Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

D.Ed. (Didactics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis(MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The determination of what the concept ‘sustainable competitive advantage’ means within a service environment and the consequent establishment of key resources within Pam Golding Properties and the role that leadership and the creation of a learning organisation play, formed the core of this study. The case study was therefore undertaken to glean relevant information from reality in order to determine which resources that can be described as intangible assets and competences contribute in a sustainable manner to the organisation’s competitive advantage in a dynamic and changing business environment. Existing and historical resources including leadership and learning within the organisation were identified by means of semi-structured interviews with a range of company executives. These resources were then assessed by means of questionnaires that were distributed to a wide range of stakeholders within the organisation in terms of value for the client, sustainability and transferability. These outcomes, in turn, provided the basis for conclusions and recommendations for future utility in order to maintain competitive advantage that would ultimately lead to sustained superior performance on all fronts. The findings that were made, culminated in a visual representation of leadership and organisational learning that form the core of the organisation and simultaneously illustrating their interdependence with the other key resources, namely organisational culture, the Pam Golding Properties brand, reputation, teamwork, relationships, systems and procedures, managers and agents. These resources form the essence of the organisation. The organisational culture within Pam Golding Properties that is representative of the core values of integrity, honesty, sincerity and service delivery was found to be the overall resource that provides the organisation with sustainable competitive advantage. This was closely followed by the value of the brand and reputation, teamwork and inter-personal relationships, the utilisation of efficient systems and procedures and the recruitment and retention of competent managers and agents. Organisational leadership was found to instil confidence in the organisation. A common, shared vision that is understood and underwritten by all employees is however lacking and change needs to be managed in such a way that the organisation’s core ideology is not compromised, but an envisioned future should be communicated throughout. The brand carries out the promise of the culture and core values, but can be tarnished if the reputation for service excellence is not upheld and it can lose credibility if expectations are not met. The brand thus needs protection from within and this can only happen if the people in the organisation share in the process of and toward an envisioned future. It was established that meaningful change presupposes continual improvement in a dynamic, yet sustainable organisation. It was therefore also recommended that a concerted effort be made to actively promote and strive towards the company becoming a true learning organisation in order to sustain its culture, brand, reputation and other intangible assets and competences. In the event that these and other recommendations in terms of resources are seriously considered and strived for by company leaders, this organisation should be an example to the rest of the world regarding sustainable competitive advantage. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die bepaling van wat die konsep ‘volhoubare mededingende voordeel’ beteken binne ‘n diensomgewing en die daaropvolgende vasstelling van sleutelhulpbronne binne Pam Golding Eiendomme en die rol wat leierskap en die skep van ‘n leerorganisasie speel, het die kern van hierdie studie gevorm. Die gevallestudie is dus onderneem om toepaslike inligting vanuit realiteit te werf, om sodoende vas te stel watter hulpbronne wat as ontasbare bates en bevoegdhede beskryf kan word, op ‘n volhoubare wyse tot die organisasie se mededingende voordeel bydra in ‘n dinamiese en veranderende sake-omgewing. Bestaande en historiese hulpbronne insluitend leierskap en leer binne die organisasie is geïdentifiseer by wyse van semi-gestruktueerde onderhoude wat met ‘n aantal uitvoerende lede van die maatskappy gevoer is. Hierdie hulpbronne is daarna deur middel van vraelyste wat aan ‘n breë reeks insethouers binne die organisasie versprei is, geëvalueer in terme van waarde vir die kliënt, volhoubaarheid en oordraagbaarheid. Hierdie uitkomste het weer die basis verskaf vir afleidings en voorstelle wat gemaak is ten opsigte van toekomsbruikbaarheid om mededingende voordeel te behou wat uiteindelik tot volhoubare superieure verrigting op alle fronte sal lei. Die bevindings wat gemaak is, het in ‘n visuele voorstelling van leierskap en organisasieleer gekulmineer, wat die kern van die organisasie uitmaak en tegelykertyd hul interafhanklikheid illustreer ten opsigte van die ander sleutelhulpbronne, naamlik organisasie-kultuur, die Pam Golding Eiendomme handelsnaam, reputasie, spanwerk, verhoudings, stelsels en prosedures, bestuurders an agente. Hierdie hulpbronne maak die essensie van die organisasie uit. Die organisasie-kultuur binne Pam Golding Eiendomme wat verteenwoordigend is van die kernwaardes van integriteit, eerlikheid, opregtheid en dienslewering het as die oorhoofse hulpbron uitgestaan wat die organisasie van volhoubare mededingende voordeel verseker. Dis gevolg deur die waarde van die handelsnaam en reputasie, spanwerk en inter-persoonlike verhoudings, die benutting van doeltreffende stelsels en prosedures en die werwing en retensie van bekwame bestuurders en agente. Daar is bevind dat organisasie-leierskap vertroue in die organisasie skep. ‘n Gemeenskaplike, gedeelde visie wat deur al die werknemers verstaan en onderskryf word, kom egter kort en verandering behoort op só ‘n wyse bestuur te word, dat die organisasie se kern-ideologie nie onder verdenking gebring word nie, maar ‘n gevisioneerde toekoms behoort deurgaans gekommunikeer te word. Die handelsnaam dra die belofte van die kultuur en kernwaardes uit, maar kan skade opdoen as die reputasie vir diensuitnemendheid nie onderhou word nie en dan kan geloofwaardigheid ingeboet word indien daar nie aan verwagtinge voldoen word nie. Die handelsnaam moet dus van binne uit beskerm word en dit kan slegs gebeur indien die mense in die organisasie aan die proses van ‘n gevisioneerde toekoms deelneem. Dit is bevind dat betekenisvolle verandering aaneenlopende verbetering in ‘n dinamiese, dog volhoubare organisasie veronderstel. Daar is dus ook voorgestel dat ‘n doelbewuste poging aangewend word dat die wording van ‘n ware leerorganisasie aktief gepromoveer en nagestreef behoort te word om sodoende die kultuur, handelsnaam, reputasie en ander ontasbare bates en bevoegdhede vol te kan hou. Indien hierdie en ander voorstelle ten opsigte van hulpbronne ernstig deur die maatskappy se leiers bedink en nagestreef word, behoort hierdie organisasie vir die res van die wêreld ‘n voorbeeld van volhoubare mededingende voordeel te wees.

