Numerous theories of motivation have been formulated over decades, but only in the last 25 years has the field of motivation research been dominated by powerful and more sophisticated theories organised around personal agency beliefs and goal-related processes. Goal setting is a motivational technique that is routinely recommended for enhancing task performance. If goals for performance are established that are specific and challenging, substantial increases in performance have been reported. The basic assumption of goal-setting research is that goals are immediate regulators of human action. If goal setting is viewed primarily as a motivational mechanism, it is relevant to ask how it affects performance. Similarly, are there ways to enhance the processes of goal setting and goal attainment, and are there strategies that can be implemented to prolong and maintain motivational levels until the desired outcome has been reached? First and foremost, can theories of goal setting be applied successfully in a psychological therapeutic setting? In psychotherapy, goal setting is usually used to give direction to a treatment plan, and emphasis is seldom placed on the goal-setting process as such. A goal-setting model, with the emphasis on strategies to enhance the goal-setting process, as a motivational mechanism, seems to have application relevancy in therapeutic settings. The application and incorporation of the goal-setting process into the therapeutic process represents a symbiotic relationship, where the two processes function on a parallel level, but are also intertwined. The present study endeavours to apply such a model, as a motivational technique, in the context of therapeutic intervention. The method of research is a qualitative investigation, using a case study strategy of inquiry. / Dissertation (MA (Counselling Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / unrestricted

Organisations experience increased social, political and economic pressure that is evident in the increased pressure that stakeholders place on organisations. Organisations increasingly realise that stakeholders’ values and objectives need to be incorporated into organisational strategy as well as the day-to-day management of the organisation. Organisational success and survival consequently depends on the organisation’s network of relationships, which provide the organisation with otherwise inaccessible resources and a competitive advantage. Organisational relationships offer the best solution towards illustrating the value of public relations and communication in the organisation. These relationships enable the organisation to attain its long- and short-term goals. Communication is a key influencer of the success of these relationships and communication managers are consequently better adept to manage these relationships. The relationship perspective of communication posits that public relations and communication managers should act in a boundary spanning role by balancing the interests of companies and stakeholders through effective relationship management. A shift has consequently occurred from purely communication management towards building mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its key stakeholders. There has also been an increased recognition of the need for strategically managed communication programs that can effectively contribute to organisational success. Strategic communication assists an organisation to adapt to its stakeholder environment by feeding into the organisation’s strategy formulation process intelligence with regards to strategic stakeholders, which, in turn, assists in building mutually beneficial relationships with these stakeholders. Communication managers’ efforts towards the effective management of organisational relationships has been hampered by the lack of current literature on organisational relationships, a lack of knowledge regarding the factors that influence these relationships, as well as the lack of a reliable and quantifiable definition of organisational relationships. Knowledge on these key areas could enable communication managers to manage these relationships effectively through strategic communication that is characterised by open and two-way communication. This study aimed to determine the connection between organisational relationships and organisational success by investigating the relationship between organisational alliances (as a specific form of organisational relationship) and goal attainment. The three-stage model of organisational relationships proposed by Grunig and Huang (2000:34) was applied to organisational alliances in order to determine this relationship, as well as to determine the influence of key constructs like type of industry, type of alliance, duration of the alliance and the size of the organisation. The reliability of using this framework, specifically the relationship outcomes proposed by the three-stage model, was investigated. The relationship outcomes (trust, commitment, relational satisfaction and control mutuality) were positively related to perceptions of goal attainment. This implies that if trust, commitment, relational satisfaction and control mutuality increases in an organisational alliance, the perceptions of goal attainment also increase within that organisational relationship. These findings suggest that effective communication contributes to perceptions of goal attainment within organisational relationships. It offers public relations and communication practitioners a means to demonstrate the contribution of this function to organisational success. High correlations between the relationship outcomes reflected current findings on these outcomes and a factor analysis indicated that only one factor was being measured – the organisational relationship itself. The study proposed an improved measurement instrument for reliably measuring organisational relationships (Cronbach Alpha = 0.93). The type of industry, type of alliance, duration of the alliance as well as the size of the organisation did not have a significant influence on the relationship outcomes or