M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. (Psychology) / Despite well over two millennia of philosophical speculation and just under a century of objective, standardized measurement, students of intelligence are far from unanimous in their agreement on a formal definition of the concept. Biological, psychological and operational definitions have each been advanced' and criticized in their turn. The majority of definitions, particularly of the psychological variety, have been variously rejected as circular, question begging, over-inclusive or value-laden. Such definitions have included the capacity for learning; the capacity to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with one's environment; the ability to perceive or educe relations; and the ability for abstract thinking, to mention but a few...

The problem is to determine to what extent there is a relationship between a child's personality and his intelligence. As a basis for such a comparison, a study was made of sixty-two sixth-grade pupils in the Benjamin Franklin School in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Bibliography: pages 102-115. / The purpose of the study was to explore the feasibility of training conservation skills to a group of Black 7 - 8 year old children enrolled in a primary school in the Gugulethu township, a Black residential area in the Cape. From a group of 100 children, 60 subjects were selected on the basis of failure to conserve as measured by Piagetian conservation tasks. One of the conservation tasks was employed for training the subject to be able to conserve. A pre-test/post-test experimental design was used in a six phase experiment; assessment of possession of conservation concepts through the aid of Piagetian tasks of conservation of substance, weight, number and length; assessment of intelligence with the aid of the New South African Individual Scale; assessment of mental ability using the Draw-a-person test; group training with different methods of teaching on length conservation; immediate post test to determine effectiveness of training and transfer to other tasks and a delayed post-test to four weeks after training to assess retention of training effects.

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This study investigated Black, White, and Indian South African university students' lay theories of intelligence. 260 students participated in this study, with an age range of 18 - 39 years. The study, which is based on the theory of multiple intelligences, explored everyday perceptions of intelligence across race groups in a South African setting. The independent variables of interest were race/culture and gender, while overall and multiple intelligences served as dependent variables. Participants were asked to rate their own overall (general) as well as multiple intelligences. They were then asked to rate the overall as well as multiple intelligences of in-group (same race) and out-group (different race) members of both genders. There was a statistically significant race effect, with White and Indian students giving Black students lower ratings and Black students in turn giving White and Indian students lower ratings. This may be a result of historically racialized discourses that still influence everyday perceptions of the 'Other'. There was a statistically significant gender effect with females giving higher estimates to not only themselves, but also to mates as well for all the multiple intelligences. It can be postulated that this may be a consequence of a population that has been sensitized to gender stereotyping, in addition to educational institutions promoting female friendly policies. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Intellectual stimulation of young children is crucial, because it helps to break the cycle of poverty by giving each child the skills needed to reach his or her maximum potential. There is a growing need for more extensive early childhood development programmes in South Africa. Several studies in early childhood development have been shown to directly draw a parallel with enhanced student achievement at school and in life (Ackerman, 2005; Bueno, Darling-Hammond, & Gonzales 2010; Frede, Jung, Barnett, & Figueras, 2009). This study therefore explored the effects of an intervention programme introducing numbers, shapes and colours to infants between the ages of three months and 12 months. The sample consisted of 63 infants, with a control group of 34 and an experimental group of 29. The participants were selected from the middle-income group and consisted of infants from three different ethnic groups (black, white and coloured). Nine participants from the experimental group formed part of the focus group, which met every two weeks to give feedback and discuss the development of the infants and experiences of the parents involved in the intervention programme. In this study quantitative and qualitative data was collected. This data was assessed and analysed in order to achieve the four aims of the research study. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development (III) was used to assess three areas of development, namely cognitive ability, language skills and motor skills for the quantitative part of the study. The adaptive behaviour and social-emotional functioning of the infants was also assessed using the BSID (III), and this data was used in conjunction with the focus group feedback and problem-solving scenarios for the qualitative part of the study. Gender and the two age categories (3–7 and 8–12 months) for both the experimental and the control groups were examined and excluded from possible explanations for any significant findings. It was also determined that the control and experimental groups were well matched at the start of the intervention programme. The findings for aim A, the pre-test and post- test results showed that an average of 60 days involved in intervention programme had a statistically significant effect (z = -4.32, p < 0.001) on the cognitive ability of the infants. The findings for aim B, for the comparison between the control and experimental groups after the intervention programme, indicated significant results for the cognitive subscale (U = 732, p < 0.01, r = 0.42). Although the language and motor scores showed an increase in the descriptive statistics for the experimental group after the intervention, the Mann-Whitney U test did not show a significant difference. The findings for the qualitative study for aim C revealed that there was no effect on the adaptive behaviour of the infants. The findings for the social-emotional scales descriptive statistics for the qualitative study in aim D showed that there was a fairly large increase in the composite score means of the experimental group in comparison with the control group. The large increase in results complements the social-emotional functioning theme that emerged from the focus group. Three main themes emerged from the focus group, namely the cognitive ability, communication skills and social-emotional functioning of the infants.The increase in the social-emotional scale for the intervention group and the increase in the cognitive scale as mentioned in aim B were interrelated. These early social-emotional experiences are linked to long-term positive outcomes in both the social and cognitive areas of development (Landry, Smith, Swank, & Miller-Loncar, 2000). The parents all reported the ability to interpret the communication from their infants when participating in the flashcard sessions. This communication forms a foundation for establishing language development. Relationships between an infant’s nonverbal communication skills and subsequent language development have been reported (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2005). The problem-solving scenarios that were assessed during the second assessment showed that the infants who participated in the intervention programme were able to correctly identify a flashcard 73% of the time in comparison with the control group who were only able to identify a flashcard 1.4% correctly. The results of the study show that an early intervention programme has the potential to increase an infant’s cognitive ability and enhance his or her social-emotional functioning. However, the long-term impact of these findings would have to be explored in a longitudinal study. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

intelligence that has flowed from the personality–intelligence interface, hence emotional intelligence. The accepted body of knowledge regarding emotional capability is under scrutiny and middle ground is yet to be found. The general aim of this research was to gain an understanding of the relationship between independent variables (personality and cognition) and a dependent variable (emotional intelligence). The study was descriptive in nature, as the relationship between the variables was described rather than assumed. A quantitative, empirical study investigated independent variables and statistically analysed the results. This study found that 28% of the variance in EQ can be explained by personality and only 6.4% by cognition. The variance percentage increases to 30.4% when personality and cognition are combined. However, it seems that personality still carries most of the weight in this combination.Keywords: Organisational Psychology; Personnel Psychology; humanistic existential approach; descriptive research; quantitative empirical study; emotional intelligence; personality; cognition; Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ); Cognitive Process Profile (CPP); Bar-On EQ-i / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The problem of the present study was to determine the self concept of selected Negro boys and girls and to study the relationships of their self concept to their intelligence and academic achievement.