published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

Abstract not available. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1961.

Academic Support Programmes in South Africa are confronted with the seemingly impossible task of producing "programmes" which will assist growing numbers of Black students in their adaptation to the academic tasks. These tasks are demanded of Black students within tertiary institutions with a largely westernized cultural form of education. Despite the existence of institutions such as the Medical School of the University of Natal which has been training Black medical students for over thirty five years, little substantive research has been conducted into the processes of adaptation which Black students have undergone in coming to terms with the cognitive demands of academic tasks within universities. Instead, institutions such as the Medical School have found themselves embroiled in long ,standing controversies which essentially attempt to apportion blame for high failure rates on either students or staff members. This research adopts a dialectical approach to the learning teaching situations and focuses specifically on Black medical students' adaptation to the cognitive task demands of Physiology. The research uses a rational reconstructive paradigm to instantiate Feuerstein's "deficient cognitive functions" in the cognitive manifestations of second year medical students. This instantiation lays the groundwork for an investigation into the "content less cognitive processes" (cf. Feuerstein) underlying the learning-teaching dialectic in Physiology. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1990.

This study described the instructional practices of selected clinical medical school faculty. It addressed the following questions: - how do medical and surgical clinical faculty select/design and combine instructional methods and media in teaching clinical content? - what influences clinical faculty use of a particular method or medium for clinical teaching? The primary purpose of this research was to investigate how clinical medical school faculty make pedagogical decisions and carry out their instruction in clinical patient care settings. The research described the clinical faculty members' instructional practices with medical students and how the medical apprenticeship system is used for their clinical instruction. The research involved two medical schools and a sample of four clinical faculty representing surgical and medical practice. A general method of descriptive research was employed including the data-gathering techniques of participant observation, interviewing, and collection of documents. Strategies developed by Spradley (1980) and Erickson (1986) were used for data analysis. Findings indicated that the sample clinical faculty do not use an instructional planning process such as described by Gagne and Briggs (1979) or Wildman and Burton (1981). Instead, they select instructional methods and media intuitively, carefully monitoring the medical students' reactions to their instruction. The data show the instructional techniques that include the human element -- defined here as personcentered methods -- are selected most often. / Ed. D.

The study traced the experiences of learning the clinical aspects of a problem-based learning (PBL) medical curriculum and the participants’ construction of a relationship with the subsequent clinical environments. In light of international and local medical and technological changes, the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine (NRMSM) changed its traditional curriculum to a PBL curriculum in 2001. The participants were the first cohort to experience a PBL pedagogy and graduated in 2005, subsequently undertaking two years of compulsory internship and one year of community service within the South African health care system. It was in the context of these changes and the present state of health care that such a study sought to determine how a PBL pedagogy was experienced within the clinical environments of South Africa. Phenomenography was used as a methodology to describe and interpret the ‘qualitatively different ways’ in which the participants’ experienced the phenomenon. Purposive sampling reflecting the institution’s admission policy regarding race and gender demographics was applied. In-depth interviews were conducted at the end of the community service experience. Variation in the experiences was represented through logically related and hierarchical categories of description resulting in the formulation of an outcome space. The outcome space identified three categories of description: ‘The guinea pig identity’ which found that the participants felt at the mercy of a curriculum experiment and felt discriminated against by the hospital consultants who had negative views of PBL. The category of ‘knowledge construction’ saw the participants exploring issues of difference between the knowledge and practices expected by the two different kinds of curricula. The category of ‘professional identity’ indicated an emerging sense of competence across a range of clinical situations. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used to augment the phenomenographic analysis and to explore the ways in which the social structure of the clinical contexts related to the discourse patterns emerging in the phenomenographic categories in the form of power relations and ideological effects. CDA was used as an additional lens to develop theory and acquire deeper knowledge about why the participants constructed a relationship with the phenomenon and the subsequent clinical environments in the way that they did. The thesis concludes with a proposal for an empirical model that illuminates resolutions from the major findings in the study regarding medical knowledge construction in a PBL curriculum. The model consists of a Y axis depicting the vertical spine of basic sciences knowledge construction, a X axis depicting the horizontal nature of professional identity construction and a spiral that indicates the simultaneous movement of clinical knowledge construction along each axis. It is hoped that this model will serve as a future curriculum innovation that will result in the production of professional medical practitioners that are required for today’s South African communities. This study, however, revealed that despite the hegemonic practices and the theoretical inadequacies that were reported by the participants they finally felt like professional medical practitioners during their community service experience. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document Copyright / Thesis (PhD(Assessment and Quality Assurance))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

While the relationship between academic variables and admission into medical school has been well documented, the relationship between socioeconomic background and admission has not been extensively examined. In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed HB 1641, which allowed for the use of socioeconomic variables in the admission of graduate and professional school students. Additionally, the Grutter v. Bollinger decision in 2003 removed a prohibition on the use of race or ethnicity in the admission of students in the state of Texas. The study examined the role medical school admissions selectivity as it relates to the socioeconomic background during a race neutral admissions cycle in 2005 and a race sensitive admissions cycle in 2006. The results of data analysis found that in a race neutral admissions cycle socioeconomic background was a significant factor in the admission of applicants to medical school. However, it was not a significant factor for applicants from underrepresented minority groups. The analysis also found that socioeconomic background was a significant factor in the admission of applicants to medical school in a race sensitive admissions cycle as well. Finally, the study found that variances in selectivity led to differences in the socioeconomic makeup of entering students across different medical schools. From the data analyzed in this study, it can be argued admission to medical school is in agreement with the sociological literature in that parental socioeconomic status is positively related to academic opportunities for their offspring.

In the early 1990s, Oregon Health and Science University leadership examined the political and economic landscape and determined it needed a new operational model to survive and thrive. In 1995 OHSU separated from the state higher education system and became a public corporation, with goals of increased efficiency, customer-focus, ability to attract world-class researchers and physicians, and salaries commensurate with an urban academic health center. This research examines the internal impacts when universities undergo significant change, using OHSU's governance change as a case study. Central is the question: what effect(s) did OHSU's decision to become a unique public corporation have on specific employee groups? This study looks at two groups and their perceptions of the change: faculty, and union-represented staff. The author interviewed the leadership team who led the transition, reviewed historical and organizational documents and archives, and examined quantitative data such as tuition, state funding, research, and salaries. Interviews were then conducted with longtime and former employees to obtain employee perceptions. Finally, the study compares employee perceptions about process, culture, and job satisfaction, to the goals established by the leadership. The results of this study reveal that, while there were internal and external challenges, the transition to a public corporation was successful according to the perceptions of most employees when compared to the goals. After the transition, OHSU did become more efficient and more nimble for a time, able to recruit world-class employees and pay competitive salaries. Staff felt empowered and some faculty felt it made OHSU a better institution. However, some faculty felt that OHSU's transition to the public corporation eventually led to increased bureaucracy, as well as to the loss of shared governance, tenure practices, and other cultural norms inherent to academic institutions. By examining OHSU's transition and the impacts on employee groups, this study provides insight to other universities contemplating this type of change. While each institution is unique, understanding the impacts to these key stakeholders can help universities plan for and implement significant governance change.

The problem with which this study is concerned is to determine the perceived attitudes of medical and health school deans toward selected factors that are related to employee assistance programs (EPAs). These factors, which are variables in this study, include perceptions toward EPAs of necessity and desirability, purposes and goals, services offered, policies and procedures, sources of referrals, and barriers to successful implementation.