Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-283). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

The political, social and economic history of the Further Education and Training College Sector and that of the communities it serves influences the operation of these institutions. The history of „state aided‟ and the „state‟ technical colleges has resulted in some Rectors and some Campus Managers having different ideas regarding leadership and management. Campus managers who bring with them the style of a state technical college‟s past tends to follow a very rigid and autocratic management, while those who come from the state aided technical college‟s past tends to emphasize teamwork, delegation but autocracy as well. Getting these campus managers to devolve power to other lecturers in the FET College is somewhat a challenging task. With this in mind, the purpose of this dissertation is to determine the enactment of „lecturer leadership‟ by the classroom lecturers at one FET College, and to investigate what hinders lecturers‟ enactment of leadership in this context. Where leadership is enacted, I intend establishing factors that promote the successful enactment. From a theoretical perspective, distributed leadership theory underpins this study. As I have had little choice but to use the literature on teacher leadership within a schooling context, because there is no literature around the concept of lecturer leadership in the context of the FET College both locally and internationally that I came across. I have taken the liberty of adopting a term „lecturer leadership‟ which is most suited for the FET context. My study is situated within an interpretive paradigm because I worked from the premise that there are multiple truths and I wanted to understand the different interpretations of the world through the lecturer leaders‟ lenses. I aligned myself with Cohen, Manion and Morrison who write “the central endeavour in the context of the interpretive paradigm is to understand the subjective world of human experiences” (2007, p.21). Using a descriptive case study methodology allowed me to track the three lecturer leaders for six month period in the FET College where I worked to get a nuanced description of how lecturer leadership was enacted. The lecturers‟ responses were collected both as numerical data, through survey questionnaires, and textual data, through a focus group and individual interviews, journaling process, and observations. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

D. Ed. (Educational Management) / The cornerstone of this research is to understand the role of the Private Higher Education (PHE) sector in South Africa, including the challenges and problems encountered by the Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in competing in the public HE sector that is legally accountable to and funded by government. The country’s HE sector is deeply fragmented owing to the past racial divisions and inequalities, and the research thus intends to contribute to the debate on implementing a unified and inclusive model for HE. The model will include Private HE as one of the major stakeholders, offering much-needed programmes and requisite skills. The research focuses on how PHEIs perceive the policies and regulations that govern them, in terms of governance, management and funding, based on their quest to operate on the same level and standards with public HE institutions. There are many existing problems, tensions and contestations in the HE sector. The research method is quantitative, designed to elicit the views of PHE institutions, private providers, authorities and regulatory bodies. A structured questionnaire consisting of 50 items was sent to 500 private HE management staff, lecturers, trainers and owners, with a return rate of 61, 2%. After two successive factor analytic procedures the responses to the 50 items were reduced to two factors or dimensions, namely responsive governance (27 Items with α = 0.75) and policy intervention (14 Items with α = 0.63). On reflection, the items were renamed as aspects facilitating management (FB2.1) and aspects impeding management (FB2.2), and were used as parameters for the quantitative research paradigm. The responses from participants were coded and analysed, and themes or factors emerged from the first-order analysis of the data. The results of the data analysis revealed that holistic management models are developed by engaging all the stakeholders through the process of merging collegiality and managerialism, by adapting to change and transformation in higher education. There was a striking similarity between the literature review and the structured questionnaire in that the integrated management model is composed of the various emerging themes, such as systemic tensions, aspects of restrictive governance, government funding, regulatory constraints, franchising concerns about outsourcing and equity issues. The recommendations in this research are based on the six identified themes on the findings from the literature review as well as the findings from the structured questionnaire.

Evaluating the use of human resource information systems (HRIS) by employees working in the human resource management (HRM) departments of the public universities in Saudi Arabia is one of the main aims of this project. Other researchers in this field have proposed several success models for HRIS use, and they are suitable for organisations working in the conditions and circumstances surrounding a particular region; however, they cannot be applied directly to Saudi organisations. Thus, it is very important to construct an HRIS use model for higher education institutions. In view of the weaknesses of other HRIS success models for the particular environment in Saudi Arabia, this study has integrated some incumbent factors into the DeLone and McLean HRIS success model to develop a new model that provides comprehensive insight into the most important factors affecting the issue of HRIS within the HR Departments of Saudi universities. This results in the development of a theoretical framework as a model to carry out the investigation into the impacts of various dimensions of the proposed model on the use of HRIS by employees. A mixed-method research design involving interviews and questionnaires was used to collect qualitative and qualitative data; analytical techniques along with SPSS20 were employed to analyse the data. The results obtained from the qualitative phase showed that there were six factors that affected the use of HRIS in the HR Departments of public universities: usefulness, a speedier decision-making process, system quality, ease of use, subjective norms (social and peer pressures), and the unification of systems. The impact of these dimensions on the use of HRIS was measured in the qualitative phase, showing the positive impact of system quality, service quality, and ease of use on the use of a system. Furthermore, the impact of HRIS on human resources (HR), based on performance and productivity, was investigated through interviews and surveys with the sample population. In general, it was found that HRIS have a significant and positive impact on the performance and productivity of the HR Departments of public universities in Saudi Arabia. This study’s main contribution is the successful development of an adoption model for the measurement of HRIS use in Saudi public universities, by taking into account the social elements that play an important role in the use of HRIS in Saudi Arabia. This is the first study of its kind that has been performed to measure the factors and map the strength of their relationship with the use of HRIS, user satisfaction and HRIS adoption.

