High retention rates, low levels of academic literacy and inundated support services show that students enrolled at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are experiencing difficulty coping with the demands of tertiary study and reaching their academic goals. Literature shows that a significant number of students who are attending HEIs experience barriers to learning, both intrinsic and extrinsic. The aim of this study was to determine the opinions of lecturers at one University of Technology regarding their role in supporting students experiencing barriers to learning. The researcher used a mixed methods approach to collect data with the aim to describe the phenomenon accurately. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model provided a theoretical framework for this study as it emphasizes the importance of the interaction between the development of an individual and the systems within the individual’s social context. A purposive sampling strategy was employed, and self-structured questionnaires were given to lecturers who teach first year to post-graduate students at the University of Technology. After the statistical analysis of the quantitative data, fifteen lecturers were randomly chosen to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. The transcriptions of the interviews were coded and themes were identified. Using the constant comparative method of data analysis, the researcher aimed to explain the results of quantitative data analysis. The key findings revealed that lecturers feel inadequate to deal with barriers to learning; mainly owing to a lack of training and that they are mainly of opinion that their duty is to refer students for support. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

High retention rates, low levels of academic literacy and inundated support services show that students enrolled at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are experiencing difficulty coping with the demands of tertiary study and reaching their academic goals. Literature shows that a significant number of students who are attending HEIs experience barriers to learning, both intrinsic and extrinsic. The aim of this study was to determine the opinions of lecturers at one University of Technology regarding their role in supporting students experiencing barriers to learning. The researcher used a mixed methods approach to collect data with the aim to describe the phenomenon accurately. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model provided a theoretical framework for this study as it emphasizes the importance of the interaction between the development of an individual and the systems within the individual’s social context. A purposive sampling strategy was employed, and self-structured questionnaires were given to lecturers who teach first year to post-graduate students at the University of Technology. After the statistical analysis of the quantitative data, fifteen lecturers were randomly chosen to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. The transcriptions of the interviews were coded and themes were identified. Using the constant comparative method of data analysis, the researcher aimed to explain the results of quantitative data analysis. The key findings revealed that lecturers feel inadequate to deal with barriers to learning; mainly owing to a lack of training and that they are mainly of opinion that their duty is to refer students for support. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Towards the end of the last century in Australia one aspect of the restructuring of work has been a major increase in the number of people who are employed on a casual basis. The ‘traditional’ full time permanent job is no longer available to many people. This project examines aspects of the personal and work lives of casual TAFE lecturers in the Perth metropolitan area. It provides a specific case study of workers who have been affected by the changes in the workforce which have developed over the past 25 years. In particular, these are workers who, given their tertiary education and work experience, would not necessarily have expected to be employed on a casual basis but who are now part of the roughly 27% of the workforce employed in this mode. Supporters of the restructured workforce claim that work flexibility has advantages for the economy and for both the employer and the employee and argue that many are happy to work in this mode. This project seeks to test this assertion, to examine briefly the economic and political features that led to casual work being adopted as the preferred employment model at TAFE in Western Australia, and to consider in detail its consequences for some of those employed in this manner. Through a series of interviews of 40 casual TAFE lecturers it investigates some of the particular features of such employment; such as how people obtain and maintain work, and whether they regard themselves as having a career, as well as looking at broader aspects such as stigma, insecurity and the place of risk in the workplace. The research reveals that while this mode of employment suits a subset of casual employees, others pine for greater security and certainty in their working lives.

