This study was undertaken in an attempt to determine the degree to which second year Mathematics education students consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes to be important and to develop a curriculum-based mediational approach based on the data, to encourage the critical thinking dispositions and attitudes that appeared to be in need of encouragement. A literature study was undertaken to determine the positive critical thinking dispositions and attitudes students should possess. In addition it was also determined which teaching learning approaches will benefit the development of critical thinking dispositions and attitudes the most. The advantages as well as the processes and components that should form part of the mediational approach for the development of critical thinking dispositions were examined. A two-phase, sequential, explanatory mixed method study was subsequently undertaken with second-year Mathematics students at a South African university. The quantitative study made use of a self-developed questionnaire to determine the degree to which students consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes important. Data emanating from the questionnaires were analysed and questions that had to be answered in narrative format were set for each student according to their own responses on the questionnaire. Narratives formed part of the qualitative component of the study in which students had to indicate factors that influence their critical thinking dispositions and attitudes, what could be done to improve the apparent unimportant critical thinking dispositions and attitudes and whether they regard the critical thinking dispositions and attitudes as important. Narratives were analysed and the results were used to explain the quantitative data. Results revealed that second year Mathematics education students do not consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes, in particular inquisitiveness but also judiciousness, open-mindedness, systematicity, truth-seeking, analyticity and confidence in critical thinking to be very important and therefore these critical thinking dispositions and attitudes appeared to require encouragement. A curriculum-based mediational approach based on a section in the existing Mathematics module for second year education students was developed in order to encourage critical thinking dispositions in Mathematics. The study concluded with recommendations to encourage critical thinking dispositions and attitudes as well as proposals for future studies. / PhD, Education, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Thesis (LLM) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005

The doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance rests on the fundamental scientific axiom, derived from the natural sciences, that knowledge is developed in accordance with the nature (kata physin) of the object as it is revealed in the course of scientific inquiry. As a theological realist, Torrance finds real and accurate knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. To know God through the incarnate Son, who is “of one nature with the Father” (homoousios to Patri), is to know God in strict accordance with God’s nature and hence in a theologically scientific way. Scientific theology will operate on a christological basis, for the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the “controlling centre” for the Christian doctrine of God. Torrance’s holistic theology investigates its object of inquiry within the nexus of “onto-relations,” or “being-constituting” interrelations, that disclose its identity. Because the fundamental aspects of reality are relational rather than atomistic, a scientific theological approach to the doctrine of the mediation of Jesus Christ requires that he be investigated within the nexuses of interrelations that disclose his identity as incarnate Saviour of the world. An examination of Torrance’s doctrine of mediation reveals three specific nexuses of “onto-relations” that disclose the identity of Jesus Christ. These are his interrelations with 1) historical Israel, 2) God, and 3) humanity. In the present thesis, the vast and scattered array of Torrance’s thought on the mediation of Jesus Christ is reduced to a minimal number of basic concepts, or “elemental forms,” that arise from the nexuses of interrelations that constitute the identity of the incarnate Son. These basic, constitutive concepts of Torrance’s doctrine of the mediation of Christ are the Nicene homoousion and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the hypostatic union, as well as the doctrines of incarnational redemption and the “vicarious humanity” of Jesus Christ. These elemental forms provide a basic, organising framework to examine and explain the mediation of revelation and reconciliation of Jesus Christ in the scientific theology of T.F. Torrance. / Thesis (PhD (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Youth require opportunities to master and demonstrate new skills, make independent choices, and form positive social relationships to encourage positive youth development. Camps provide a unique setting that fosters the development of new sources of social capital and social support. Current literature examining positive youth development in camps has been able to identify some demographic differences in camper experiences at camp, but has not yielded statistically significant relationships and no consensus as to the explanations for those relationships. Using a longitudinal dataset gathered in a camp setting, this study examined the relationships between gender and age and personal development. Social capital and social support were found to have significant roles as mediating variables in the development of personal development at camp. This study enhances the understanding of the benefits to children from attending camp, and why females and older children may benefit the most from these experiences.