Thesis(M. Ed.) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2008. / The existence and survival of an individual and/or organization, such as a Higher Education Institution (HEI), have always depended on the ability of this individual or organization to control the environment in which it exists. This person or organization should overcome certain threats and obstacles that may cross its path by means of simple, pre-constructed plans. The situation must thus be managed in order to ensure the continuation of the person or organization. In this study the focus is on the functional tasks of the middle management team in an HEI. Middle management is concerned with the near future and is therefore responsible for medium- and short-term planning, organizing functional areas, leading by means of departmental heads, and controlling the management activities of the middle managers’ own departments. This study wants to identify factors in the different functional areas of middle management that could hamper the productivity of this area, and thus the institution as a whole. A qualitative study, with questionnaires as data capturing tool, was employed. Various factors that may hamper proper functioning were identified in the study. Lack of intra- and inter-departmental communication, staff shortages due to the restructuring process, countless policies and procedures in place (to streamline the execution of duties) hamper more than assist staff members in the execution of their duties. It was found that the staff members seek a sense of security, as this will lead to improved productivity.

This study describes the extent to which summative assessment tasks assess the different cognitive levels and learning outcomes with reference to the SAG (2008) for Grade 10 Life Sciences. Essentially, it describes the fit between the intended and implemented assessment, using documentary analysis as a research strategy. In order to determine the fit between intended and implemented assessment the Life Sciences SAG (2008) and question papers on summative assessment tasks were analysed. The question papers were obtained from three schools which were sampled purposively in the Mpumalaga Province. The Life Sciences SAG (2008) was analysed in order to determine the official percentage weightings (marks) of the cognitive levels and learning outcomes which must be assessed in the summative assessment tasks (intended assessment). Using the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy as an analysis tool, question papers on summative assessment tasks were also analysed in order to determine the average percentage weightings (marks) of the cognitive levels and learning outcomes which were assessed (implemented assessment). When the intended and implemented assessments were compared the following results were obtained: For practical tasks and end-of-year examinations there was an incongruity between the intended and implemented assessment in terms of the cognitive levels and learning outcomes. The discrepancy between the intended and the implemented assessment was also found in controlled tests but only in terms of the learning outcomes. In controlled tests the fit between intended and implemented assessment in terms of the cognitive levels could not be determined because the SAG (2008) does not prescribe the cognitive levels which must be assessed. Furthermore, a weak fit between the intended and the implemented assessment in terms of the lower cognitive levels and learning outcomes was found in mid-year examinations. However, there was a strong fit between the intended and implemented assessment in terms of the higher cognitive levels in mid-year examinations. Lastly, for the research projects the fit between the intended and implemented assessment could not be determined because the Life Sciences SAG (2008) does not prescribe the cognitive levels as well as the percentage weightings of the learning outcomes which must be assessed.

D.Ed. / Since postmodernism according to Von Recum (1990:10) has to do with the dissolution of universal meanings for the world and life, along with the process of egalitarianism, that is, equality for all people, and dehierarchisation, and dismantling of authority, the administration and management processes of colleges of education are invariably influenced by the movement. This investigation therefore seeks to find out the influence of postmodernism, that is, dehierarchisation and dismantling of bureaucratic authority by students and lecturers on the generic processes of administration and the significance of it for educational management. The dehierarchisation process will, in the view of this study, make it possible for the colleges of education to be democratised and to be transformed. It would appear that the colleges of education have difficulties in coping with the demands of the postmodern times that are characterised by democratisation and transformation. This study therefore intends to examine the paradigms or models that may help these institutions to succeed in accomplishing the missions for which they were established which is to nurture and to train teachers.

In Scotland, further education colleges provide 28% of all higher education; this includes over half of part-time undergraduate higher education. This provision has contributed to wider participation in higher education in Scotland by “non traditional” students and to progress towards a mass system of higher education within a learning society. This thesis is a case study of higher education students in a Scottish further education college. It explores the nature of the students’ experience and its relevance to institutional management and higher education policy. Evidence is drawn from the college’s records, from focus groups and from a questionnaire survey of whole year groups (full-time and part-time students) over three successive years. The theoretical focus is upon a new definition of lifelong learning as learning integrated with life, drawn from literature on motive, motivation, participation and retention. The research explores the students’ experiences of combining study with work and family life. The student experience is found to be heterogeneous, complex and distinct from the stereotype of a young full-time university student. Vocational motives predominate and there is evidence of a significant investment of meaning, expectation and purpose in the experience of higher education. The students’ ability to balance and integrate learning with life is a determining factor in the achievement of sustained participation. The quality of support networks both in college and in the students’ work and family lives are found to be more significant than personal or demographic characteristics. The case study contributes to current thinking about the professional role of college senior managers in creating a student-centred institutional culture that responds to the complexity of the students’ experience. A case is made for a review of the current inequity of financial support for full-time and part-time higher education students and of the marginal status of colleges in the development of higher education policy.