The switch to online learning during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic impacted the educational world in many ways. University students were moved from traditional in person classroom settings to an online format. This change may have been accompanied by stress, anxiety, and social isolation. Research suggests that a student’s learning environment can either generate success by contributing to motivational strategies through quality of educational support or a learning environment can generate boredom, stress, and confusion. In addition, research demonstrates that personality plays a factor in many outcomes such as education and mental health. There is a lack of research on connecting different students’ personality traits with their perception of their motivation and engagement in their online courses. To better understand these relationships, 190 university undergraduate students (56.8% female; mean age = 19.90, SD = 3.16) completed the Big Five Inventory (BFI), the Online Distance Learning Questionnaire (ODLQ), the Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), and a Demographics Survey. The surveys with subscales were totaled and scored separately. These scores were tested in terms of their correlations with each other using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient to test the correlations between the variables to determine if the hypotheses were supported. A significant relationship between the Learning Climate Questionnaire and the Online Distance Learning Questionnaire was found. Moderate relationships were found for the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and the Online Distance Learning Questionnaire. A weak relationship was found between the Big Five Factor Inventory trait for neuroticism and the Online Distance Learning Questionnaire. No relationship was determined between the Big Five Factor Inventory trait for extraversion and The Online Distance Learning Questionnaire. Further research is needed to clarify if personality traits have a significant relationship between student perception of online learning.

The emergence of the effects of global warming, as well as the ongoing depletion of fossil fuels and fertile soil pose a serious threat for the future of the agricultural industry. Alternatively, the continuous population growth mainly in the less developed regions highlights the future need of approximately 70-110 percent increase in the overall output of contemporary food production. While the current conventional agriculture deploys a multitude of technologies including the precision agriculture framework, the future needs of the population exceed the projected capabilities of the industry. Machine learning as the current fastest growing technology represents the potential remedy for the emerging issues, yet the extent of successful implementation remains uncertain. The thesis aims to uncover the potential future implications of implementation of machine learning based technology in agriculture through the use of the new scenario building methodology. The analysis builds on a varying set of empirical data, current state of art projects in machine learning and multiple future trend projections. Albeit the scenario building technique allows for a potentially endless number of constructed scenarios, the thesis concentrates on three main plot lines. First scenario tackles the more probable...

Underachievement is a perennial problem in many secondary schools in South Africa. One of the reasons for this state of affairs, is the inhibitive learning climate in such schools. This study attempts to determine the extent and causes of the problem and to develop guidelines for parents, teachers, learners and school management teams to resolve some of the issues that cause the problem. This is a qualitative study using focus group and individual interviews. The main findings contributing to underachievement among learners, include lack of parental guidance and supervision, negative attitudes of teachers towards learners, inflexible teaching methods, overcrowded classrooms, lack of resources and facilities in schools, lukewarm attitude of learners towards their work and the absence of positive role models in communities. The findings highlight important factors, which contribute to underachievement among learners in an inhibitive learning climate. The recommendations are an attempt towards solving this important issue. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Special Needs Education)

Underachievement is a perennial problem in many secondary schools in South Africa. One of the reasons for this state of affairs, is the inhibitive learning climate in such schools. This study attempts to determine the extent and causes of the problem and to develop guidelines for parents, teachers, learners and school management teams to resolve some of the issues that cause the problem. This is a qualitative study using focus group and individual interviews. The main findings contributing to underachievement among learners, include lack of parental guidance and supervision, negative attitudes of teachers towards learners, inflexible teaching methods, overcrowded classrooms, lack of resources and facilities in schools, lukewarm attitude of learners towards their work and the absence of positive role models in communities. The findings highlight important factors, which contribute to underachievement among learners in an inhibitive learning climate. The recommendations are an attempt towards solving this important issue. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Special Needs Education)

Simulating the global climate in fine granularity is essential in climate science research. Current algorithms for computing climate models are based on mathematical models that are computationally expensive. Climate simulation runs can take days or months to execute on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms. As such, the amount of computational resources determines the level of resolution for the simulations. If simulation time could be reduced without compromising model fidelity, higher resolution simulations would be possible leading to potentially new insights in climate science research. In this project, broadband radiative transfer modeling is examined, as this is an important part in climate simulators that takes around 30% to 50% time of a typical general circulation model. This thesis project presents a convolutional neural network (CNN) to model this most time consuming component. As a result, swift radiation prediction through the trained deep neural network achieves a 7x speedup compared to the calculation time of the original function. The average prediction error (MSE) is around 0.004 with 98.71% of accuracy. / Högupplösta globala klimatsimuleringar är oumbärliga för klimatforskningen.De algoritmer som i dag används för att beräkna klimatmodeller baserar sig på matematiska modeller som är beräkningsmässigt tunga. Klimatsimuleringar kan ta dagar eller månader att utföra på superdator (HPC). På så vis begränsas detaljnivån av vilka datorresurser som finns tillgängliga. Om simuleringstiden kunde minskas utan att kompromissa på modellens riktighet skulle detaljrikedomen kunna ökas och nya insikter göras möjliga. Detta projekt undersöker Bredband Solstrålning modellering eftersom det är en betydande del av dagens klimatsimulationer och upptar mellan 30-50% av beräkningstiden i en typisk generell cirkulationsmodell (GCM). Denna uppsats presenterar ett neuralt faltningsnätverk som ersätter denna beräkningsintensiva del. Resultatet är en sju gångers uppsnabbning jämfört med den ursprungliga metoden. Genomsnittliga uppskattningsfelet är 0.004 med 98.71 procents noggrannhet.