The purpose of this research is to discover how university lecturers in management subjects respond to the mix of local and international students in their classes. The aim is to develop a substantive theory based on a conceptual understanding of the main concern of lecturers working in a changing Higher Education context. The aim of developing theory rather than providing rich description led to the choice of Orthodox Grounded Theory as the methodology. Grounded Theory is an inductive methodology that provides the methods to conceptually generate the patterns that explain the behaviours of participants in the substantive area. This was relevant for the current research as I commenced with no explicit hypotheses and there was limited literature on the responses of university lecturers to teaching diverse groups of students, particularly a mix of local and international students. Interviews and observations were conducted with lecturers from both traditional and newer universities in Melbourne, and data analysed using open coding, categorising, constant comparison, theoretical sampling and coding, and frequent memoing. The main concern of respondents emerged as balancing professional capability with the requirements of a heterogeneous student population. The Basic Social Process and Core Category that resolves this concern is Maintaining Competence. Maintaining Competence is both a causal-consequence model, and a typology model consisting of four strategies � Distancing, Adapting, Clarifying and Relating. The emergent Grounded Theory of Maintaining Competence contributes to the extant literature, in particular the literature on professional competence, and the literature on teacher centred and student centred approaches and on contextual and contingency models of teaching. It adds to the latter by demonstrating the importance of the interplay of moderating variables, specifically Forces in the Lecturer and Forces in the Environment. The thesis adds also to the Grounded Theory literature in its explicit presentation of Orthodox Grounded Theory methods and its discussion of the research journey of a novice grounded theorist.

The Swedish people’s attitude towards multiculturalism is generally positive and has been so for a long period of time. In recent years attitudes have become increasingly polarized between those who are positive and negative. The multicultural project is subject to an increasingly sharp criticism. The purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes and life practices within a specific group, a group which some consider to be an elite of knowledge in this context, university lecturers. The study examines whether the attitudes and life practices are in agreement or whether there is a discrepancy between the two. The theoretical outset for the study has been Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social space, habitus, capital forms and social positions. The result shows that all informants have a positive attitude towards multiculturalism. At the same time, their life practice is strongly characterized by a culturally homogeneous way of life and the encounter with other cultures in the Swedish context is very marginal, which is generally also forwarded to their children. In other words, there is a distinct discrepancy between attitude and life practice. Thus, there is a risk that the position of agents with a different cultural heritage, on the basis of lack of symbolic capital, will be entrenched far down in the social space.

ABSTRACT This is a quantitative methods study investigating the perceptions that teacher trainees at a tertiary level educational institution have of the evaluation process for courses and lecturers. Student evaluation of courses and lecturers is mandated by the standards of the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) and the University of the West Indies (UWI), and hinges on the quality of educational experiences within tertiary level educational institutions. Teacher trainees are vested with the responsibility to be engaged in the exercise which must be afforded by the respective institutions. The primary sources of data were generated from the responses to a Likert-type questionnaire administered to teacher trainees (TTQ). The results indicated that the teacher trainees were generally supportive of the evaluation process. Moreover, these positive results were not related to the trainees’ age, gender, or area of specialization. There were, however, some areas of concern noted. In particular, the trainees believe that the evaluation process should be conducted online since there is concern about anonymity. The implications of these results for the Ministry of Education were listed and suggestions for future research were provided. Keywords: Perceptions, Evaluation Process, Courses, Lecturers, Teacher Trainees / Educational Administration

University lecturers have a job that is characterized by flexible working conditions and lack of boundaries. This study investigates how this is experienced by lecturers at a Swedish university and how they manage the flexibility in order to achieve a balance between work and leisure. The empirical part of the study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with five senior lecturers within the Faculty of Social Sciences. Boundary theory and Work / Family Border Theory are used to interpret the informants' stories. The study shows that senior lecturers have a mixed experience of flexible working conditions. On the one hand informants expressed positive aspects of having choices in their work in terms of time, space and content; on the other hand, informants recounted the difficulties that can arise when it comes to finding an appropriate balance between work and leisure. The strategies individuals deploy to manage flexible working vary in line with variations in experience and awareness.

The aim of this research was to identify where the expectation gap of IT competencies lies, between accountancy trainees, SAICA and employers. Existing findings and empirical research findings from this study were compared to the prescribed competencies of the professional body, SAICA, to identify where the gap lies and to suggest possible action plans to overcome it. The findings of this study suggest that the availability of technology and IT at schools is limited. Employers identified an overall expectation gap where trainees are not able to apply the basic IT competencies that should have been acquired at university to the practical working environment. The data collected also identified that IT competencies are not being taught at the same level at different universities through the different responses of students, lecturers and trainees, which leads to inconsistent exposure of accountancy trainees to IT prior to their traineeship. As IT competencies have a significant impact on the every-day working life of such a trainee, employers and SAICA expect that students would have obtained basic IT competencies before the start of their traineeship. / MCom (Accountancy)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

