Thesis (M.Psych.Org) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Text in Afrikaans / The research question in this study involves the subjective experiences of quality of worklife (QWL) by alcoholics and non-alcoholics, in order to form an idea about the differences in such experiences, between the two groups. Personality is related throughout to QWL and alcoholism. A sample consisting of 60 alcoholics and 58 non alcoholics was used. Personality measurements were done by using Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16-PF) whilst experienced QWL was measured with the self developed QWL-questionnaire. In order to test the hypotheses for this study, the data has been processed by using Pearson's Product-moment coefficient of correlation and t-tests. The results from the study indicate a significant relationship between personality and certain exclusive QWLdimensions for alcoholics. There is however, no significant difference in the subjective experiences of global QWL between alcoholics and non-alcoholics. Several personality factors have been identified as being related to alcoholism. / Die navorsingsvraagstuk in hierdie studie betrek die subj ektiewe ervaring van gehalte van werklewe (GWL) deur alkoholiste en niealkoholiste, ten einde 'n begrip te vorm van die verskil in sodanige ervaring, tussen die twee groepe. Persoonlikheid word deurgaans in verband gebring met GWL en alkoholisme. 'n Steekproef bestaande uit 60 alkoholiste en 58 nie-alkoholiste is gebruik. Persoonlikheidsmetings is met die 16-Persoonlikheidsfaktorvraelys van Cattell gedoen terwyl ervaarde GWL met die selfontwerpte GWL-vraelys gemeet is. Ten einde hierdie studie se hipoteses te toets, is die data verwerk deur van Pearson se produkmomentkorrelasiekoeffisient en t-toetse gebruik te maak. Die studie se resultate dui op 'n beduidende verband tussen persoonlikheid en sekere eksklusiewe GWL-dimensies by alkoholiste. Daar bestaan egter geen beduidende verskil in die subjektiewe ervaring van globale GWL tussen alkoholiste en nie-alkoholiste nie. Daar is etlike persoonlikheidsfaktore geidentifiseer wat met alkoholisme verband hou. / Industrial and Organizational Psychology / M.Com. (Industrial Psychology)

While career development has been acknowledged as a lifelong process, little research attention has been given to the developmental stage of childhood. In addition, there has been a lack of longitudinal research into career development despite consistent calls for research of this nature. The lack of research and theory pertaining to childhood career development prompted the initiation of the current longitudinal project of which the present study forms a part. The longitudinal project was designed to provide information about the occupational aspirations and perceptions of a cohort of South African children from six years of age onwards, with the present studying examining the occupational aspiration development of 12 to 14 year old South African children. South African career research to date has focused primarily on adolescent and adult career development. The present longitudinal study aimed to explore and describe possible changes over a three year period in the interest typology, occupational status level and occupational gender stereotypes of the 44 participants. In addition, the study aimed to explore and describe the sample’s reflections on their own occupational aspiration development. The results of this study will provide much needed baseline information on the development of South African children’s occupational aspirations and will provide useful recommendations for the development of career education programmes. The present study was contextualised within both child and career development theories. This study was quantitative in nature as it made use of semi-structured interviews and biographical questionnaires to record verbal data which was transposed into nominal data for analysis. The semi-structured interview consisted of four broad areas that included the participants’ occupational aspirations, how many occupations they knew about, how much they knew about the identified occupations xiii and the extent to which they held gender stereotypes regarding fourteen different occupations. The data captured was coded according to Holland’s (1985) classification system of interest types. The occupational aspirations identified by participants were also coded according to their status levels. The coded data was then analysed using descriptive statistics in the form of frequency counts and percentages. In addition, content analysis was performed on the participants’ reflections on their own career development in order to elicit themes. Results from the study supported child and career development theories, emphasising childhood as a critical phase of career development. The study found that the majority of children aspired to Social type occupations across all three years of the study and most children consistently aspired to high status occupations. Furthermore, occupational gender stereotyping decreased over time. Lastly, it was found that most children were able to reflect on their career development with the majority attributing changes in their occupational aspirations to changes in their interests. The present study has provided valuable insight into the occupational aspiration development of a group of South African children, which can be used as a foundation on which to base further research and on which to develop career education programmes.