the proposed measure of organisational relationships. This implies that the current proposed measurement instrument can be applied to numerous contexts. A general linear model was applied to goal attainment (as the dependent variable) and the relationship outcomes (as the independent variables) in order to determine the specific contribution of each relationship outcome on perceptions of goal attainment. The regression analysis indicated that control mutuality was the greatest influencer of perceptions of goal attainment within alliances. A noticeably low influence of trust was also measured. These findings were obtained through the use of an e-mail survey that obtained cross-sectional data, where 154 alliances were observed (n=154). The study contributed to present literature on organisational relationships by using Grunig and Huang’s (2000:43) three-stage model to explain the relationship between perceptions of goal attainment and the relationship outcomes in alliances within the South African context. Strategic communication management provides a solution to a key organisational issue – the organisation’s interdependence with the stakeholders in its environment and how these stakeholders can better be managed in order to more effectively contribute towards organisational success. Communication managers can demonstrate their value by effectively managing key organisational relationships like alliances by integrating these relationships into organisational strategy. These successful organisational relationships also contribute towards organisational sustainability by enabling the organisation to attain its long- and short-term goals. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Communication Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Counterfeit consumption is becoming widespread, developing into a problem of international significance. In an attempt to develop a refined understanding of the motivations and decision-making processes of consumers' deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, this empirical study not only integrates the theory of planned behavior and insights from self-regulatory theories, but also extends these theories by re-conceptualizing the relationships among key constructs with the inclusion of action desire. This research also introduces and integrates a new construct, namely consumers' Perceived Counterfeit Detection (PCD) by important others.Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods consisting of in-depth interviews and a self-administered paper questionnaire, this research empirically tested a proposed goal-striving model for deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, using structural equations modeling. Results demonstrated PCD's existence and supported a refined goal-striving model, based upon which effective strategies to decrease consumer's counterfeit consumption are discussed.

Numerous studies have concluded that roughly half of all implemented software requirements are never or rarely used in practice, and that failure to realise expected benefits is a major cause of software project failure. This thesis presents an exploration of these concepts, claims, and causes. It evaluates the literature s proposed solutions to them, and then presents a unified framework that covers additional concerns not previously considered. The value of a requirement is assessed often during the requirements engineering (RE) process, e.g., in requirement prioritisation, release planning, and trade-off analysis. In order to support these activities, and hence to support the decisions that lead to the aforementioned waste, this thesis proposes a framework built on the modelling languages of Goal Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE), and on the principles of Value Based Software Engineering (VBSE). The framework guides the elicitation of a requirement s value using philosophy and business theory, and aims to quantitatively model chains of instrumental value that are expected to be generated for a system s stakeholders by a proposed software capability. The framework enriches the description of the individual links comprising these chains with descriptions of probabilistic degrees of causation, non-linear dose-response and utility functions, and credibility and confidence. A software tool to support the framework s implementation is presented, employing novel features such as automated visualisation, and information retrieval and machine learning (recommendation system) techniques. These software capabilities provide more than just usability improvements to the framework. For example, they enable visual comprehension of the implications of what-if? questions, and enable re-use of previous models in order to suggest modifications to a project s requirements set, and reduce uncertainty in its value propositions. Two case studies in real-world industry contexts are presented, which explore the problem and the viability of the proposed framework for alleviating it. The thesis research questions are answered by various methods, including practitioner surveys, interviews, expert opinion, real-world examples and proofs of concept, as well as less-common methods such as natural language processing analysis of real requirements specifications (e.g., using TF-IDF to measure the proportion of software requirement traceability links that do not describe the requirement s value or problem-to-be-solved). The thesis found that in general, there is a disconnect between the state of best practice as proposed by the literature, and current industry practice in requirements engineering. The surveyed practitioners supported the notion that the aforementioned value realisation problems do exist in current practice, that they would be treatable by better requirements engineering practice, and that this thesis proposed framework would be useful and usable in projects whose complexity warrants the overhead of requirements modelling (e.g., for projects with many stakeholders, competing desires, or having high costs of deploying incorrect increments of software functionality).

