for the automatic processing of written BP language. Assuming a compromise between NLP and Linguistics, this work follows a three-domain approach methodology, which claims that the research activities should be divided into the linguistic, linguisticcomputational, and computational domains. In particular, this research does not perform the last step, since it is not in the scope of this work. Accordingly, in the linguistic domain, a set of lexicalized concepts of North-American English (AmE) extracted from Princeton WordNet (WN.Pr) was selected through manual analysis of the structured (lexical databases and standard dictionaries) and unstructured resources (textual corpora). Given those concepts, their lexical and phrasal expressions in BP were manually compiled from bilingual dictionaries, with the help of standard monolingual dictionaries, thesauri, and textual corpora. In the linguistic-computational domain, the lexicalized concepts of AmE and BP previously identified were aligned by means of a semantic structured interlingua (or ontology)... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

A preocupação com a questão ambiental vem, nas últimas décadas, ganhando cada vez mais espaço para discussão, deixando de pertencer apenas a uma ou outra área do conhecimento formal para invadir todas as instâncias sociais e do saber, mesmo aquele saber que não goza de um estatuto científico, como acontece com a chamada “Ciência ambiental”. Dessa forma, os conceitos ambientais fazem parte de um universo muito amplo de indivíduos, que representam os mais variados grupos e interesses, fato que por si só já caracteriza importância dessa questão. A presente dissertação trata dos principais conceitos ambientais utilizados em instituições pública, privada e não-governamental buscando estabelecer as possíveis semelhanças e/ou divergências conceituais existentes no emprego dos mesmos por essas entidades e a relação com o desenvolvimento de seu trabalho. Para tanto, foram entrevistados agentes que pertencessem e representassem essas três classes operacionais. A pesquisa foi realizada em dois momentos que corresponderam à aplicação de um questionário previamente elaborado e aplicado aos agentes entrevistados por meio de entrevista e a construção de uma tabela de classificação dos resultados, respectivamente. Percebeu-se a fragmentação da realidade das relações humanas em realidade ambiental e realidade social; exclusão de abordagens e a imprecisão ou abrangência de termos conceituais. / The concern with the environmental issue has achieved, in the past decades, a larger space for discussion, broadening its range from a few areas of formal knowledge into other social and knowledge fields, including knowledge fields deprived of scientific status, as occurs with the so-called “environment science”. Thus, the environmental concepts take part in a quite broad universe of individuals, who represent a wide range of groups and interests, a fact that, per se, characterizes the importance of this issue. The present dissertation addresses the main environmental concepts used in public, private and non-governmental institutions, attempting to establish potential conceptual similarities and/or divergences existent in the employment of the same by these organizations and the relationship with the development of their work. With this purpose, agents that belong and represent these three operational classes were interviewed. The study was carried out at two moments that corresponded to the application of a previously elaborated questionnaire applied to the interviewees and the development of a table for classification of results, respectively. A fragmentation of the reality of human relations into environmental reality and social reality, exclusion of approaches, and the inaccuracy or range of conceptual terms were observed.

Subject of the dissertation thesis research is the term Romanticism, in entirety of its existence in thinking about the history of specific Central European literary works. At first the author of the thesis discusses constitution of the term, its revision and basic scope of the revised term use. Introduction of the constitutionalized term as an intersection of judgments, allows us to understand the reasons for its inconsistency and ambiguity in the meaning which were the most significant incentives for the revision of the term. The constitution as well as the concept revision is monitored in terms of interpretation of its meaning, the differentiation of the meaning and its collocability with other terms of the same genus proximum. Use of the revised concept is examined in terms of accentuating the homogeneity and heterogeneity of its meaning. After the establishing the general historical overview of the Romanticism term use, the author of the thesis focuses on its use in the relation with the Czech national literature as a specific, relatively fixed set of material. Author focuses on the application of the term in critical-historical thinking about the modern Czech literature, in the positivist and mindscientific works, and also devotes attention to the interference of Marxist thinking to the structuralistic concept of Czech literature history in relation to the Romanticism and to the current possibilities of the term use. Based on the introduced glimpses into the history of the use of the term Romanticism the author comes to several recommendations for current and future conceptualization of Romanticism, whose validity may also be related to other historical literature terms.

