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published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

The research was mainly confined to secondary schools in the Limpopo Province where a lack of self-empowerment amongst the educators is the order of the day. The research question of the study was generated as follows: Does the lack of self-empowerment amongst the teachers in the Limpopo Province (Region 3) have a negative impact on the development of a common self-empowerment for the teachers? The main objectives of the research were to give teachers some guidelines for efficient as well as successful self-empowerment practices for better functioning and service in secondary schools in the Limpopo Province. The hypothesis generated was formulated as follows: The development of self-empowerment by teachers which maintain good relationships with their community will result in the strong possibility that they will have fewer development problems. The research was conducted by means of a phenomenological approach. The following concepts were defined: self-empowerment, curriculum development, development for whole school curriculum development, involvement and participation. Historical perceptions of teachers and their participation and involvement were highlighted and the history of self-empowerment in the Limpopo Province was discussed. The composition of the teachers fell into two categories, namely, untrained and under- trained (as far as self-empowerment is concerned) teachers. The importance of the teachers’ involvement in self-empowerment was discussed under the following sub- headings: curriculum vision, decision making, design and development, policy-making, appointment of curriculum teaching staff and building and renovating curriculum. The principal may be involved in the self-empowerment activities through the self-empowerment committee. Principals and teachers must receive their knowledge in self-empowerment development during their training at seminars and conferences in order to play their roles in the community-self-empowerment relationships. As a result, principals will be enabled to fulfill their tasks as cooperative facilitators and as relationship establishers in the community-self-empowerment relations. For example, principals must see to it that teachers must be considered as collaborators in the self-empowerment process, since they have a strong role to play in their learners’ learning and behaviour. In the second place, principals should be friendly towards the teachers because complete frankness makes for good relationships. This, in due course, can bear fruit so that all go well that ends well to the benefit of the whole school. / Dr. M.C. van Loggerenberg

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie studie is onderneem omdat daar groat verskille tussen buitengewone en gewone onderwys bestaan en omdat hoofde van kindersorgskole self verantwoordelik is vir personeelontwikkeling en indiensopleiding in hul skole. Die studie dui aan dat kindersorgskole en dus die indiensopleiers eiesoortige doelwitte en metodiek moet he omdat die pedagogies verwaarloosde kind 'n unieke benadering en behandelingsprogram verg. Benewens die orienterende inleiding hieroor, word die mikpunte van sommige bepalings van die Wet op Kindersorg (Wet 7 4 van 1983} uitgelig. Onderwysbestuur as opgawe van die hoof en ander beheerpersoneel is deurgrond en in verband gebring met die verskillende personeelbestuurstake en -funksies. In hierdie studie is gepoog om aktuele onderwyskundige probleme insake personeelontwikkeling en indiensopleiding ln die kindersorgskole te identifiseer en die implikasies daarvan vir onderwysbestuur in hierdie skole aan te toon. Laastens is enkele riglyne verskaf om die praktyk van personeelontwikkeling en indiensopleiding in die kindersorgskole te verbeter. / This study was undertaken because of marked differences between specialized and conventional education and also because principals of schools constituted under the Act on Child Care are themselves responsible for staff development and in-service training. The study indicates that child care schools, and therefore in-service trainers, must develop their own aims and methodology, because the pedagogically neglected child requires a unique approach and treatment In addition to an introductory orientation in this respect some objectives incorporated in the Act on Child Care (Act 7 4, 1983} are highlighted. Educational management as a function of the principal and his control staff, is probed and brought into context with the different staff management tasks and functions. This study endeavours to identify burning pedagogical problems re INSET in child care schools and indicates the implications thereof for their educational management Finally, some guidelines are given to alleviate or solve the problems in practice. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Onderwysbestuur)

This is a study about teacher learning in a case school. In this context, the study concentrates on teacher learning in groups. In the literature, there is a lot of attention to teacher learning in groups, community, and networks; however, many researchers indicate the necessity of understanding the processes of teacher’s interactions and obtaining concrete evidence of such interactions. This points to the need to secure quantitative data as well as qualitative data. This study is a step-wise exploration of teacher learning in the school. Step 1: The study began by understanding the pattern of teacher’s professional interactions using Social Network Analysis (SNA). Step 2: In order to delineate teacher learning in the school, the study then borrowed the concept of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) from Karen Seashore Louis (2006). Hence, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to confirm that the chosen Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) constructs are suitable for this study. Step 3: Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was adopted to link the pattern of teacher’s professional interactions to the confirmed PLCs constructs. Step 4: Interviews were conducted to triangulate with and to interpret the quantitative findings. While Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides a general pattern and relative positions of teacher’s professional interactions, Structural Equation modeling (SEM) helps identifying the types of professional activities and their intensity in the networks. Hence, it provides a 3-D picture of relations among teachers in the case school. This integrated analysis leads to the comprehensively understanding of learning activities that occurred among teachers in this school. In this study, the concept of PLC is seen as a combination of Professional Community (PC) and Organizational Learning (OL). It is found that, in this school, teachers themselves have high capacity for learning through networks. The major way of interactions among teachers is through discussions to exchange resources and ideas. The findings are in two dimensions: The first is about professional community. The framework of professional community comprises reflective dialogue (which is how teachers engage in deep discussions about instructions) and deprivatized practice (which is how teachers exchange their practices through classroom observation and coteaching). Teachers in the school are found to be strong in the former and weak in the latter. Second, because of the lack of practice sharing and because of the lack of a whole-school system to promote collective practice (which can be IT platforms, regulations, policies, mechanisms, and so forth), the school is yet to demonstrate full capacity of organizational learning. In relevance to theory, while there is a vague, ambiguous, and overlapping meaning of professional community and organizational learning in the literature, the study points to the possible distinction between the two. Empirically, it can be concluded that professional community emphasizes on the interactions among teachers, whereas organizational learning emphasizes on collective actions in the whole school. The study leads to the reinterpretation and modification of Louis (2006)’s framework. To become a learning school, three elements are essential: (1) Teachers engage in professional discussions (i.e. reflective dialogue), (2) Teachers exchange and share professional practices (i.e. deprivatized practice), (3) There must be systemic efforts to facilitate collective action (i.e. shared social construction). / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