Faculty-led short-term international service-learning (STISL) experiences are thought to have great potential in developing students' global citizenship through combining study abroad and community service pedagogies. However, thorough investigation of the pedagogical strategies employed in STISL courses to achieve such outcomes has yet to be conducted. This qualitative narrative inquiry of STISL faculty at 7 different institutions across multiple academic disciplines and country service sites sought to fill that void. Data reveal a new conceptualization of STISL teaching, learning, and service success that involves culturally contextualized solidarity, global civic engagement, and global competence, which culminate into students' global agency. Emerging from the data, the Van Cleave Pedagogical Design framework for Global Agency illuminates the interactions of five interdependent learning dimensions: academic, professional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intercultural. Course, program, and policy implications are explicated across pre-departure, host-country, and re-entry experiences.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Drawing on critical realist philosophy as a meta-theoretical framework, this study explores the conditions that enable and constrain the infusion of service-learning in university curricula. In this study, four discipline-based cases are analysed within the context of an overarching case of one South African university. The study reports on case study research into four disciplines, broadly representing the disciplinary array offered at Rhodes University, a small traditional research-intensive university in South Africa – four cases are thus embedded within a larger over-arching case. Margret Archer’s analytical dualism is used as an analytical lens for the inquiry. It offers tools for examining the conditions for the emergence of service learning and the form it takes in each case. Archer’s framework requires the artificial separation of structural, cultural and agential mechanisms for analytical purposes in order to establish the dominant factors impacting on the infusion of service-learning in curricula. An analysis of the interplay between structure, culture and agency uncovers insights into the conditions that enable or constrain the adoption of service learning as a pedagogic tool in specific disciplines. Curriculum decision-making is a central consideration in this study. Basil Bernstein’s theory of cultural transmission provides an external language of description to theorise the pedagogic choices made in specific contexts. This body of theory provides analytical tools for generating nuanced explanations of the significance of knowledge and curriculum structures as enabling and constraining mechanisms when pedagogic decisions are made. The study shows that the nature of the discipline has a significant influence on the emergence of service-learning and the form it takes in each context. Key agents draw on available structural and cultural mechanisms to either maintain the status quo or they exercise their personal properties and powers to mitigate existing conditions. The first case examines the emergence of service-learning in a ‘hard pure’ discipline where structural and cultural conditions constrain the emergence of innovative pedagogic tools. In this case a key agent draws on a confluence of personal, structural and cultural emergent properties to initiate a service-learning course at the honours level. Factors that make service-learning possible in this case include the key agent’s seniority within the institution, his status as a prolific researcher, the possibilities for application of disciplinary knowledge, and a strong institutional discourse of service to society (RU in Society) and an institutional and departmental discourse privileging academic freedom. In the second case the conditions in the ‘hard applied’ discipline are largely enabling, however the emergence of service-learning is facilitated by the interplay of the following agential, structural and cultural emergent properties: corporate agency taking advantage of the outward focus of the discipline (a region in Bernsteinian terms) and drawing on what is termed the RU in Society discourse. The third case represents a ‘soft pure’ discipline, where service-learning does not emerge within the formal curriculum, but in a largely marginalised departmental outreach programme. This discipline is inward facing and although its knowledge base draws on challenges and phenomena in society, it remains at an esoteric level accessible mainly to the discipline community. Agents in this department draw on the insular structure of the discipline, in conjunction with the strong Academic Freedom discourse to develop a form of service-learning that furthers disciplinary aims, albeit within the context of limited engagement beyond the boundaries of the discipline and the institution. In the case of the ‘soft applied’ discipline the structural and cultural conditions are largely enabling. However the emergence of service-learning in this discipline relies on the advocacy of a powerful social agent in the department with an interest in socially equitable practice; she draws on the RU in Society discourse to promote direct engagement with communities beyond the university boundaries. The study is set in a research-intensive university and it is perhaps not surprising that the service-learning courses in three of the four cases are framed by research projects. This suggests that in the context of this kind of institution it may be imperative to draw on research activities as the basis of infusing service-learning in the curriculum. The findings of this study challenge the implicit assumption in policy documents that it is possible to institute service-learning in all disciplines.