Le droit moderne de l’environnement apparaît, en France, dans les années 1960. Il émerge de manière empirique en réaction à de grandes catastrophes écologiques et intervient dans les domaines les plus divers pour mettre en place des garde-fous juridiques propres à limiter la dégradation de l’environnement. Le droit est alors fragmenté, technique et constitue la plupart du temps un simple placage des mécanismes et des concepts juridiques classiques sur un nouvel objet : l’environnement. Le manque de cohérence et de construction du droit est progressivement pallié par l’affirmation de principes, l’édiction d’un Code et la consécration de la Charte constitutionnelle de l’environnement. En outre, au gré des réformes, le droit se construit autour de nouveaux concepts. Les concepts écologiques, qualifiés auparavant d’insuffisants pour appréhender l’environnement sont complétés avec la prise en compte, par exemple, des concepts d’écosystème, de processus écologiques ou de solidarité écologique. Une dimension conceptuelle du droit de l’environnement émerge en droit positif avec les notions phares de patrimoine commun de l’humanité, de développement durable, de précaution, d’irréversibilité, susceptible d’en rassembler les morceaux épars et d’affirmer la maturité du droit de l’environnement. La conceptualisation récente du droit de l’environnement participe d’une construction plus aboutie et d’une simplification et généralisation de la matière. / Modern environmental law appeared in France in the 1960s. It emerged empirically in response to major ecological disasters and intervened in the most diverse fields to set up legal safeguards to limit the environmental degradation. The law was then fragmented, technical and usually constituted a mere plating of conventional legal mechanisms and concepts on a new object: the environment. The lack of coherence and the construction of the law was gradually mitigated by the assertion of principles, the enactment of a Code and the consecration of the Constitutional Charter of the Environment. In addition, as the reforms proceed, law is being built around new concepts. Ecological concepts, previously qualified as insufficient to understand the environment, are supplemented by taking into account, for instance, ecosystem concepts, ecological processes or ecological solidarity. A conceptual dimension of environmental law emerges in positive law with the flagship notions of the common heritage of humanity, sustainable development, precaution, irreversibility, capable of gathering scattered pieces and asserting the maturity of environmental law. The recent conceptualization of environmental law is part of a more complete construction and a simplification and generalization of the subject matter.

A preocupação com a questão ambiental vem, nas últimas décadas, ganhando cada vez mais espaço para discussão, deixando de pertencer apenas a uma ou outra área do conhecimento formal para invadir todas as instâncias sociais e do saber, mesmo aquele saber que não goza de um estatuto científico, como acontece com a chamada “Ciência ambiental”. Dessa forma, os conceitos ambientais fazem parte de um universo muito amplo de indivíduos, que representam os mais variados grupos e interesses, fato que por si só já caracteriza importância dessa questão. A presente dissertação trata dos principais conceitos ambientais utilizados em instituições pública, privada e não-governamental buscando estabelecer as possíveis semelhanças e/ou divergências conceituais existentes no emprego dos mesmos por essas entidades e a relação com o desenvolvimento de seu trabalho. Para tanto, foram entrevistados agentes que pertencessem e representassem essas três classes operacionais. A pesquisa foi realizada em dois momentos que corresponderam à aplicação de um questionário previamente elaborado e aplicado aos agentes entrevistados por meio de entrevista e a construção de uma tabela de classificação dos resultados, respectivamente. Percebeu-se a fragmentação da realidade das relações humanas em realidade ambiental e realidade social; exclusão de abordagens e a imprecisão ou abrangência de termos conceituais. / The concern with the environmental issue has achieved, in the past decades, a larger space for discussion, broadening its range from a few areas of formal knowledge into other social and knowledge fields, including knowledge fields deprived of scientific status, as occurs with the so-called “environment science”. Thus, the environmental concepts take part in a quite broad universe of individuals, who represent a wide range of groups and interests, a fact that, per se, characterizes the importance of this issue. The present dissertation addresses the main environmental concepts used in public, private and non-governmental institutions, attempting to establish potential conceptual similarities and/or divergences existent in the employment of the same by these organizations and the relationship with the development of their work. With this purpose, agents that belong and represent these three operational classes were interviewed. The study was carried out at two moments that corresponded to the application of a previously elaborated questionnaire applied to the interviewees and the development of a table for classification of results, respectively. A fragmentation of the reality of human relations into environmental reality and social reality, exclusion of approaches, and the inaccuracy or range of conceptual terms were observed.