China has a long history of charitable practices. However, in the first four decades since the Communist Party of China (CPC) came into power in 1949, charitable practices experienced little development under a planned economy and collectivist ideology. It was not until 1989 that the state began to promote state-led charity on a national scale with the iconic Hope Project which was in response to market transformations and social turbulences. Over the past decade, the Chinese charity sector has experienced rapid development, with a growing number of innovative charitable practices delivered by grassroots organisations. This research uses the ‘Shanghai I-Fly Project for Training Rural Teachers’ case study to investigate how these grassroots charitable practices for rural education are emerging in China nowadays, as well as how they reshape individual-society-state relations by launching innovative charitable projects for rural education. This research combines qualitative research methods, including secondary literature review, policy analysis, participant observations, semi-structured interviews and self-administered questionnaires. The fieldwork research was conducted during three consecutive periods: between May and October 2012, January and August 2013, as well as December 2013 and February 2014 in three places, including Shanghai, Liming County and Lankang County. The research finds that there are three trends in the emerging charitable practices for rural education. First, charity spaces have shifted from rural to urban areas. Second, philanthropic targets have changed from rural students to rural teachers. Third, benevolent projects have shown increasing interest in promoting ‘soft’, instead of ‘hard’ aspects of rural education. Both the state and social elites have promoted these transformations. On the one hand, state policies for social organisations, charitable practices and rural education have exerted a large influence over various forms of philanthropy. On the other hand, local elites have been playing an active role in promoting innovative charitable practices in order to rebuild the social morality of the next generation and reproduce existing hierarchical structure in the non-profitable world. Emerging innovative benevolent acts seem to have been promoted for urban people more than rural participants. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a one-hour in-service nutrition education workshop for high school coaches in Corvallis, Eugene and Salem, Oregon. The objectives were to determine: 1. if the workshop can make positive changes in nutrition knowledge; 2. which type of participant benefits most from the workshop in terms of an increase in knowledge; and 3. how high school coaches feel about the usefulness of this type of workshop. Eighty-one coaches participating in the study completed a pre-questionnaire immediately prior to and then a post-questionnaire immediately following the workshop. The questionnaire was designed to measure the nutrition for fitness and sport knowledge of coaches. A 17 minute slide/tape program (Nutrition in the Fast Lane) was the major educational component of the workshop. Statistically significant differences were found between pre- and post-questionnaire scores indicating that coaches increased their nutrition knowledge as a result of attending the workshop. Similar results were found for a group of student athletic trainers, teachers and parents of young athletes. It was also found that the age of the coach, academic degree, number of years of coaching, completion of a college level nutrition course or attendance at a nutrition education workshop within the past two years did not have a significant effect on the overall knowledge score. However, female coaches had significantly greater overall knowledge scores than male coaches. Nearly all coaches (95%) found this workshop either very or somewhat useful and 97.5% would recommend it to their colleagues. The conclusions are that within the framework of a one-hour in-service nutrition education workshop coaches are able to achieve significant increases in nutrition knowledge and that with the exception of female coaches, no one type of participant benefited most in terms of an increase in knowledge. / Graduation date: 1986

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate whether or not there was any change in behavior on the part of teachers who participated in a university graduate level course which used an inservice format. The course in question was on the effective construction of elementary school language arts curriculum. The subjects were those who had taken the course and who volunteered to participate in the study. Ten of the twenty who finished the course volunteered. The data was collected by conducting two interviews and administering two questionnaires. During the interviews, the research technique of stimulated recall was used to help the subjects remember past experiences. The first questionnaire determined to what extent the subjects were likely to distort their self-reporting on the second questionnaire. The second questionnaire was used to collect data in reference to how the subjects saw their roles within the framework of the inservice course. Instrumentation consisted of: Interview quides, Part I and Part II; the Reynolds Social Desirability Scale; and the Role Perception Scale. All but the Reynolds Social Desirability Scale were developed by the researcher. An analysis of the data provided ample evidence to support the following conclusions: (1) A university level graduate course in language arts curriculum development can be regarded as inservice education. (2) A positive change in the way teachers think about the influence of effective curriculum development on student growth can occur within the framework of a graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction. (3) Teachers actually implement their personal language arts curriculums constructed as a course requirement for a graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction. (4) The university instructor plays a prominent role in bringing about change in thinking and behavior on the part of teachers taking a university graduate level course in elementary school language arts curriculum construction.

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