The aim of this research was to identify where the expectation gap of IT competencies lies, between accountancy trainees, SAICA and employers. Existing findings and empirical research findings from this study were compared to the prescribed competencies of the professional body, SAICA, to identify where the gap lies and to suggest possible action plans to overcome it. The findings of this study suggest that the availability of technology and IT at schools is limited. Employers identified an overall expectation gap where trainees are not able to apply the basic IT competencies that should have been acquired at university to the practical working environment. The data collected also identified that IT competencies are not being taught at the same level at different universities through the different responses of students, lecturers and trainees, which leads to inconsistent exposure of accountancy trainees to IT prior to their traineeship. As IT competencies have a significant impact on the every-day working life of such a trainee, employers and SAICA expect that students would have obtained basic IT competencies before the start of their traineeship. / MCom (Accountancy)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

Vidinė darna įvairių autorių yra laikoma vienu iš fizinės ir psichinės sveikatos išteklių, žmogaus atsparumo ir sėkmingos adaptacijos pagrindu. Nustatyta, kad pedagogų darbas yra vienas stresiškiausių, o tyrimų nagrinėjančių pedagogų vidinę darną atlikta per mažai, todėl šio darbo tikslas buvo įvertinti Vilniaus universiteto dėstytojų vidinės darnos lygį, gyvenseną ir jų sąsajas. Medžiaga ir metodai. Tyrime dalyvavo 289 VU dėstytojai, nuo 25 iki 72 m. amžiaus. Duomenų rinkimui buvo naudotas anoniminės anketinės apklausos metodas. Respondentams pateikta anketa, kurioje buvo demografinius duomenis, gyvenseną bei vidinę darną vertinantys klausimai (3 ir 13 klausimų klausimynai). Vidinė darna ir jos komponentai buvo vertinami pagal „Gyvenimo orientacijos anketą“ (A. Antonovsky, 1987), kurią sudarė 13 klausimų. Naudotas paplitimo epidemiologinis tyrimo tipas. Duomenų analizė atlikta statistine programa SPSS for Windows 13 versija. Naudotas statistinio reikšmingumo lygmuo p < 0,05. Rezultatai ir išvados. Rezultatai parodė, kad VU dėstytojai savo gyvenimo kokybę ir sveikatos būklę dažniausiai vertina kaip gerą. Gyvenimo kokybę geriau įvertino moterys, vieniši ir kelias darbovietes turintys dėstytojai. Lėtinėmis ligomis sirgo 43 proc. dėstytojų, iš jų dažniausiai našliai/ės. Tyrimo metu nustatyti, statistiškai reikšmingi skirtumai tarp gyvensenos veiksnių ir dėstytojų lyties, amžiaus bei šeimyninės padėties. Šiuo metu rūkantys prisipažino 38 proc. dėstytojų. Didesnis rūkymo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Different authors consider sense of coherence to be one of the physical and mental health resources, stress resistance and successful adaptation basis. It is done not enough researches dealing with educationalists and sense of coherence, although it was found that pedagogical work is one of the most stressful. The aim of this work was to analyse the health behaviour, Sense of Coherence (SOC) and interfaces between them in the population of the lecturers in Vilnius University. Materials and methods. 289 Vilnius university lecturers of 25-72 years old age (mean age 43,82) participated in this survey. An anonymous questionnaire for getting data about social-demographic factors, health behaviour, subjective health assessment created by author was used in the survey. In the questionnaire Sense of coherence was measured with “The orientation to life questionnaire” consisting of 13 questions. It was composed by A. Antonovsky (1987). Data analysis was performed using Statistical program SPSS for Windows 13 version. Level of statistic significance was p< 0.05 Results and conclusions. The results showed that the quality of life and subjective health assessment mostly was reported as good. Single respondents ant those who had more than one workplace reported to have better quality of life. 43 % of lecturers reported to have chronic diseases, most of them were widows(-ers). Examination revealed that it was statistically significant differences between lifestyle and respondents gender... [to full text]