A expressão mente primitiva é frequentemente encontrada no âmbito da psicanálise, porém não é um conceito sem problemas no vocabulário psicanalítico, por não haver consenso quanto ao seu uso, ou ser utilizado de forma ampla e genérica, sem apresentar uma definição mais precisa que indique com maior exatidão a que se refere. Muitos autores têm usado esse termo ou um equivalente, com diferentes posicionamentos. Tem como principal objetivo clarificar o processo de construção do conceito de mente primitiva e seus desdobramentos por meio da análise da produção psicanalítica escrita. Trata-se de uma investigação conceitual segundo os pressupostos de natureza qualitativa, caracterizando-se como descritivo-exploratória do ponto de vista de suas finalidades. Procura tornar possível o estabelecimento de meios de refinamento ao examinar minuciosamente os elementos, os contextos em que se insere esse conceito em seu processo de construção, suas transformações e tentativas de consolidação, tanto no seio de determinada corrente teórica psicanalítica quanto na interface das múltiplas perspectivas. O material selecionado é composto por produções publicadas na Revista Brasileira de Psicanálise (FEBRAPSI) e no International Journal of Psycho-Analysis (IPA), no período de 1990 a 2005. Não se trata apenas de propor uma revisão sobre o tema, mas de uma tentativa de ir além, buscando o que pode ser apreendido e os sentidos que puderam emergir do contato com o material, identificado mediante levantamento em bases de dados on line, tanto nos periódicos selecionados quanto em outras fontes, que contribuíram para a fundamentação e aprofundamentos. Localizado e recuperado o material, iniciou-se o processo de imersão por meio da leitura. Na Revista Brasileira de Psicanálise foram lidas 1.069 produções e destas foram selecionadas as 109 em que aparece a expressão mente primitiva ou termos congêneres, tendo aquela sido encontrada 29 vezes em 14 artigos e 01 (uma) resenha, e estes últimos, por vezes inúmeras em todas as produções selecionadas. No International Journal of Psycho-Analysis foram encontradas 318 referências de artigos no mesmo período, sendo selecionadas 50 delas. A partir do percurso da literatura psicanalítica em geral e do material selecionado, foi elaborada uma síntese geral que contribui para a clarificação do conceito em pauta, pois apresenta um conjunto de caracteres que permitem a detecção das condições necessárias para descrever, classificar e identificar o que pode ser circunscrito pela expressão mente primitiva. De modo geral, é possível compreender esse termo como: 1) referente ao funcionamento mental peculiar dos primeiros meses de vida do bebê, desde sua centralização nos processos corporais a partir dos quais se originam os desenvolvimentos progressivos do psiquismo e a constituição do sujeito; 2) parte constituinte do psiquismo, oriunda dos estados iniciais do funcionamento mental tanto da espécie (filogênese) quanto do indivíduo (ontogênese), que permanece dinamicamente atuante por toda a vida junto com os desenvolvimentos posteriores, sendo imperecível / The expression primitive mind is frequently found in the realm of psychoanalysis. However, it is not a concept devoid of problems in the vocabulary of psychoanalysis, as there is no consensus regarding its use or it is used is a broad and generic sense, without a more precise definition that can indicate with more precision its true meaning. Several authors have used this term or an equivalent to it, with different standings. Starting from the plurality of approaches on this topic, the present investigation contributes, not because it intends to unify propositions or establish standards, but by pointing out its specificities and discussing it in order to broaden its understanding. The main objective is to clarify the process of constructing the concept of primitive mind and its developments, through the analysis of written psychoanalysis output. It is a conceptual investigation according to the qualitative assumptions, and can be characterized as descriptive-exploratory in its purposes. It aims to make it possible to establish means of refinement when examining in detail the elements, the contexts in which this concept is inserted in its construction process, its transformations and attempts at consolidation, both in the heart of a given psychoanalytical current and in the interface of multiple perspectives. The selected material consists of scientific output published in the Brazilian Journal of Psychoanalysis (FEBRAPSI) and in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis (IPA), in the period between 1990 and 2005. This is not a mere revision on the theme, but an attempt to go beyond, seeking what can be absorbed and the meanings that emerged from contact with the material, which was identified from an assessment in online databases, both in the selected periodicals and in other sources that contributed to the formulation and expansion. After the material was located and retrieved, the process of immersion began through reading. From the Brazilian Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1,069 productions were read, of which 109 were selected, where the expression primitive mind was found 29 times in 14 articles and one review, in addition to other similar terms. In