The capacity to mentally project the self into the future or, what has recently been termed “episodic foresight” is an emerging topic of study in developmental psychology. The aim of this dissertation was to review available research on this topic and explore its development in two groups of children: typically-developing preschoolers and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This dissertation had two main goals. The first goal was to explore whether tasks thought to measure episodic foresight in children are related and whether, as has been hypothesized, they were related to theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF). Study 1 showed that after controlling for age and language ability, episodic foresight tasks were not intercorrelated, nor were they individually related to ToM or EF tasks. Importantly, however, an episodic foresight composite score was related to several EF tasks. Specifically, the results suggested a significant relation between episodic foresight and inhibitory control. The second goal of this dissertation was to explore the development of episodic foresight in children with ASD. Specifically, I tested whether children with ASD would perform more poorly on a series of episodic foresight tasks than a mental-age matched group of typically-developing children. Study 2 revealed significant group differences on several episodic foresight tasks, suggesting that children with ASD showed impairments in thinking about themselves in the future. These results are a timely contribution to the research on episodic foresight and will hopefully aid in the further development of tasks that adequately measure this important cognitive ability in children.

Current evaluations in science education research of discovery based science programs give no clear indication of the merit of these new science programs. Getzels and Jackson's studies in creativity suggest that permissive and authoritarian family environments may influence development of creativity and IQ respectively in children. It was reasoned that findings relating family and school environments to creativity could have relevance in science education where discovery based science programs are having a profound effect on altering science classroom environment. It was hypothesized that permissive science classroom environments would produce significantly higher posttest creativity means than the control. Since a current science education goal is to enhance student question asking skill (e.g. Inquiry Training) and since findings indicate question asking styles are related to aptitudes, it is hypothesized that high creative and high permissive groups will have significantly higher factual and yes-no question score means whereas high intelligence and low permissive groups will have significantly higher explanation question score means. Creativity tests used in this study include Guilford's Uses Test and the Question Test from Torrance's Ask-and-Guess Test. The Question Test also yields factual, yes-no, and explanation question scores. To assess classroom environment, the Classroom Environment Scale was developed. Item choices were classified by seven judges into the three environmental categories. The sample consisted of four grade seven classes, three experimental and one control. Experimental groups were taught the ESS unit, Batteries and Bulbs. The experimental groups included a semipermissive group which was taught the unit according to suggestions in the teacher's guide, and the permissive and authoritarian groups which, respectively, had less and more teacher control of classroom environment than the semi-permissive group. Experimental groups were shown to have significantly different classroom environment means in the direction expected. Data for testing hypotheses of this project came from a field experiment and a field study. For the field experiment a before and after design was used, analysis of covariance being employed on the group post creativity means with significant covariates derived from step-down regression analysis of pretest data. All significance levels are at the 5% level. Results of the field experiment indicate that for the more valid creativity test, the Uses Test, the group post creativity means of the permissive and authoritarian groups were significantly larger than the control group post mean. With the Question Test, which lacked discriminant validity in regard to intelligence, only the authoritarian group post creativity mean was significantly larger than the control post mean. For the field study high and low groups were formed using medians of creativity, intelligence and classroom environment as cutoffs, with analysis of variance and the F-test used to detect significant differences in means of question scores or question gains of these high and low groups. When question gain data showed non-normality the Chi-square test was used with significance at 1%. Field study results show that the high creative group had significantly higher mean yes-no and factual question scores than the low creative group, whereas the high intelligence group had a significantly higher mean explanation question score than the low intelligence group. Chi-square analysis revealed significant divergence in factual and explanation question gains for low and high permissive groups. For aptitude-environment interaction low aptitude-low permissive interactions contribute most to divergence of factual question gains and high aptitude-low permissive interactions contribute most to divergence of explanation question gains. Strongest divergences in group question gains came from intelligence environment interaction. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This study investigated how macro—implementation occurs within the British Columbia Ministry of Education. In particular, the Social Studies Curriculum Guide. Grade One-Grade Seven (1983) and related student textbooks, teacher videotapes, evaluation reports and other implementation support materials were examined to determine how the policy "critical thinking and problem-solving skills," a key component of the curriculum, was interpreted. Interviews (N=15) with relevant Ministry coordinators, committee chairpersons and members, and authors/ editors/consultants were audiotaped and later transcribed for analysis in light of the existing macro-implementation literature. It was found that the curriculum lacked clarity, was perceived variously by different policy developers, and was interpreted in discrepant ways in implementation materials. Ministry efforts to implement "critical thinking and problem-solving skills" appear to have been thwarted by lack of initial policy clarity; inconsistent liaison within the Ministry to facilitate shared expertise, understanding, and positive rapport; as well as insufficient attention to capacity building, particularly of Ministry coordinators responsible for monitoring each phase of the policy. Capacity needs highlighted in this study included adequate working conditions for developing complex policy, knowledge of the policy and its implications, as well as understanding the process of change. Future implementation prospects, may profit from research which focusses on exemplary ministry macro-implementation plans and those factors which enhance capacity building, liaison, and policy clarity. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Fred Dretske (1981) claimed that the essence of the kind of cognitive activity that gives rise to Intentional mental states is a process by which the analogue information coming from a source-object is transformed into digital form. It is this analogue-to-digital conversion of data that enables us to form concepts of things. But this achievement comes with a cost, since the conversion must involve a loss of information. The price we pay for the lost information is a proportional diminishment in our ability to discriminate the source-object from others that may be similar to it. I argue that this fact underlies an important distinction between what a mental state may be about and to what the state may be directed, Aboutness and directedness are two of four Intentional dimensions on which this project concentrates. The other two are aspectual shape and misrepresentation. The distinction between aboutness and directedness is a part of a proposed approach to Intentionality based on the script theory of Roger Schank and Robert Abelson (1977). Scripts are schemata—organized knowledge structures that guide our understanding of the world around us. Schank and Abelson's basic ideas are extended to yield four different script-types: episodic (related to situations and events), instrumental (related to procedural knowledge), personal (representing an agent's goals and plans), and definitional (involved in object-recognition). The relationship between scripts and the Intentionality of thought is the main focus of this dissertation. An important secondary concern is the viability of externalism and internalism. It is argued that neither of these attitudes is independently adequate to provide a full account of Intentional content. Rather, the proper approach is to confine externalistic influences to aboutness and then characterize directedness in a manner that captures the world-according-to-the-agent. This strategy is implemented in the following way: aboutness is construed causally-evolutionarily; directedness is constructed with the help of the notion of an equivalence class; aspectual shape is shown to be a function of the kind of information a script provides; and an account of misrepresentation is given by comparing the different extensions generated from aboutness and directedness respectively. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

