D.Litt. et Phil. / The research aim of this study was to develop a self-knowledge program for career counselling practitioners based on psychological type, and to evaluate the program in practice. The theory of psychological type, based on the work of Jung, McCaully, Murphy, Myers and Briggs, and Quenk, presents a practical communication model for the career counselling interview. The theory builds a basic structure of how the individual perceives and process information and how he or she evaluates and makes decisions with this information. It gives an understanding of the communication process in the career counselling interview with regard to the psychological types of both the client and the practitioner. A design and development research model was applied to develop and evaluate the self-knowledge development program. The four phases of the model are problem analysis and project planning, design, development, and evaluation. During the phase of problem analysis, the relevant literature in the field of psychology and related fields were researched. It was concluded that there was a need for a self-development program for career counsellors based on psychological type, and the project was planned. During the development phase, a practice model, role descriptions and specific skills of career counselling, were extended with regard to psychological type. This served as an explanatory model to develop the tentative self-development program. During the development phase the program was used in two pilot studies, with final year counselling students, in a workshop format. Data generated during the pilot studies was used to refine the program. For the final evaluation phase, the format was adapted to a workbook format that could be used by the individual practitioner.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology) / Assertiveness, a specific social skill is traced back to its roots in Salter's 1949 Pavlovian model. The impression is gained that the growing interest in assertiveness may be a reaction to the post-Sputnik era of increasing violence and acts of terrorism. In South Africa assertiveness training has particular relevance, as a state of emergency was -declared by the State President in the middle of 1985. It is fitting that assertiveness training be done with black adolescents as in the African communities there is concern about the estrangement of parents and their children which has contributed to the school unrest that has had such wide repercussions. An empirical study of 32 matched pairs of black South African pupils in their 11th year of schooling was undertaken in 1985 following a pilot study in 1984. The experimental groups were given assertiveness training while the control groups were engaged in other activities. The hypotheses examined were that if aggressive and submissive South African black adolescents were exposed to assertiveness training their levels of aggression and submission would be reduced, assertiveness would be increased, anxiety would be reduced and self-esteem enhanced. Evidence is adduced to indicate partial support for the hypotheses and this is discussed.

This study aimed to create the first measure of risk for UK gang-affiliation. A pilot stage invited gang affiliated and non-gang affiliated participants between the ages of 16–25 to retrospectively self-report on 58 items of risk exposure at the age of 11. Based on performance of these items, a 26-item measure was developed and administered to a main study sample (n=185) of gang affiliated and non-gang affiliated participants. Categorical Principal Component Analysis was applied to data, yielding a single-factor solution (historic lack of safety and current perception of threat). A 15-item gang-affiliation risk measure (GARM) was subsequently created. The GARM demonstrated good internal consistency, construct validity and discriminative ability. Items from the GARM were then transformed to read prospectively, resulting in a test measure for predictive purposes (T-GARM). However, the T-GARM requires further validation regarding its predictive utility and generalisability.

This thesis examines how the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s influenced scholarship in the social sciences, and how the feminism growing out of this movement affected premenstrual syndrome (PMS) research. Since the 1980s social science paradigms guiding P M S research have begun to consider how biology and the environment mutually influence one another to produce premenstrual changes. The work examined in this thesis uses feminism to challenge traditional scientific approaches to PMS, including claims o f "objectivity," negative evaluations of menstrual changes in women, the claim that women experience natural cycles and men do not, and the belief that the expression of anger contradicts the feminine role. The research herein is based on all psychology research on PMS produced in the greater Vancouver area during the 1980s and 1990s. The knowledge that has been constructed about PMS through social sciences research also contributes to a common narrative about gender. This narrative holds that femininity and masculinity are not only linked to concepts of biological sex but also to concepts of culture that are heavily influenced by power relationships. The research examined here contributes to this narrative by challenging traditional theories about women's nature and by implementing research methods that add to our understanding of the way that cultural values influence research and knowledge production. The image of women as passive victims of "that time of the month" has been called into question by an image o f women that takes society and culture into account when explaining "women's nature." / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