the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 318 references were found of articles for the same period, of which 50 were selected. From the exploration through general psychoanalysis literature and the selected material, a general synthesis was devised that contributes to the clarification of the concept at hand, as it presents a set of characters that allow the detection of the necessary conditions to describe, classify and identify what can be circumscribed by the use of the expression primitive mind. In a general sense, it can be understood as: 1) referring to the peculiar mental functioning during the babys first months, from its centralization in body processes from which develop the progressive developments of the psyche and the establishment of the subject; 2) as the constituent part of the psyche, resulting from the initial stages of mental functioning, both of the species (phylogenesis) and the individual (ontogenesis), which remains dynamically active throughout the life along with the later developments, imperishable

Continuous changes taking place in the business environment require organisations to adapt constantly to new realities, new products, new technologies, and new concepts. The manner in which organisations create and sustain competitive advantage is therefore one of the fundamental questions in the field of strategic management research. Most concepts taught in business schools are largely based on research in American and European countries. Previous research work has also shown that there are clear key differences in concepts used across regions, industries, and company size. These arguments therefore led one to conclude that there is a lack of research available on popular concepts used by local companies and the impact on their financial performance, hence the purpose of this research study. This research was the first research study and therefore a pioneering study in establishing concepts used in the South African context. This research, in a small measure, attempted to build concepts based on local research. The objectives of this study were firstly to identify the popular concepts used by JSE listed companies in formulating and implementing their strategy; and secondly, to establish the effect of these popular concepts on financial performance. The research was quantitative and descriptive in nature. Self-administered questionnaires were sent to 250 CEO’s of the JSE listed companies out of whom 35 completed the survey. The popular concepts used by JSE listed companies in formulating and implementing their strategy were identified; and the effect on financial performance were established. The popular concepts used by JSE listed companies in formulating and implementing their strategy identified were the concepts “environmental analysis”, “strategic positioning”, “growth”, “customer focused/ customer relationship management”, and “shareholder return/ shareholder value”. The following relationships were found to be significant and important: The relationship between “environmental analysis” and market capitalisation from years 1 to 3 and years 2 to 3 show a negative relationship; and The relationship between “environmental analysis” and share price from years 1 to 3 and years 2 to 3 show a negative relationship. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / ccgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Like other Bantu languages, Sepedi tends to utilise one basic colour term (tala) to refer to both the colour concepts ‘blue’ and ‘green’. This does not of course imply that the speakers of this language are unable to distinguish between these two categories and/or talk about them. Sepedi employs various other terms in order to designate these concepts. However, to date no in depth study has been undertaken as to precisely how this encoding takes place, exactly which terms are utilised in which contexts, how salient these terms are (i.e. how frequently and widely they are used), and which terms can be regarded as being basic terms. In this mini-dissertation an investigation into the various ways in which Sepedi encodes the concepts ‘blue’ and ‘green’ was undertaken. In order to accomplish this, a review of the literature was undertaken, the electronic Pretoria Sepedi Corpus was utilised and finally fieldwork was also conducted. In this manner, a comprehensive list of terms used to express the colour concepts ‘blue’ and ‘green’ were collected and analysed. Based on statistical comparisons between the collected terms, the findings were that the terms most frequently used to express the concept ‘blue’ are talalerata ‘sky-blue, lit. blue of the sky’, mmala o mo talalerata ‘colour of the blue sky’, tala ‘blue’, talaleratadima ‘blue of the sky’ and leratadima ‘sky, i.e. blue colour of the sky’ and the most frequently used terms when expressing the concept ‘green’ are tala ‘green’ and talamorogo ‘lit. green of vegetables’ Furthermore, it emerged that many of the terms used in Sepedi to express the colour concepts ‘blue’ and ‘green’ are formed by way of loanwords, compounding, phrases and paraphrases. It was concluded that in terms of Berlin&Kay’s (1969) framework for the identification of basic colour terms, only the term tala ‘blue/green’ and perhaps also the term talee (an ideophone signifying ‘green’) could be regarded as basic colour