Frei- und nebenberuflich Lehrende bilden die zahlenmäßig stärkste ‚Berufsgruppe‘ an Volkshochschulen und dennoch: Im Rahmen von Professionalität, Organisations- und Qualitätsentwicklung finden sie bis heute als eigenständige Personengruppe nur wenig Beachtung. In der Wissenschaft sind es zumeist quantitative Studien, in denen die soziale Lage der Lehrenden, ihr pädagogisches Handeln sowie ihre Organisationsge- und verbundenheit thematisiert werden. Studien, welche die Subjektperspektive in diesem Kontext gezielt in den Mittelpunkt stellen, gibt es dagegen nicht. Vor diesem Hintergrund geht es in der vorliegenden qualitativen Untersuchung explizit um die Gruppe der frei- und nebenberuflich Lehrenden. Hinterfragt wird, auf welche Weise sich nicht fest angestellte Mitarbeiter/innen mit der Organisation, für die sie arbeiten sowie mit ihrer dortigen Tätigkeit identifizieren können und wie sie sich darin begründen. Im Ergebnis werden zwei kontrastreiche Identifikationsmuster und Begründungstypen vorgestellt, die das Verhältnis der Lehrenden zu ‚ihren‘ Organisationen veranschaulichen und die erkennen lassen, welche Konsequenzen sich daraus für die Volkshochschule im Allgemeinen ergeben. / Freelance and part-time lecturers constitute the numeral biggest ‘occupational category’ in adult education centre. Nevertheless: They do not find highly attention in the context of professionalism, organizational and quality development. In science exist quantitative studies mostly, which broach the issue of social circumstances of lectures, their educational actions as well as their organizational bondage and solidarity. There are no studies, which make a point of spotlighting the subject perspective. Against this background the available qualitative research paper explicit concentrate on the group of freelance and part-time lectures. The question is, in which manner non salaried employees are able to identify with the organization they work for as well as their local practice and how they reason it. As a result two high contrasts pattern of identification and types of grounds will be presented, which visualize the relationship between lecturers and ‘their’ organizations and which show the consequences for adult education centre in general.

This study focuses on perceptions of a group of Computing lecturers at a large post ’92 Scottish university of the changes that have occurred in the student body. It also considers whether or not the changes have had any impact on the identity and role of the lecturers and whether the lecturers have adapted their practice to accommodate the needs of the diverse student population. An empirical approach was used consisting of semi-structured interviews with a targeted random sample of lecturers. The findings indicate that the impact of the changes which have taken place within higher education have not been uniform and have varied depending on the perceived status of the institution as well as the discipline within the Higher Education (HE) hierarchy. The findings identify a number of areas for consideration by university managers, lecturers and higher education researchers. There appears to be a gap between university policies on widening access and student retention and the implementation of the policies by the lecturers. The findings show that the lecturers are aware of the greater diversity of the student body, but that many of the lecturers share the traditional view of a university student and therefore expect the students to adapt to fit the existing system rather than considering changing their approaches to suit the students. The lecturers in my study have adopted a number of strategies to cope with the constant changes taking place within higher education. However, many of them are unclear as to what is expected of them and unsure about how they should prioritise the numerous demands on their time. This study differs from and complements other work because it focuses on the lecturers’ perceptions of the changes in their role as well as in the student body. The outcome of my study is a better understanding of the perceptions lecturers have of their role and the students that they teach. Although my study is small scale and specific to a particular academic discipline within a large university, the findings should be of value not only to the particular institution in the study, but the wider academic community as well.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of the essay writing process of first year undergraduates at Chancellor College (University of Malawi) and to a lesser extent those of the lecturers responsible for teaching academic skills. A mixed methods design, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques, was employed in order to obtain richer data for deeper understanding of the students’ writing process. Two hundred students from the humanities and social science faculties responded to a self-completion questionnaire towards the end of semester one. Based on the students’ responses, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to four full time English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors. Findings from this study indicate that most students find it very challenging to obtain sufficient and relevant source text information, paraphrase or summarise information, and use an appropriate academic writing style. As solutions to these challenges, the students suggested the need for timely essay writing instruction, availability of resources for essay writing, increased amount of time spent on essay writing instruction, and discipline specific instruction in essay writing. EAP instructors identified lack of teaching and learning materials, large EAP classes, and students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course, as some of the challenges they encounter when teaching the course. The EAP instructors proposed an increase in the number of staff members, making students aware of the significance of the EAP course at an early stage, and the availability of up to date resources, as some of the ways in which the teaching of the course can be improved. Overall, the findings seem to suggest that difficulties that students encounter during the writing process and teaching challenges that EAP instructors face, have great impact on students’ perception of academic writing as well as their approach to writing tasks. The findings also suggest a lack of dialogue between the students and their lecturers. This is evident in students’ unawareness of the nature of the writing demands of their lecturers and disciplines; students’ desire to have timely essay writing instruction; and the lecturers’ concerns about students’ negative attitude towards the EAP course.