The desire to obtain value and justify investments from the different Information Systems in place in organizations has been around for a long time. Organizations constantly theorize and implement different approaches that provide some sort of alignment between their different business objectives and Information Systems. Unfortunately, the environments in which these organizations operate are often dynamic, constantly changing with influence from external and internal factors that require continual realignment of the Information Systems with business objectives to provide value. When businesses evolve, leading to changes in business requirements, it is hard to know what direct Information System changes are needed to respond to the new requirements. Similarly, when there are changes in the Information System, it is not often easy to discern which business objectives are directly affected. Whilst the different Enterprise Architecture frameworks available today provide and propose some form of alignment, in their implementation, they do not show links between business objectives and Information Systems, i.e., indicating what Information System is directly responsible for different business objectives thereby allowing for anticipation and support of changes as the business evolves. This thesis utilizes insights from Business Intelligence and uses the User Requirements Notation (URN), which enables modeling of business processes and goals, to provide a framework that exploits links between business objectives and Information Systems. This Business Intelligence - Enabled Adaptive Enterprise Architecture framework allows for anticipating and supporting proactively the adaptation of Enterprise Architecture as and when the business evolves. The thesis also identifies and models levels within the enterprise where responses to change as the business evolves are needed and the ways the changes are presented. The tool-supported framework is evaluated against the different levels and types of changes on a realistic Enterprise Architecture at a Government of Canada department, with encouraging results.

Achievement goal theory is one of the most broadly accepted theoretical paradigms in educational psychology with over 35 years of influencing research and educational practice. The longstanding use of this construct has led to two consequences of importance for this research: 1) many different dimensionality representations have been debated, and 2) methods used to confirm dimensionality of the scales have been supplanted from best practice. A further issue is that goal orientations are used to inform classroom practice, whereas most measurement studies focus on the structure of the personal goal orientation scales rather than the classroom level structure. This study aims to provide an updated understanding of one classroom goal orientation scale using the modern psychometric techniques of multidimensional item response theory and bifactor analysis. The most commonly used scale with K-12 students is the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS); thus, the PALS classroom goal orientation scales will be the subject of this study.

Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) is a wide ranging developmental condition commonly recognised by impairments in social interaction, communication, repetitive behaviour and restricted interests. Deficits in imitation, sensory processing and motor control are also extensive, but conflicting findings mean a clear picture regarding the true nature of these is yet to be established. The aim of this thesis was to further investigate imitation with a specific focus on the effect of goals. It has been suggested that imitation occurs along two routes; a direct route for the imitation of meaningless actions i.e. goal-less, and a semantic route for meaningful or goal-directed actions. There is evidence to suggest that while individuals with ASD may have an impairment in goal-less imitation, goal-directed imitation is unaffected (Hamilton, Brindley & Frith, 2007). The experiments in the present work were based on the hypothesis that impaired goal-less imitation in ASD may be due to a problem with sensory motor integration in the direct visuomotor pathway for imitation (Tessari and Rumiati, 2004).The first experiment was conducted to ascertain whether movement kinematics differed between imitation during goal-directed and goal-less hand movements in a neurotypical control group. Participants observed and imitated hand movements of different speeds, while their movement was recorded with a motion sensor. Movement was modulated between the different speeds in the goal-less, but not goal-directed trials. These findings support the dual route model where visuomotor mapping occurs via the direct pathway during goal-less imitation but during goal-directed imitation there is greater reliance on representations of actions from long term memory.In experiment two, the same paradigm was employed, including additional movement types, and a group of adult individuals diagnosed with an ASD was compared to a control group. It was predicted that, unlike the control group, the ASD group would fail to modulate their movement in the goal-less condition, due to a disruption in the direct pathway. Eye movements were also recorded in this experiment, to ascertain if differences in gaze position or eye movements might influence the ability of the ASD group to imitate goal-less actions. The ASD group did not modulate their movement for goal-less imitation. In addition, the ASD group exhibited more goal-directed gaze, and less gaze toward the hand, than the control group. The ASD group also failed to maintain pursuit of the hand, which may have influenced the amount of information collected regarding the movement.The third study extended the investigation by introducing a training phase halfway through the experiment. Based on eye movement findings, it was hypothesised that drawing attention to the hand might increase the importance of the hand in goal-less trials, subsequently leading to increased tracking, and improved imitation. Perspective was also investigated to determine whether observing the action from an egocentric perspective would improve imitation. Movement modulation was not improved for either the post training or the egocentric condition. However, both training and egocentric viewing resulted in faster performance of movements while training also reduced the amount of movement variability; suggesting that these conditions made imitation easier. Findings strongly support the hypothesis that people with ASD are impaired in goal-less but not goal-directed imitation. These results are discussed in terms of bottom-up and top-down influences on imitation. The observed eye movement differences between the ASD and control group suggest eye movement abnormalities, and the finding that egocentric observation facilitates imitation indicates problems with visuospatial transformation during allocentric imitation. Finally, failure to pursue may be due to lack of attention to the hand movement, evidenced by no increase in pursuit after training. This thesis concludes with the suggestion that impaired goal-less imitation in ASD may result primarily from bottom-up low level visual processing and oculomotor control problems, combined with a high level attentional mechanism. Future studies need to address whether these are the primary causes of imitation difficulties, or whether there is a fundamental sensory motor integration deficit in ASD.