terms. AFRIKAANS : Soos wat dit die geval is in baie van die ander Bantutale, word daar in Sepedi slegs een term (tala) gebruik om na beide die kleurkonsepte ‘blou’ en ‘groen’ te verwys. Dit beteken uiteraard nie dat die sprekers van hierdie taal nie daartoe in staat is om die verskil tussen hierdie twee kleurkategorieë raak te sien en/of daaroor te praat nie. Daar word in Sepedi van ’n veelheid ander terme gebruik gemaak om hierdie konsepte te verwoord. Tot op hede is daar egter nog geen in in-diepte studie onderneem ten einde vas te stel presies hoe hierdie enkodering plaasvind nie, watter terme in watter kontekste gebruik word, hoe dikwels hierdie terme in die alledaagse omgang voorkom en laastens watter terme as basiese terme beskou kan word nie. In hierdie mini-verhandeling word daar ondersoek ingestel na die verskillende maniere waarop Sepedi die konsepte ‘blou’ en ‘groen’ enkodeer/verwoord. Ten einde hierdie doelstelling te bereik, is daar eerstens ’n oorsig van die literatuur onderneem, waarna die elektroniese Pretoria Sepedikorpus geraadpleeg is. Dit is gevolg deur veldwerk. Op hierdie wyse is ’n uitvoerige lys terme met behulp waarvan die kleurkonsepte ‘blou’ en ‘groen’ verwoord word, byeengebring en geanaliseer. Gebaseer op statistiese vergelykings tussen die versamelde terme, is daar tot die slotsom geraak dat die terme talalerata ‘hemelsblou, lett. blou van die hemel’, mmala o mo talalerata ‘kleur van die hemel, hemelsblou kleur, tala ‘blou’, talaleratadima ‘hemelsblou, lett. blou van die hemel’ en leratadima ‘hemel, d.i. blou kleur van die hemel’ die mees gebruiklike terme is in die uitdrukking van die konsep ‘blou’, terwyl die konsep ‘groen’ mees dikwels uitgedruk word met behulp van die terme tala ‘groen’ en talamorogo ‘lett. die groen van groente’. Dit het verder aan die lig gekom dat heelwat Sepediterme wat gebruik word om die kleurkonsepte ‘blou’ en ‘groen’ uit te druk, gevorm word by wyse van ontlening, die maak van samestellings en die gebruik van frases en parafrasering. Daar is tot die slotsom gekom dat, in terme van Berlin&Kay (1969) se raamwerk vir die identifisering van basiese kleurterme, slegs die terme tala ‘blou/groen’ en dalk ook die term talee (’n ideofoon wat ‘groen’ uitdruk) as basiese kleurteme beskou kan word. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / African Languages / unrestricted

A test instrument, made up of 25 items, derived from existing standardized tests from literature, was used to probe for the students' knowledge and understanding of basic mechanics concepts, as well as the confidence in the correctness of their answers. The test was administered to 982 first entering physics students; enrolled at three South African universities, at the beginning of the year before any formal instruction could take place. Data collected for this study included students' responses from multiple-choice questions and open-ended explanations to their chosen answers. The analysis of the multiple-choice responses and the written explanations revealed the existence of alternative conceptions among students and that the students' accuracy of judgment about their knowledge and understanding of basic mechanics concepts is different among the different cohorts. Physics education research, has over a number of years, revealed that students have alternative conceptions about physical processes. These alternative conceptions are accumulated from the students' past personal experiences, interactions with people around them and the environment they live in. It was found from the study that the strength of the known alternative conceptions differs among the different cohorts. There are those alternative conceptions that are easier to correct with sound teaching. These alternative conceptions exist mostly in worst performing cohorts and less so in the best performing cohorts. There are those alternative conceptions that persisted despite better teaching. These alternative conceptions are found in all the cohorts. The certainty of response analysis revealed the differences in the relationship between performance and confidence among the students from the three universities. It was also found that students make incorrect judgment about their knowledge and understanding of basic mechanics concepts. The overall trend emerging from the study was that students seem to be overconfident about their knowledge and understanding of basic mechanics concepts, but that students with a good command of mechanics concepts made the best judgment about the correctness of their answers. The item-by-item analysis of students' responses revealed that in most cases the best performing students make quality judgment about their performance, while poor perfOlming student always make inaccurate judgments about their performance. Analysis of the students' written explanations and item difficulty revealed that the Hasan et al. (1999) study is lacking in the differentiation between lack of analytical skills and the presence of alternative conceptions. Lack of analytical skills cannot be classified as evidence of the presence of alternative conceptions. The student may be having knowledge of the necessary concepts, but lack higher order analytical skills to be able to interpret situation presented. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Chemistry / unrestricted