The problem with which this study is concerned is to determine the relationship between the motivations to work for Nigerian lecturers and their perceptions of their academic organizational climate. The related purposes of the study are to determine the motivations to work for Nigerian lecturers, their perceptions of the academic organizational climate in which they work, and the relationships that exist between motivations and type of organizational climate.

Spending your time „nurturing what is right‟ enables people to grow and negotiate the problems of life which is more than only fixing what is wrong. The World Health Organisation also defined well-being as more than not ill-being. Flourishing is an optimal state of well-being. The question is, „what is it that flourishers do different from non-flourishers?‟ Pharmacy students prepare themselves for a profession which is being bombarded with change; they are the pharmacists of tomorrow. Among them some students flourish and the others do not. This study aimed to look at possible pathways to flourishing that flourishers utilise. In this way the study addressed several gaps in the knowledge regarding flourishing: 1) The prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students, 2) The role of demands and resources in flourishing of students, 3) The role of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction on the basic psychological need satisfaction of students and therefore in their flourishing, and 4) The use of positive affect regulation (an internal strategy) as a pathway to flourishing. A cross-sectional design was utilised. The study population was all the enrolled pharmacy students at the North West University during 2014. A convenience sample of 779 students participated. The measuring battery consisted of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2009), the Emotional Regulation Profile-Revised (ERP-R; Nelis, Quoidbach, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2011), the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN; Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012), statements about the antecedents of basic psychological need satisfaction and statements about demands and resources, developed for the purpose of this study, and a demographic questionnaire. Structural equation modelling, invariance testing and latent class analysis were some of the statistical techniques used to analyse the cross-sectional data. Manuscript one addressed the prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students as well as possible differences between the year groups. The manuscript also investigated the role of workload as a study demand and the lecturer as a study resource and the possible interaction between them in the flourishing of students. Year group as a possible moderator in the respective relationships between demands, resources, the interaction between them on the one hand and flourishing on the other, were also assessed. 40% of the group flourished whilst 57% was moderately healthy and 3% languished. The different year groups negotiated the demands and resources in their study environment differently in their path to flourishing. The possible pathways to flourishing in this context were identified as the use of lecturer support (a resource), especially when the workload (a demand) is high and the successful negotiation of workload over their four years of study. Manuscript two dealt with the impact of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction of pharmacy students on their basic psychological need satisfaction and therefore ultimately the influence of these contextual factors on their flourishing. The researcher wanted to determine whether there is a difference in the role(s) that family, peers, lecturers and workload play in the satisfaction of the students‟ basic psychological needs (relatedness, competence and autonomy). Year group as a moderator in these respective relationships was also investigated. Family and peers played the most important role in need satisfaction of students. However, lecturers can actively engage in supporting the need satisfaction of students, which would increase their levels of autonomous motivation and thereby their levels of flourishing. In manuscript three the use of internal strategies as pathways to flourishing were explored. Positive emotion regulation strategies have a positive relationship with well-being. However, a person can dampen or savour his or her positive emotions. The students were clustered into distinctive groups by means of a latent class analysis. Three distinctive groups were posterior identified based on the characteristics of group members, namely flourishers, languishers and moderately healthy students. Regression analyses of the three groups revealed that flourishers are the only group that most likely will utilise savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and refrain from utilising dampening positive emotion regulation strategies. Pathways to flourishing that flourishing pharmacy students utilise are therefore the use of savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and the non-use of dampening positive emotion regulation strategies.