Language is the most common and crucial element newspapers apply to express meaning. Language is a system of linguistic signs combined by rules to create meaning. Newspapers use language, among other or sign systems (e.g. photographs, graphics, content and layout) to communicate. These systems support each other and perform as a unit to reflect a newspaper's character and function. South Africa has a diversity in language, culture, background and literacy levels and the media's target audiences differ significantly. The ways in which these systems are thus applied, diverge to satisfy the various needs of audiences. These needs include being informed, entertained, aesthetically pleased, emotionally involved and mobilized (persuaded). Audiences also seek a reflection of their values, views and cultures in the media. / Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This thesis purports to make two contributions to understandings of biotechnology. First, it presents a novel framework through which to view biotechnology as a complex series of fundamentally social and politically economic mediations rather than a decontextualised collection of technical and scientific phenomena. Second, the thesis presents a method for analysing contemporary discourses about biotechnology within this framework. The framework presented in the first content chapter of the thesis identifies what I see to be the four primary mediating "movements" that are central to seeing Biotechnology as Media: Alienation, Translation, Recontextualisation, and Absorption. The next chapter explicates these movements more fully using a combination of social practice and discourse theory. Using these four movements and the mediation framework as a guide, I then critically analyse a corpus of seventy two exemplary texts (approximately 700,000 words) about contemporary biotechnology. Mediation, in the sense I use it here, is not concerned with one particular media form or technology. Rather, it focuses on the process of mediation as the movement of meanings (Silverstone, 1999). I argue that seeing biotechnologies as mediations can provide a deeper and more critical understanding of how ways of seeing, being, acting, and describing (discourses) associated with contemporary biotechnology are moved from micro- and macro-biological and scientific contexts into the everyday lives of citizens and ecosystems. In particular, such a view highlights the forces and voices that currently determine the path and substance of political-economic movements in biotechnology and, consequently, how everyday perceptions of biotechnology are shaped or silenced in processes of mediation. A core assumption of the thesis is that processes of mediation are not neutral. Rather, they are always inherently interpretive, politically economic, and ethically significant. Any mediation involves "filtering" processes via which "content" is transformed into a form that is appropriate for a given medium by persons who have control over the medium, and by the nature of the medium itself. This applies as much in laboratory and scientific contexts as it does in the contexts of mass consumption, whether in newspapers, policy papers, movies (such as Gattaca), or consumer goods. The same is true in the mediation of biotechnology: there are technological and discursive restrictions on what and who can "contribute to" and "come out" of biotechnology and also what is construed as being a valuable and desirable outcome of biotechnology research and development. The three central analysis chapters of the thesis outline firstly how biotechnology can function as a time-based medium for the reproduction of already powerful discourses on, for example, the role of technology in human development and the consumer market as the moral medium between generators of new technologies and their "consumers". I identify exemplars of how the history of biotechnology and mediation (movement) is expressed in the corpus. This is followed by a more concentrated analysis of the ethical and social significance of the key "official" mediations presented in the corpus. I focus in particular on how the predominant policy evaluations of biotechnological mediations expressed in state, national, and international policy documents construct a "virtuous cycle" of product development that will ostensibly "deliver the benefits" of biotechnology to all citizens who, in the corpus, are framed predominantly as "consumers". The final chapter of the thesis reflects on the significance of biotechnology at the macro level of social practices and systems. Apart from its direct function as a technical medium for alienating hitherto inalienable aspects of life, such as configurations of DNA, and turning them into products for sale, I argue that, as a suite of mediating movements, biotechnology has the potential to effectively, and for the most part invisibly, mediate our more general understandings and experiences of ourselves, of other species, and of the world we live in. More specifically, I argue that biotechnological mediations actively, and often forcefully, promote a narrowing of the range of evaluative resources on offer to the general community, and indeed to biotechnologists themselves. Biotechnological mediations can therefore be described as part of a broader movement away from conditions of heteroglossia or dialogue (multi language, multi voice) toward conditions of monologia (one language, one voice). The thesis concludes with an important question: if we can identify these narrowing effects or mediations of biotechnology by using techniques such as Critical Discourse Analysis and by seeing biotechnology in a mediation framework, what can we do to interrupt them and generate movements that are more generative of heteroglossic and socially responsive ways of seeing, being, and acting? I offer a number of responses to the question in the conclusion.

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2006

Universiẗat, Diss., 2006--Köln.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 2000. / A thesis submitted in completion of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Social Ecology, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, November, 2000. Bibliography : leaves 351-358.

Zugl.: München, Univ., Diss., 2008