This study supported Schon's notions of reflective practice as being applicable to teachers involved in teaching physical activities in the context of unforgiving learning environments and specifically to teachers in the sport diving community. According to Schon, one's ability to recognize patterns and act effectively and efficiently in situations of uniqueness and uncertainty depends upon one's capacity to frame problems. In doing so, one draws upon a repertoire of past experience arid ways of capturing that experience which enables the development of the ability to reframe problems in light of information gathered from the direct experience. Reframing occurs through the processes of reflection-in-action and reflection-onaction and is a response to an internal dialogue related to the action setting, in which something has not happened as expected, thus producing a curious or intrigued response. A number of issues specific to teacher reflection in unforgiving learning environments emanated from the analysis of one sport diving teacher engaged in teaching an entry-level sport diving course which involved three different teaching environments (the classroom setting, the confined water [pool] and open water [ocean] environments). Three research questions guided the analysis. In answer to the first research question: What factors do sport diving practitioners reflect upon in each of the three environments? six reflective themes were identified in this case study with five being common across the three teaching environments and the remainder being specific to the classroom environment. The common themes were: a trusting relationship, the necessity of teacher control, to see the 'unforgivingness' of the environment, learning from one's practice, challenges to one's practice and understanding one's practice. In answer to the second research question: What influences the reflective process? the analysis revealed thirteen underlying or influencing factors or dispositions across the three teaching environments with eight of them being common to either two, or all three, of the environments. In answer to the third research question: What is the nature of sport diving practitioners' reflective practice? five categories have been used to address the analysis: 1) across environment related, 2) classroom and confined water (pool) related, 3) confined water (pool) and open water (ocean) related 4) classroom and open water (ocean) related and 5) specific to one environment. The reflection process documented in this study suggested that Schon's notion of reflective practice is very applicable to the professional development of sport diving as his conception of reflection applies to the three areas of teaching which exist in unforgiving learning environments: the problem solving disposition of teacher reflection, the learning from one's practice, and the probing of internal dialogue. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

An experiment was conducted in order to distinguish between semantic elaboration and interacting imagery theories of children's linked noun pair learning. Grades 2 and 6 students were presented with sixteen pairs of nouns linked by different types of connectives and following learning set presentation were required to recall the second noun of each pair upon presentation of the first. One third of the Ss in each grade were asked to form visual images of the two nouns of each pair (Imagery Prompting condition); one third were instructed to form interacting images of each pair (Imagery Training condition); and the remaining Ss were given no special instruction (No Training condition). Results from the experiment showed No Training and Imagery Training Ss to be unaffected by the type of connective employed to link the pairs. However, those Ss in the Imagery Prompting condition recalled significantly more pairs linked by interaction suggesting links (i.e., verbs and interaction suggesting prepositions) relative to pairs linked by connectives which did not suggest a physical interaction (i.e., conjunctions and non-interaction suggesting prepositions). The results were interpreted as favouring an interacting imagery rather than semantic elaboration theory of children's linked noun pair learning. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

A central task of contemporary analytic philosophy is to develop an understanding of how our minds are connected to the external (or mind-independent) world. Arising from this task is the need to explain how thoughts represent things in the world. Giving such an explanation is the central endeavor of this dissertation—the aim being to contribute to our understanding of what it is for a subject to be thinking of a particular object. The structure of the dissertation is set, in part, by responding to the commonly held view that a satisfactory explanation of what it is to think of a particular object can be drawn out of, or extended from, an explanation of what it is to be referring to that particular object. Typically, in investigating these matters, it is accepted that there is an explanatory priority of language over thought. This is the Priority Thesis. Some take the Priority Thesis to reflect an appropriate methodological strategy. In this form, it implies the methodological point that the best way to describe thoughts is by describing them as they are expressed in language. Most, however, seem to take the Priority Thesis to be symptomatic of a substantive, metaphysical truth. This, to put it one way, is that the content of a thought is paralleled by the content of the associated linguistic expression. I call this the Assumption of Parallelism. This characterizes what we call Linguistic Turn philosophy (i.e., analytic philosophy). The body of the dissertation arises out of questioning the extent of the application ofthe Priority Thesis in developing theories of reference and thought. I call the move of the partial overturning ofthe Priority Thesis the Linguistic U-Turn. The overall conclusion is that we cannot explain what it is to think of a particular object by extending explanations of what it is to be referring to that particular object. In particular, I reject what I call the Causal Theory of Thought—the view that the representational properties of a thought are explained by the referential properties of the appropriate singular term. My aim, then, is to show that a popular conviction concerning the representational properties of thoughts about things in the world is not warranted. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

The thesis covers the phenomenon of business model innovation. It provides with theoretical background of the concept based on the works of several scientists who stand at the beginnings of the discipline. The paper also introduces the principles of design thinking applied to business model innovation in order to get superior results and serve as a guideline for ideation processes and presenting enhancements to existing business models. The practical part is devoted to applying the described concepts on examples from real life, which can especially help small companies in their battle with incumbents. Three industries are analyzed to see the flaws with the current state of things. New business models that can disrupt corresponding industries are offered at the end of each case.

Introduction: Student leadership is currently a critical topic at South African universities. Leadership skills are essential to the development of humanity and universities play a vital role in the development of students to become future leaders. The development and practice of leadership at university level can benefit student development and can contribute to the good of society, which is crucial at this date and time. However, very limited research has been done on what motivates students to develop their own leadership skills. Research purpose: The objective of this study was to explore the factors that motivate students participation in leadership development at a selected South African Higher Education Institution. In essence, the study aims to explore possible factors that contribute to students participation in leadership development and to make recommendations for future leadership development initiatives at university level. Motivation for the study: As far as could be determined, this was the first study on the motivational factors that influence students interest in leadership development at university level, in particular in South Africa. This study can assist universities in exposing more students to leadership development. Essentially, it can enable universities to grow their own pipeline of leaders that can be engaged in the universities own leadership structures and will contribute to the good of society. Research methodology: An exploratory quantitative research design with supplementary qualitative questions was used. Convenience sampling was used and data were gathered from students of a selected South African Higher Education Institution (N = 78). Participants completed the Leadership Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (LABS), the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) as well as biographical questions. Main findings: The results of the study indicated that the LABS and AMS are valid and reliable instruments for use in higher educational institutions. The results of the empirical findings of this study were unexpected. No significance in terms of hierarchical and systematic thinking was found in the descriptive statistics. A strong correlation was found between EM identified and EM external regulation. The results indicated that gender differed significantly on the subscale Intrinsic motivation toward accomplishment as well as Extrinsic motivation identified and Extrinsic motivation external regulation. The study found that previous leadership exposure might serve as motivation for students to further develop their leadership competence. Significance of the study: No similar research could be found in South Africa or in the international context. The findings of this study do not only provide valuable insights into the theory of student leadership, but also provide insight into the practical implementation of student leadership development at universities. The study creates awareness of the critical importance of investment by universities in student leadership development. Limitations and future research: This study emphasised the need for and relevance of future research on this topic. The convenience and homogeneous nature of the sample as well as the sample size complicated the effort to make definite conclusions about motivational factors. It is therefore recommended that a larger sample size be used in future research to ensure a representative distribution of a heterogeneous student population. Conclusion: The development of student leadership is a critical issue for universities and society as a whole. In light of the results of this study and the current situation that universities in South Africa are faced with in so far as student leadership is concerned, further research should be conducted into this topic. / Mini Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / tm2016 / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

The thesis serves as an evaluation of the psychometric properties of a measure of cognitive competence used with a multi-ethnic, adolescent sample. The primary goal of this study was the development of the Critical Problem Solving Skills Scale – Qualitative Extension, using Relational Data Analysis (RDA). This study builds on previous work that has been conducted to provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the RDA framework in evaluating youth development programs (Kurtines et al., 2008). Inter-coder percent agreement among the TOC and TCC coders for each of the category levels was moderate to high, with a range of .76 to .94. The Fleiss’ kappa across all category levels was from substantial agreement to almost perfect agreement, with a range of .72 to .91. The correlation between the TOC and the TCC demonstrated medium to high correlation, with a range of r(40)=.68, p