Spending your time „nurturing what is right‟ enables people to grow and negotiate the problems of life which is more than only fixing what is wrong. The World Health Organisation also defined well-being as more than not ill-being. Flourishing is an optimal state of well-being. The question is, „what is it that flourishers do different from non-flourishers?‟ Pharmacy students prepare themselves for a profession which is being bombarded with change; they are the pharmacists of tomorrow. Among them some students flourish and the others do not. This study aimed to look at possible pathways to flourishing that flourishers utilise. In this way the study addressed several gaps in the knowledge regarding flourishing: 1) The prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students, 2) The role of demands and resources in flourishing of students, 3) The role of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction on the basic psychological need satisfaction of students and therefore in their flourishing, and 4) The use of positive affect regulation (an internal strategy) as a pathway to flourishing. A cross-sectional design was utilised. The study population was all the enrolled pharmacy students at the North West University during 2014. A convenience sample of 779 students participated. The measuring battery consisted of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2009), the Emotional Regulation Profile-Revised (ERP-R; Nelis, Quoidbach, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2011), the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN; Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012), statements about the antecedents of basic psychological need satisfaction and statements about demands and resources, developed for the purpose of this study, and a demographic questionnaire. Structural equation modelling, invariance testing and latent class analysis were some of the statistical techniques used to analyse the cross-sectional data. Manuscript one addressed the prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students as well as possible differences between the year groups. The manuscript also investigated the role of workload as a study demand and the lecturer as a study resource and the possible interaction between them in the flourishing of students. Year group as a possible moderator in the respective relationships between demands, resources, the interaction between them on the one hand and flourishing on the other, were also assessed. 40% of the group flourished whilst 57% was moderately healthy and 3% languished. The different year groups negotiated the demands and resources in their study environment differently in their path to flourishing. The possible pathways to flourishing in this context were identified as the use of lecturer support (a resource), especially when the workload (a demand) is high and the successful negotiation of workload over their four years of study. Manuscript two dealt with the impact of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction of pharmacy students on their basic psychological need satisfaction and therefore ultimately the influence of these contextual factors on their flourishing. The researcher wanted to determine whether there is a difference in the role(s) that family, peers, lecturers and workload play in the satisfaction of the students‟ basic psychological needs (relatedness, competence and autonomy). Year group as a moderator in these respective relationships was also investigated. Family and peers played the most important role in need satisfaction of students. However, lecturers can actively engage in supporting the need satisfaction of students, which would increase their levels of autonomous motivation and thereby their levels of flourishing. In manuscript three the use of internal strategies as pathways to flourishing were explored. Positive emotion regulation strategies have a positive relationship with well-being. However, a person can dampen or savour his or her positive emotions. The students were clustered into distinctive groups by means of a latent class analysis. Three distinctive groups were posterior identified based on the characteristics of group members, namely flourishers, languishers and moderately healthy students. Regression analyses of the three groups revealed that flourishers are the only group that most likely will utilise savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and refrain from utilising dampening positive emotion regulation strategies. Pathways to flourishing that flourishing pharmacy students utilise are therefore the use of savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and the non-use of dampening positive emotion regulation strategies.

This research investigates the position of creativity within graphic design education in general, and within the Omani educational context specifically. It situates itself among three realms: education, design, and creativity, investigating the relationships, effectiveness, and interrogations among these three topics. Creativity is defined within this research and in relation to graphic design education as problem solving , which is explained also as a cultural activity, or a cultural production. Graphic designers can involve themselves effectively in solving communication, social, and cultural problems that are classified as wicked problems , which usually require creative solutions. It is argued that Omani graphic designers should be creative problem solvers and able to find effective solutions for these problems. Yet this is not the case in Oman, at least from an educational point of view. The research problem is that the Omani design education system lacks a framework that recognises creativity as an important concept in education. Such a lack creates a twofold problem: 1) underestimating the importance of creativity in Omani design education; and 2) a shortage of pedagogical structured programmes that can enhance students creativity. It is argued that this problem is a result of the neglected situation of creativity in Arabic traditional education in general. Traditional education usually does not support creative thinking in design students, which consequently minimises their roles in social and cultural change. Based on the above, this research aims to develop a pedagogical model that can enhance and promote creative potential within Omani graphic design students. This aim can be achieved through re-establishing the position of creativity within Omani design education and valuing creativity as integrated part of graphic design. It proposes that the pedagogical model can offer a systematic approach for lecturers, to guide them into the best practice to enhance the creative potential of their students. Therefore, this research, and the proposed model, is the first step towards improving the position of creativity in Omani design educational systems in general. The model would propose to help Omani graphic design students to develop their creative problem solving abilities, which can allow them to effectively find solutions for several social and cultural wicked problems faced in Oman, such as the increased rate of car accidents nationally). The model will contain some creative-thinking techniques, and some pedagogical strategies that are already used internationally in education to improve creativity. The relevant literature has been reviewed to study the techniques and strategies used internationally to improve the creative potential of graphic design students. A qualitative interpretative methodology was used to answer the research questions and fulfil the aims. A survey approach was used for this research, implementing two methods: questionnaires and interviews. The online questionnaire was conducted with 33 international participants. It investigated how creativity is defined within graphic design contexts; whether creativity can be taught or enhanced; if yes, How, and by which techniques and strategies? Which curriculum contents are most suitable and effective? And how to assess creativity within graphic design education?. The same set of questions was asked in face-to-face interviews conducted with 39 design lecturers. The participants in these interviews were local lecturers who teach graphic design courses at six Omani institutions. All of the collected data were analysed by a thematic analysis method, by coding and categorising them according to different themes that had been extracted earlier from the literature. The contribution of this research is in defining the concept of creativity through scientific research; more specifically by practical research conducting an international survey and local interviews. Through this approach, this research has collected ideas, insights and trends about creativity in graphic design and how it can be developed. Also, this research has advanced knowledge of the relationships among graphic design, creativity, and education, specifically in the Arabic region. It is an attempt to emphasise this new field. Moreover, this research has given a snapshot of differing views regarding creativity in design education as perceived by international lecturers versus Omani lecturers, through conducting a cross-cultural study by asking these two groups the same questions, which was an interesting comparison. Finally, the collected data were utilised to develop the proposed pedagogical model designed for graphic design lecturers who teach design courses within Omani design education. The pedagogical model is the main contribution of this research. It would be suggested to the Omani Ministry of Higher Education that the model should be part of the Omani undergraduate graphic design curriculum.