Bakgrund: Med bakgrund i den offentliga sektorns viktiga uppgift i samhället är det av medborgarnas intresse att organisationer inom offentlig sektor bedriver sin verksamhet på ett effektivt sätt. Statskontoret har i en granskning av svenska myndigheter konstaterat att det finns brister i myndigheternas förmåga att konkretisera de av regeringen givna målen till aktiviteter på operativ nivå. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera och jämföra hur svenska myndigheter med medborgarkontakt arbetar med målimplementering genom konkretisering av målen från regleringsbrevet till operativ nivå. Metod: Studien tillämpar en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi med en abduktiv ansats. Studien är utformad som en komparativ fallstudie och baseras på tre stycken semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Slutsats: Studien har visat att de studerade myndigheterna i olika utsträckning arbetar med att skapa konkreta aktiviteter baserade på målen från regleringsbrevet. Mått och mål har fått ge vika för effekter och aktiviteter. Utöver målen från regleringsbrevet definieras aktiviteter på operativ nivå utifrån ett kundperspektiv och medarbetarnas professionalism för att uppnå önskade effekter. / Background: Due to the important task of the public sector, it lies in the interest of the society that the organizations of the public sector is efficient. According to a review regarding Swedish authorities it is shown that it exists difficulties in the process of converting political goals to operational activities. Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate and compare how Swedish authorities with close contact with the citizens implement political goals of the government by turning the goals in to operational activities. Methodology: The study has a qualitative research strategy with an abductive research approach. The study is based on three semi-structured interviews and can be classified as a comparative case study. Conclusion: The study shows that the investigated authorities works to different extent with defining activities based on the political goals. Goals and measurements has been replaced by activities and effects. Beyond political goals, the activities are established based on a customer perspective and the employees’ professionalism to reach the desired effects.

The focus of this study is injured female netball players‟ motivation when they return to their sport from serious injuries. The purpose of the study is to provide a rich description of the motivation which allows these players to return to their sport and continue in their chosen field. Motivation is a vital component in injury rehabilitation, as it provides the drive that allows rehabilitation to occur. Two theories of motivation are examined in this study, namely the achievement goal theory of motivation and the theory of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. These theories highlight the argument that motivation occupies a continuum between being internally or externally determined. A qualitative phenomenological perspective was used to investigate the motivation of injured netball players. This made it possible to explore individual players‟ experiences of their injury. A semi-structured interview was conducted with each player to allow each player‟s experiences to be heard. The interviews were then transcribed. Thematic content analysis of the transcribed interviews revealed two main themes: the inevitable return and identity. The analysis showed that, for these netball players, their motivation to return to playing netball was based on an internal drive to regain an inherent part of their identity. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

O objetivo desse estudo foi investigar os efeitos da liberdade na escolha das respostas, da variabilidade de resposta resultante dessa liberdade e da variabilidade externamente determinada no processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora. Foram realizados oito experimentos, compostos por duas fases: estabilização, contendo 100 tentativas com conhecimento de resultados (CR), e adaptação, com 24 tentativas em uma mesma condição para todos os grupos, sem CR. Participaram do estudo 96 adultos de ambos os sexos, sem experiência prévia na tarefa utilizada. Como tarefa foi utilizada uma habilidade motora sequencial e de precisão temporal que consistiu em movimentar um cursor, usando o mouse, direcionando-o a seis alvos numa sequência, de forma que os \"toques\" nos alvos fossem realizados em coincidência com estímulos auditivos. A ordem dos toques na sequência foi livre nos grupos com liberdade na escolha das respostas e determinada nos grupos yokeds. Na fase de adaptação foi realizada uma modificação perceptivo-efetora na tarefa. O experimento 1 foi realizado para investigar o efeito da liberdade na escolha das respostas no processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora. Os resultados evidenciaram que a liberdade na escolha da resposta, durante a fase de estabilização, beneficiou o processo adaptativo. O experimento 2 foi realizado para investigar o efeito da meta de aprendizagem nas escolhas dos aprendizes e no processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora. Os resultados indicaram que a meta de aprendizagem teve efeito nas escolhas dos aprendizes, mas essas escolhas não ocasionaram superioridade nas medidas de desempenho na fase de adaptação. Houve menor tempo de planejamento da ação no primeiro bloco da fase de adaptação, indicando melhor preparação para uma nova situação nessa condição. Os experimentos 3 e 4 foram realizados para investigar o efeito da variabilidade de resposta resultante da condição de liberdade na escolha das respostas com meta de aprendizagem no processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora. Os resultados desses dois experimentos apontaram que na presença da meta de aprendizagem, quando a liberdade na escolha das respostas é explorada ativa e efetivamente, o desempenho na fase de adaptação é favorecido, com indicativos de superioridade da condição com maior quantidade de variações na sequência quando comparada à condição com maior número de sequências utilizadas na fase de estabilização. Os experimentos 5 a 8 foram conduzidos para comparar o efeito da variabilidade resultante da liberdade na escolha das respostas com meta de aprendizagem com o da variabilidade externamente determinada no processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora. Os resultados desses experimentos indicaram que a condição de liberdade na escolha das respostas com meta de aprendizagem não é suficiente para beneficiar o processo adaptativo. Quando a variabilidade de resposta resultante foi menor os benefícios da liberdade na escolha das respostas foram anulados, mas quando a variabilidade de resposta resultante foi maior os benefícios da liberdade na escolha das respostas foram igualados aos da variabilidade de resposta externamente determinada / The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of freedom in response choice, variability resulting from this freedom, and externally determined variability on the adaptive process in motor learning. Eight experiments were carried out, each of them comprising two phases: stabilization, which consisted of 100 trials with knowledge of results (KR), and adaptation, with 24 trials in a same condition for all groups, without KR. Ninety-six adults of both sexes with no previous experience with the task took part in this study. The task consisted of a spatiotemporal sequential motor skill of moving a cursor, using the computer mouse, to six targets in sequence, so that the \"touches\" in the targets were performed in coincidence with auditory stimuli. The order of touches in the sequence was free for the groups with freedom in response choice and determined for the yoked groups. A perceptual-motor change in the task was introduced in the adaptation phase. The experiment 1 was conducted to investigate the effect of freedom in response choice on the adaptive process in motor learning. Results showed that freedom in response choice during the stabilization phase benefited adaptive process. The experiment 2 was conducted to investigate the effect of learning goal both on the learner\'s choice and on the adaptive process in motor learning. Results indicated that learning goal had an effect on learners\' choices, but these choices did not lead to superiority in performance measures during the adaptive phase. The results also showed less time for planning the action in the first block of adaptive phase, suggesting better preparation for a new situation in the learning goal condition. Experiments 3 and 4 were conduced to investigate the effect of response variability resulting from freedom in response choice with learning goal on the adaptive process in motor learning. Results of both experiments revealed that, with learning goal, when freedom in response choice is actively and effectively explored, performance in the adaptation phase is favored, with indicative of superiority of higher sequence variations condition over the higher number of sequences used condition in the stabilization phase. Experiments 5 to 8 were conduced to compare the effect of variability resulting from freedom in response choice, with learning goal, to the effect of externally determined variability on the adaptive process in motor learning. The results of these experiments indicated that freedom in response choice is not enough to benefit adaptive process. When response variability resulting from freedom was lower, the benefits were absent, but when it was higher, the benefits were matched to those of the externally determined response variability