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The purpose of this study was to determine the contribution of unit managers towards the training of student nurses coming to their units for clinical practica. The sample consisted of students training in the four nursing colleges in the Cape Peninsula, and unit managers working in health services accommodating students for clinical practica in the same area. The findings revealed that the majority of unit managers were teaching students whenever they had the opportunity. Generally unit managers were prepared for their teaching function, but many students were not satisfied with some clinical learning opportunities presented to them, for example drawing up patients' care plans, discussing patients' treatment plans when handing over report, giving assistance regarding patient care decisions and lending support when students are confronted with patient care problems. There appears to be a need to educate unit managers regarding these and other aspects of the students' training programme. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)

The investigation of the relationship between the learning culture and academic achievement is the focal point of this research. Owing to the poor scholastic performance of particularly black matric pupils in the erstwhile Department of Education and Training, an investigation was launched into the Department with a view to identify the possible causes of poor matric performance. As a point of departure an in-depth study was made into aspects of the Department of Education and Training, including those which did not fall within the ambit of the Department, which would shed light on the possible causes of poor matric results. The study revealed many signs and incidents which are symptomatic of an eroded culture of learning in a considerable number of schools. Subsequently, a comprehensive study of the establishment of a learning culture was made. According to this study the establishment of a learning culture should transcend the boundaries of the school because pupils do not only learn and study at school, but at home and in the community as well. After concluding this study it immediately became evident that a considerable number of black schools fall far short of the requirements of a learning culture. The responsibilities of the principal as the manager and instructional leader of his school, together with the selection of the principal and teachers for employment, were the next to be studied. Proper performance of the aforementioned functions as well as proper selection of either the principal or teachers for employment can contribute enormously towards establishing a positive school climate. In the empirical research data was gleaned by means of questionnaires. Thereafter the Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the correlation between variables and the t-test and chi-square test were used to test the null hypothesis. From the empirical investigation it emerged that there is a relationship between a learning culture and academic achievement. The ultimate conclusion reached is that the establishment of a learning culture is a prerequisite for academic achievement. Arising from this research certain conclusions were drawn, recommendations were made and areas for possible future research were suggested. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The purpose of this study was to determine the contribution of unit managers towards the training of student nurses coming to their units for clinical practica. The sample consisted of students training in the four nursing colleges in the Cape Peninsula, and unit managers working in health services accommodating students for clinical practica in the same area. The findings revealed that the majority of unit managers were teaching students whenever they had the opportunity. Generally unit managers were prepared for their teaching function, but many students were not satisfied with some clinical learning opportunities presented to them, for example drawing up patients' care plans, discussing patients' treatment plans when handing over report, giving assistance regarding patient care decisions and lending support when students are confronted with patient care problems. There appears to be a need to educate unit managers regarding these and other aspects of the students' training programme. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)

The investigation of the relationship between the learning culture and academic achievement is the focal point of this research. Owing to the poor scholastic performance of particularly black matric pupils in the erstwhile Department of Education and Training, an investigation was launched into the Department with a view to identify the possible causes of poor matric performance. As a point of departure an in-depth study was made into aspects of the Department of Education and Training, including those which did not fall within the ambit of the Department, which would shed light on the possible causes of poor matric results. The study revealed many signs and incidents which are symptomatic of an eroded culture of learning in a considerable number of schools. Subsequently, a comprehensive study of the establishment of a learning culture was made. According to this study the establishment of a learning culture should transcend the boundaries of the school because pupils do not only learn and study at school, but at home and in the community as well. After concluding this study it immediately became evident that a considerable number of black schools fall far short of the requirements of a learning culture. The responsibilities of the principal as the manager and instructional leader of his school, together with the selection of the principal and teachers for employment, were the next to be studied. Proper performance of the aforementioned functions as well as proper selection of either the principal or teachers for employment can contribute enormously towards establishing a positive school climate. In the empirical research data was gleaned by means of questionnaires. Thereafter the Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the correlation between variables and the t-test and chi-square test were used to test the null hypothesis. From the empirical investigation it emerged that there is a relationship between a learning culture and academic achievement. The ultimate conclusion reached is that the establishment of a learning culture is a prerequisite for academic achievement. Arising from this research certain conclusions were drawn, recommendations were made and areas for possible future research were suggested. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)