M.Ed. / A lack of optimal self-realization in the pursuit of a career does not only cause career frustration, but also implies a waste of human potential. For this reason vocational guidance at school should function in such a way that the particular needs of intellectually gifted pupils should be observed so that help and support can be given to contribute to the optimal attainment of their potential. The problems related to vocational guidance to the intellectually gifted are mainly due to the fact that these pupils are often able to choose from a large variety of professions due to their particular intellectual abilities, but that these potential do not necessarily correlate with their other personal possibilities. Seen from this point of view, the most important aim of this 'investigation' is to supply pedagogic guidelines based on an analysis and integration of the personal options and career preferences of the gifted in order to assist them in achieving more meaningful self-realization and to prevent the problem of non-optimal utilization of gifted human potential. The manifestation of intrinsic personal potential such as intelligence, ability, interest and personality was researched to determine how it operates within the development of a career image in the highly gifted. The results of the investigation indicate a correlation between different combinations of personal potential and specific career-orientated directions of study. Amore meaningful integration between personal potential and career preference is made possible with the result that the gifted can display ideals and aspirations congruent with their personal potential. Findings led to the following deductions: if the personal potential of the highly gifted is seen in totality there appears to be a combination of personal qualities related to career image development which manifest in clear career tendencies. From these findings one may be justified to assume that the highly gifted may be led to more meaningful self-realization if personal potential such as intelligence, ability, interest and personality are applied as a whole for identification purposes in terms of career recommendations. In addition to the guidelines laid down from the findings of this investigation it is recommended that individual career guidance should be given to the highly gifted in terms of the principles of the Discover system. This system can help the gifted to orientate their values in such a way that the basis for decisionmaking, which implies long-term events, may be founded on a rational basis. It will also help to highlight preferences for certain areas of work through which the attitude to, skills and interest in certain activities may become visible in highly gifted persons.

M.A. / With recent socio-political changes in South Africa, it was considered important to review the career expectations of black South African youth, given the reported poor state of career guidance within certain schools. The literature review revealed that South African youth, particularly those from an Afrocentric culture, also tend to be unrealistic in their perceptions of job availability once they left school, with low self and occupational knowledge. Compromise was included as an important factor when considering the perception of job accessibility and the possibility of having to adjust aspirations to meet the realities of the world of work. The aim of this study, therefore, was to assess the occupational choices made by the grade 10 and 12 pupils at RAUCALL high school. The study attempted to determine the degree of congruence of the pupils' occupational choices in comparison to their occupational expectations and how this congruence correlates with academic performance. The results of the correlational analysis indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between congruence and academic performance. From the findings of this research it was possible to conclude that students with low vocational identity may not experience any more academic difficulty than do students with high vocational identity. An additional finding was that John Holland's concept of congruence, Il` • his theory as a whole, needs to be validated to incorporate the South African context with its various cultures and language groups. The knowledge of self for black South African adolescents must be placed within the framework of a black identity if vocational guidance programmes are to be seen as meaningful and relevant.

While career development is viewed as a lifelong process, there are numerous limitations regarding existing career theories and research pertaining to the adolescent population. Further, insufficient longitudinal research represents one of the major obstacles for a more holistic understanding of career development across the lifespan. Thus, the present longitudinal project of which the current study forms a part was initiated to address the lack of research and theory concerning adolescent career development. The larger longitudinal project intended to make information available regarding the occupational aspirations and perceptions of a sample of South African children and adolescents, from early childhood into their adolescent years. The current study investigates the occupational aspiration development of 15 to 16 year old South African adolescents. It is argued that the South African knowledge base on career development behaviour still requires extensive development, especially with regards to adolescent career development. The current longitudinal study aimed to explore and describe possible developments and changes over a two year period in the interest typology, occupational status level and occupational gender stereotypes of the 43 adolescents. Additionally, the study aimed to explore and describe the adolescents' reflections on their own occupational aspiration development. The findings of this study will provide necessary baseline information on the development of South African adolescents' occupational aspirations and will offer valuable recommendations for the future development of adolescent career education programmes. Adolescent and career development theories were used to provide a context for the current study. Semi-structured interviews and biographical questionnaires were utilized to record verbal data which was transposed into nominal data for analysis. Thus, the current study was quantitative in nature. The semi-structured interview comprised four general aspects that included: the adolescents' occupational aspirations, the number of occupations they knew about, how much they knew about the expressed occupations, and the extent to which they held gender stereotypes concerning fourteen different occupations. The data gained was coded according to Holland's (1985) classification system of interest typologies. Also, the adolescents' occupational aspirations were coded according to their status levels. The coded data was subsequently analysed using both descriptive statistics in the form of frequency counts and percentages as well as inferential statistics in the form of chi-square analysis. Content analysis was also conducted on the adolescents' reflections on their own career development as a means to extract themes. The results indicated that adolescence was an important phase of career development and the findings supported adolescent and career development theories. The results of the study also indicated that the majority of adolescents aspired to Investigative type occupations across both years of the study and most adolescents consistently aspired to high status occupations. In addition, adolescents do not appear to gender stereotype in terms of occupations. Lastly, it was found that most adolescents could reflect on their career development, predominantly attributing changes in their occupational aspirations to changes in their interests. The present study has made available important information regarding the occupational aspiration development of a group of South African adolescents, which can be utilized in further research and as a foundation on which to develop career education programmes.