The University of Pretoria (UP) implemented an upgraded version of the institutional learning management system (LMS) (called “new clickUP”) from June 2011 to December 2012. The purpose of the study is to determine the levels of use (LoU), stages of concern (SoC), and perceived expressed needs of health professional educators (HPEs) in the Faculty of Health Sciences as they adopt and implement the new LMS in their teaching. The rapid development of educational technology for teaching and learning is a cause of constant change in higher education institutions. In particular, regular upgrades to an LMS put pressure on lecturers, forcing them to learn to implement upgraded versions. Although LMSs are viewed as an essential part of technology-enhanced learning, the literature seems to be silent about widespread fidelity of use and how this may be achieved, particularly in a medical education context. The study follows an eclectic research design utilising the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) with its diagnostic tools (SoC and LoU) to evaluate both the concerns of HPEs and the extent of implementation of the LMS. The perceived expressed needs of HPEs in this context were explored further through interviews. The rationale for the study is that the levels of implementation of the LMS could be improved if professional staff development interventions address specific training and support needs of lecturers. The results of the study show that HPEs at UP have not yet completed the journey across the bridge of implementation. Based on the results of the SoC and LoU instruments, HPEs consistently rated concerns at the Unconcerned stage as the highest, and Management concerns as second highest. Informational and Personal stage concerns were rated not much lower than Management concerns. Detailed information regarding the context-specific needs of HPEs was collected from the perceived expressed needs interview, to supplement the needs obtained through the SoC questionnaire. The results reveal some variation from the SoC, as well as additional needs HPEs have with regard to the implementation of an LMS. Four core needs of the HPEs were identified: (i) to know the reason for the change to the new LMS; (ii) to have time available to learn, practice and implement the system; (iii) to have access to training and support resources; and (iv) to understand the functionalities available and associated possibilities for application in their teaching practice. By integrating the results of research question 1 (SoC) and research question 2 (LoU), the fidelity of implementation was ascertained, utilising a fidelity matrix based on the highest SoC and LoU achieved by HPEs. To accomplish the stated rationale (i.e. to facilitate the journey across the implementation bridge) the study recommends that attention should be paid to the Unconcerned and Management stages of concern. Specific training and support interventions should address these concerns, without neglecting Informational and Personal concerns that are still prevalent. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá vytvořením podnikatelského plánu pro malou společnost, která přichází na trh s novým, technologickým produktem. Společnost, která se již jeden rok pohybuje v oblasti jazykových kurzů vyvíjí software pro reálnou výuku přes internet. Jelikož se jedná o zcela nový koncept, je třeba ověřit, zdali existuje poptávka na trhu ze strany jazykových škol, soukromých lektorů a především samotných studentů. Pro pochopení motivů zákazníků byl použit primární výzkum prostřednictvím dotazníků. Technologický produkt jež je předmětem podnikatelského plánu je již ve vývoji a měl by být uveden na trh v dubnu roku 2012.

The focus of this study is on the Foundation Phase mathematical and pedagogical knowledge construction. This study is about how two lecturers and a number of final year B.Ed. Foundation Phase student teachers construct Foundation Phase mathematical and pedagogical knowledge during the initial teacher education programme. The initial B.Ed. Foundation Phase teacher education provides student teachers with different mathematical knowledge for teaching. A Foundation Phase mathematics pedagogical knowledge construction framework was utilised to generate and analyse data. The Foundation Phase mathematics pedagogical knowledge construction framework is developed with the assumption that the integrated learning knowledge and the process of pedagogical reasoning action is a continuous process. Furthermore, it is assumed that student teachers’ active participation in their learning and paddling through the pedagogical reasoning action process, leads to the construction of Foundation Phase mathematical pedagogical knowledge. The study utilised a qualitative case study design to investigate how two initial teacher education programmes construct Foundation Phase mathematical pedagogical knowledge in their programme to prepare student teachers to teach Foundation Phase mathematics. Data were collected from Foundation Phase mathematics lecturers through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews with final year Foundation Phase student teachers as well as document analysis from the institutions to achieve triangulation. Data analysis and findings were based on themes and categories that emerged. The findings suggest that Foundation Phase mathematical and pedagogical knowledge construction is an interconnected and continuous process that includes different types of knowledge and pedagogical reasoning. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted