The dominant theme is the examination of the development of the Teachers' Registration Movement and within this context to consider the elements of conflict bearing on policy and decision-making. The submission explores the relationship between private teachers, as represented by the College of Preceptors and external agencies, in ways that no other work does: the position of the government in relation to private teachers is considered in the context of the royal commissions on education, of the early examinations provided by the College of Preceptors, Oxford and Cambridge universities and the Royal Society of Arts, and of the Scholastic Registration Association. Ground-breaking themes are employed in that (a) a comprehensive account of the Teachers' Registration Movement is presented; (b) there is a consideration of the way in which conflict and divisions emerge within this development; (c) there is an examination of how elementary and secondary teachers interacted with the state over teachers' registration (this involved a small-scale project conducted by me within the Education Department. University of Wales, Swansea in 1999); (d) attempts are made to relate issues of the past to present-day practice, e.g. the re-emergence of earlier principles to the Beloe Report recommendations. The submission's extension of knowledge in the field is supported therefore in terms of the archival coverage between 1846 and the present day, and of explaining in considerable detail the financing, membership, policies, individual contributions, rules governing registration, and overall effectiveness of the teacher registration councils. As far as these issues are concerned, it is the focus on conflict within the development of the Teachers' Registration Movements that sets it apart from other contributions. Works prior to the submission did not have access to all of the relevant documentation at TNA and relied on other less informative sources. The essential task was to interpret a series of events that had not been fully examined before.

Masters Diploma in Technology: Office Administration at the School of Business Informatics at the Cape Technikon / During visits to business organisations where students undergo co-operative education, it was revealed that functional managers, irrespective the size and type of organisation, are bound by many administrative tasks that leave them very little time for strategic planning and decision making. It also places a lot of pressure on these managers to keep up with technological developments.It also seems as if administrative staff who possess the required training, skills and proficiency are not utilised fully, and consequently do not experience work satisfaction - which leads to increased staff turnover.The solution to this problem seems to be the appointment of managers in charge of the administrative activities in an organisation - on all managerial levels, but especially on middle and lower management levels. Not only does this free functional managers from the additional burden of administrative obligations, but also enables them to concentrate on their primary function. In the study, these managers of administrative activities are referred to as office administrators.In this study, the factors that contribute most to the effective utilisation of the office administrator in business organisations were investigated. During this process, a model was also developed for the effective utilisation of office administrators.

No description available.

The study in this thesis is a longitudinal case study of a group of overseas teachers involved in research as part of an in-service B.Ed. (Honours) degree in TEFL. It addresses the process of development as teacher-researchers of the group during the course. In terms of outcomes it seeks to investigate the contribution, as perceived by the participants, of involvement in research to their professional development, and the impact of this experienceo n their ways of conceiving of teacher-researcha nd of themselves as reflective, enquiring practitioners. The findings of the study suggest that the adoption of a multi-stranded approach to involvement in research with in-service teachers may be desirable to the extent that it may foster the development of teachers as reflective practitioners, while also providing for their development at an academic level. However, the study also suggests that the particular type of approach to involvement in research undertaken by this group can be problematic, given the difficulties in reconciling the on-going professional development perspective with the certification element. The efforts to include a teacher-researche lement in degreec oursesf or teachersi s not unique to this course, and the conflict between the two aims may be relatively common. The end result is that the approach may require from participants a lot of effort to create a balance between their pedagogical expectations from the course and the criteria of academic certification. The study also provides some empirically-based analytical frameworks which may be of value in attempting to understand what happens when teachers encounter research.

No description available.

M.Cur. (Nursing Science) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Ing. / The loss of skills and knowledge of technical professionals experienced by many organizations in South Africa has serious implications on the competitiveness of these organizations in the local and international markets. Organizations should come to realize that they should find creative ways to retain critical skills and knowledge and ensure continuity in terms of succession management. Technical professionals play a crucial role in society. They are responsible for maintaining the technologies that they developed — technologies that are used extensively everyday. The extent of society's reliance on technical professionals is staggering. They ensure that people have clean water, transportation, communication, and countless other necessities. Organizations cannot afford to lose their technical professionals and must find ways to retain them. Research was done on the retention of technical professionals and the research indicated that there are fundamental differences between technical professionals and the other staff in organizations. The characteristics of technical professionals require that they be treated differently from other employees. Separate reward systems should be designed for technical professionals because they have different motives for joining and staying with organizations than other employees. Rewarding and compensating technical professionals, with retention as the objective, require that more attention be given to non-financial rewards. Technical professionals require opportunities to develop themselves and to keep abreast of the latest developments in their fields. Very importantly, they have to be assured proper career development. Performance management of technical professionals is a contentious issue because many of the outputs of technical professionals are intangible and difficult to measure. Performance appraisal systems have to be very well designed and alternatives to conventional performance appraisals should be considered. Some alternatives are peer control, selfevaluation, and evaluation by subordinates. Structural accommodations should be made to accommodate technical professionals because of the cultural differences between professionals and non-professionals. Various accommodations could be effective depending on the nature of the business and the level of dependence the organization has on technical professionals. Some options are dual ladders, triple hierarchies, and broadbanding amongst others. These structural accommodations can ensure that technical professionals do not have to make the transition to management in order to obtain more responsibility, recognition and status in an organization. The transition to management, of a technical professional, might in some cases have detrimental effects on the organization and the individual. For example, the best engineer in a project team is promoted to manage the team. The consequence may be that the team loses their best engineer and the organization gains a manager with little or no management skills. The success of retention strategies are organization-dependant, however, the strategies discussed in this dissertation can help ensure that organizations retain their competitive advantage by effectively managing and retaining their technical professionals.

The theoretical component of professional training for counselling psychologists is recognised, if not assumed, to be important by those in the field. Currently, several models of therapy are taught to trainees, each with its own theoretical approach to understanding and working in the therapeutic setting. This study considered the helpfulness of theory in practice and explored this with the research question ‘how do trainees make sense of their emotional responses to clients in practice, and what is the impact of theory on the way they make sense of this experience’. Twelve counselling psychologists in the final stages of training participated in semi-structured interviews with the researcher. A grounded theory analysis found eight categories in total. The overarching category, ‘the trainee’s relationship with theory’, indicated that theoretical learning was a social process that became incorporated into trainees’ developing professional identities, and that it evolved during the course of their training. The impacts of theory were found to be both helpful and problematic, and identifiable in four categories: ‘theory reveals the trainee’s experience’, ‘theory conceals the trainee’s experience’, ‘theory raises uncertainty in the trainee’, and, ‘the trainee’s inability to perceive the impact of theory’. The remaining three categories ‘the trainee’s personal and professional development’, ‘the nature of the trainee’s relationships’, and ‘relieving the impact of the trainee’s experience’ described factors influencing trainees’ relationship with theory, and the degree to which each impact category was experienced. The research findings open dialogue about: the disadvantages (alongside the advantages) of using one’s reflective practice. These implications are discussed.

Previous studies have suggested that becoming a counsellor takes place according to stages and that development can be explained through the achievement of specified tasks. The professional training process is also understood to give rise to considerable anxiety with this traditionally conceptualised as a predominately negative experience hindering the learning process. The aims of the current study were: 1) to understand and identify how counselling psychology trainees make sense of and experience their development in becoming counselling psychologists, 2) to understand how anxiety is implicated in trainees’ growth and development into becoming counselling psychologists, and 3) through the application of an empirical existential phenomenological framework to promote an alternative perspective to the dominant medical model in relation to anxiety and the meaning attached to this experience in the process of becoming a counselling psychologist. Five trainee counselling psychologists and two recently qualified counselling psychologists were interviewed for this research project. The phenomenological analysis identified situated structural descriptions with the themes from these individual accounts forming the basis of a general structural description of the phenomenon of anxiety in becoming a counselling psychologist. By means of this existential phenomenological analysis, the multiple meanings attached to the experience of becoming with reference to anxiety were investigated. Two important findings emerged namely; 1) anxiety was not a negative, debilitating process for the trainees and 2) that counselling psychology’s pluralist theoretical affiliations whilst anxiety provoking contributed to the depth of transformation experienced by trainees. By adopting a pluralistic stance ambiguity was found to be prevalent in the experience of anxiety; this opened up the possibilities for becoming for this group of trainees. Therefore a non

Given the spread of the implementation of Online Communities of Practice (OCoP) as a new approach to organisational learning in the context of continuing professional development (CPD) programmes in some countries such as the UK, USA and Australia, this study conducts a trial in which the OCoP is introduced for this purpose in Saudi Arabia. The aim of the study is to establish the potential of the OCoP to function as an approach to CPD, and how such a mechanism can be adopted in the Saudi context to have an impact upon teachers’ professional performance and development. I designed the OCoP and the sample was composed of 14 male teachers of ICT in secondary schools located in five different cities in Saudi Arabia. The teachers interacted with each other in the OCoP, discussing eight subjects that they chose for themselves. In order to explore the operation and outcomes of the OCoP, I used qualitative methods, in particular semi-structured interviews, classroom observation of a sample of teachers, and observation and monitoring of teachers’ interaction within the OCoP over a three-month period. The overall findings show the positive impact of adopting an OCoP in CPD programmes. They reveal that some teachers change their practice and improve their levels of reflection. Additionally, the findings show significant differences between the levels of contribution made by teachers in the OCoP compared with their participation and engagement in other general online communities and in training courses attended in the country’s Training Centres. Furthermore, the study points to the importance of commitment and internal motivation among teachers in the context of the OCoP since without this, the overall aims of the Community cannot be achieved. The study also raises critical issues concerning the psychological aspects of teachers’ professional development, specifically the need to allow teachers more autonomy in determining their professional needs, and the requirement for trust to be built among teachers since the presence of such autonomy and trust promotes greater engagement in the CPD process. As a result of the trial OCoP, several avenues for further research are suggested in order to gain a deeper understanding of the potential of OCoPs in the educational field.