While the field of career psychology has shifted its attention to the study of career development, the developmental stage of childhood has often been neglected. Similarly, there is an absence of career research of a longitudinal nature, despite consistent calls to focus more on longitudinal methods when studying career development. The present study forms part of an existing longitudinal project which investigates the career development of South African children. This study, initiated in 1998, attempts to explore the occupational aspirations and gender stereotypes of a group of 39 children in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. The results from this study will provide much needed baseline information on how South African children become aware of careers, as well as provide useful suggestions on how to develop career education syllabi, particularly within the Life Orientation curriculum. The present study aims to explore and describe the changes that may occur in the participants’ occupational aspiration interest typology, status levels, and gender stereotypes over a five year period. Both developmental and career developmental theories were used to provide a theoretical context from which the participants’ career development could be explored. The study is quantitative in nature as it made use of semi-structured interviews and a biographical questionnaire in order to quantitatively transcribe the data. The questionnaire consisted of four broad questions which asked for information regarding the participants’ occupational aspirations, how much information the participants had about the chosen occupation, the number of occupations the participants knew about, and the extent to which the participants held gender stereotypes regarding fourteen different occupations. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the findings of the data which had been coded according to Holland’s typology of occupations. In addition, content analysis was performed to elicit themes regarding the participants’ own reflections on their career development. Results from the data analysis revealed that the majority of participants aspired to Social type occupations throughout the five years under study. Furthermore, most participants consistently aspired to high status occupations throughout the five years. Similar results were found for girls and boys. The results also demonstrated that the participants’ gender stereotypes tended to decrease over time, particularly as their occupational information increased. Lastly, most children were able to reflect on their career development and attributed changes in their occupational aspirations to changes in their interests. The results from this study offer insight into the development of occupational aspirations and perceptions of South African children which can be used as a foundation for future research and which should be valuable in the development of relevant career education programmes for South African schools.

M.A. (Psychology) / Career maturity is a dimension of development which have not been researched intensively in South Africa. This study was conducted to prove the usefulness of the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI) for first-year university students in the RSA. The respondents used is the 1986 first-year students of the Rand Afrikaans University of whom had completed the full diagnostic testing program, as well as the Attitude Scale of the CMI...

Person-environment (PE) fit has been considered one of the most pervasive concepts in psychology. This study presents an integrative investigation of three levels of PE fit: person-vocation (PV) fit, person-organization (PO) fit, and person-job (PJ) fit, using multiple conceptualizations (e.g., value congruence, needs-supplies fit) of each fit level. While a trend in the PE fit literature has been the inclusion of only one fit level with a single conceptualization, researchers call for the addition of multiple conceptualizations of multiple fit levels in a single study. Traditionally, PO fit has been conceptualized as value congruence, whereas PV fit has remained untouched in the literature investigating the direct measurement of fit perceptions. Therefore, new fit perceptions scales assessing PO fit using a needs-supplies fit conceptualization and PV fit using a variety of conceptualizations were introduced. To address the limitation of employing direct measures, common method variance was modeled with a positive affect factor. The study accomplished two objectives. First, a previously supported three-factor model of fit perceptions consisting of PO value congruence (PO-VC), PJ needs-supplies (PJ-NS), and PJ demands-abilities (PJ-DA) fit was strongly replicated. Second, this model was expanded by examining additional conceptualizations (needs-supplies, demands-abilities fit, value, personality, and interest congruence) of fit levels (PV, PO, and PJ fit). Results suggested that professionals make distinctions based on both the fit level and fit conceptualization and these fit perceptions uniquely influence their attitudes and behaviors. A six-factor model (PO-VC, PJ-NS, PJ-DA, PO needs-supplies fit [PO-NS], PV demands-abilities fit [PV-DA], and general PV fit) best fit the data. Providing ample evidence of construct validity, PO fit perceptions (PO-VC and PO-NS fit) were related to the organization-focused outcome of organizational identification, whereas the profession-focused outcome of occupational commitment was exclusively predicted by PV fit perceptions (PV-DA and general PV fit). As expected, both needs-supplies fit perceptions (PO-NS and PJ-NS fit) predicted intentions to quit and job satisfaction. Recommendations for future research are suggested.

To determine what type of young men and women are entering the profession of music today as compared with those entering other fields is the purpose of the present investigation. It undertakes a study of ninety advanced music students divided into two groups of forty-five each, those who prefer to do solo work and those who prefer to perform in an ensemble. A control group of fifty advanced students is taken from other fields of study in order to form a basis for judgment of the music students. These groups are compared with respect to age, intelligence, and various personality adjustments.