This study examined the nature of learning within an afterschool mathematics club established by the South African Numeracy Chair project. The study sought to establish what sort of progress in mathematical learning occurred in a grade 3 afterschool maths club, using assessment instruments associated with the Learning Framework in Number. The study also sought to understand the nature and effects of mentor mediation in the maths club, using Vygotsky’s notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) together with the notion and practice of scaffolding. The study made use of a variety of data collection techniques, including one-to-one assessment interviews, task-based interviews and observations. In line with the case study approach adopted, four learners were selected for interviews. The assessment interview results revealed that, in terms of proficiency in early arithmetical learning, all four learners showed progress after spending four months in an afterschool maths club. Even though they were found to have advanced in their Strategies for Early Arithmetic Learning (SEAL), some of them were observed still using their fingers to support their counting. Such strategies were likely to mirror the teaching approaches used in their usual school mathematical lessons. The overall findings in terms of learners’ proficiency and progress give rise to concerns about current number teaching practices in their school, which emphasize the standard written algorithm in the lower primary grades. The study also made use of Vygotsky’s notion of the ZPD to analyse the nature of mentor-peer mediation. Witnessing the learners’ use of trial and error strategies during the task-based interview allowed both mentors to support learners through understanding their thinking, prompting them and encouraging them to reflect on their answers and develop more effective strategies. Learners progressed through the ZPD at different paces and in different ways, with ‘aha’ moments happening at different points for individual learners. Their progression in the ZPD seemed to depend on interaction among all participants, which varied according to what was contributed and what requested by each participant. The findings revealed that although there was evidence of learners achieving success at the tasks in task based interviews there were also there were also some learners who experienced difficulties. Additionally, in order to argue that learning was fully realised within the ZPD would have required follow up task based interviews to assess the extent to which learners were able to complete the tasks independently without the scaffolding of mentors. This was not possible within the scope of this research but would be useful in future research.

This thesis describes an intervention using the Mathematics Recovery programme in a South African context with a small sample of Grade 4 learners. The study uses a qualitative case study approach. The data collection included video recorded one-to-one oral interviews with the learners. I used the Learning Framework in Number (LFIN) developed by Wright, Martland, Stafford and Stanger (2006) to profile the learners using pre and post intervention interview data and to determine their levels of multiplicative reasoning. The analysis showed the positive impact of the Mathematics Recovery programme on the improvement of multiplicative reasoning. The study contributes to the use of Mathematics Recovery programmes in South Africa from both a teacher and teacher educator perspective.

This research project examined the effects of participation in a six-month global service-learning program in the intercultural development of a group of students. The students under consideration herein participated in the 2009 program year of the Grace University EDGE Program, which took place in Mali, West Africa. The present research builds on and contributes to three primary areas of research: intercultural development, service-learning, and study abroad. As the literature in these areas revealed the lack of a consistent way to assess global service-learning, I tried a three-part method of assessment. First, the Intercultural Development Inventory formally measured growth in intercultural competence. Second, guided course-writing generated by the students was used to facilitate followup interviews of most participants, especially considering the intersections between IDI results and students' self-perceptions as reported in their papers. Third, the interviews were coded and explored for information related to the process of intercultural development. The participants, overall, demonstrated positive intercultural competence gains while undergoing a complex process involving the impetus for and experience of development, ultimately resulting in changed patterns of thought.

„Wurzeln und Flügel“ sollten Kinder bekanntlich von ihren Eltern bekommen um Bindung und Freiheit zu erfahren. Möchte man engagierte forschungsorientierte Gruppenlernprozesse gestalten spielen diese beiden Aspekte ebenfalls eine zentrale Rolle. Die Teilnehmenden solcher Prozesse erarbeiten sich gemeinsam den Zugang zu einem Themengebiet, finden sich in Gruppen zusammen, um sich gegenseitig zu unterstützen und bekommen durch die Auflösung der Seminarstruktur die Freiheit, sich intensiv mit den selbst gewählten Schwerpunkten auseinanderzusetzen. Sie teilen Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse mit der Gesamtgruppe und profitieren von einem umfassenden Peer-Review im Prozess der Verschriftlichung der Ergebnisse. Einblicke in die Planung, die Durchführung und vor allem die umfassende Evaluation eines solchen „blended“ gestalteten Seminars der Kunstdidaktik (Fachdidaktische Kritik digitaler Arbeitsmittel im Kunstunterricht) bilden in diesem Workshop die Basis für Diskussionen, praktische Überlegungen und kleine Anwendungen.