M.Ed. / Truancy, which according to Thompson and Rudolph (1992:513), is a deliberate absence from school without a valid reason, is a problem that probably dates back to the initial institution of large scale formal schooling. Although it may seem obvious that the reason for truancy is related to the fact that the truant prefers to be elsewhere, or that he finds the school an unpleasant place to be, the underlying reasons for truancy are more difficult to pinpoint. Research conducted in 1991 and 1992 in the United Kingdom (O'Keefe, 1994:48), and which included 150 schools, revealed that a significant number of pupils of compulsory school—going age become involved in truancy. Statistics reported by the research team themselves, based on a survey which involved questionnaires, suggested that if the results of their survey could be extrapolated to all schools, then a 95 per cent confidence interval for the mean truancy level in schools, is between 29.7 per cent and 32.4 per cent. About two thirds (68%), of all schools should have truancy levels between 22.7 per cent and 39.3 per cent, and 96 per cent of all schools should have levels between 14.4 per cent and 47.4 per cent. If these statistics could be used as a guide to estimate an average of truants per school, the enormity of the prevalence of truancy becomes evident. According to McWhirter and McWhirter (1993:58), truants tend to have what is termed a "dropouts perspective". They claim that dropouts inter alia tend to leave school for the following reasons: * a dislike for school, with the opinion that school is boring and not relevant to their needs * low academic achievement and poor grades * poverty, a desire to work full-time, and a need for money, and * a lack of belonging and a sense that nobody cares about them Some of these attributes might thus also obtain for many truants. Paterson (Wardaugh, 1990: 744), proposes two broad categories of truants, namely the "endangered" truant (also termed the delinquent or morally endangered truant), and the "fearful" truant (also termed the school phobic or abused truant). The "endangered" truant is prone to falling into trouble when absent from school, while the "fearful" truant wishes to go to school, but is afraid to do so. Truancy is also listed by Kapp (1990:119) as one of the behaviours manifested by juvenile delinquents along with various other delinquencies such as theft, running away from home, use and distribution of drugs, burglary, vandalism, assault and robbery, thus suggesting that truancy is associated with these misdemeanours. Healy (Tyerman, 1968:10), notes that truancy is the root of all these misbehaviours, and he described truancy as "the kindergarten of crime". In 1944 Burt (1944:455) already referred to truancy as "the first step on the downward stair to crime". According to Hersov and Berg (1980:67), truancy is a reliable predictor of difficulties in later life. They also report that school truancy significantly predicts four subsequent child events: being held back in elementary school, dropping out of high school,leaving the parental home before the age of 18, and marriage before the age of 18. Thus, it would appear that the prognosis for truants in terms of completing their schooling, securing stable employment and fulfilling responsible citizenship, without being a burden to their future spouses, families, communities and the state, is rather uncertain. Against this background, there can be little argument that the phenomenon of truancy is serious enough to warrant a counseling programme that will be effective in treating truants in the light of their problems in such a way that they will obtain a balanced perspective of the value of regular school attendance. In South Africa, the incidence of truancy, in the old racially biased provincial education schooling system of the House of Assembly (HOA), could be measured quite accurately, simply by consulting the class register over a period of time. Through investigating the circumstances surrounding the absenteeism the teacher could quite easily determine whether such circumstances met the criteria for classification of such absentees as truants. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the schools which were under the jurisdiction of the former Department of Education and Training (DET), of which the researcher was an employee for a number of years. Not only were records of attendance not kept properly in many instances to be able to determine how often a pupil was absent, but even if attendance records had been kept properly, the possible reasons for staying away from school, such as political violence, intimidation, and caring for younger siblings, do also not meet the criteria for classifying such an absentee as a truant. What is however also true, is that large numbers of former DET pupils could have exploited the prevailing situation at the time and could have stayed away from school for reasons that may well have qualified them as truants. Many schools served by the former House of Delegates (HOD), and the former House of Representatives (HOR), were, maybe, just as seriously affected by the political climate as the DET schools. The level of absenteeism related to unrest situations in the former HOD and HOR schools makes it just as difficult to distinguish between the "truants" and the "bona fide" absentees during those turbulent times. For this reason it was decided to restrict the scope of the present study to truants in schools which traditionally fell under the provincial education system of the former House of Assembly.

This study was an examination of the Hawthorne Effect in a verbal learning situation in an educational setting. The Hawthorne Effect was defined as the facilitating effect(s) produced in experimental situations when the subjects of the experiment expect that they are the objects of special attention. The purpose of the study was to determine if contamination by the Hawthorne Effect existed in an educational setting. Comparisons were made between "experimentally inexperienced" subjects and "experimentally experienced" subjects at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The task was to learn a list of paired associate terms, and to show learning retention by immediate replication of those terms. The focus of the study was upon the expected differences in performance of the control and experimental groups produced as a result of an effort to persuade experimental subjects that they had "unique" characteristics which would cause them to be exceptionally proficient. The control groups were given the task by the course instructor in a usual classroom setting,as an example of a curriculum objective. Recommendations for further research were as follows: (1) the personality variables of the researcher and those of the subjects being tested should be thoroughly delineated; (2) sex differences in performance should be scrutinized further, since there were indications that females did react differently from males in the experimental situation; (3) other academic disciplines should be examined with respect to susceptibility to the Hawthorne Effect; and (4) other social settings should be examined with respect to the Hawthorne Effect contamination.

<p>  </p> <p>Individual differences in cognitive effort-based decision-making can reveal the variety of decision strategies used in action valuations. For example, factors such as how challenging an action is or how much reward can be gained are often considered when weighing how valuable an action is. Experiment 1 considers task preferences offered at different demand levels (i.e., the degree of challenge) to determine whether decision-making strategies are related primarily to 1) demand levels, 2) individual capability, or 3) task components. Results suggest that participants’ decisions were primarily driven by task options rather than their performance. Experiment 2 then compares task preferences in different incentive-related conditions. While the majority of decisions were in the predicted direction (favoring lower demand levels and higher monetary amounts), there were individual differences that suggested valuations of both task options as well as incentive conditions. The results of these experiments suggest individuals use various decision strategies involving factors that may have been overlooked in past research. These findings challenge the assumption that task preferences are primarily related to how challenging an action is and instead suggest that preferences may be highly susceptible to experimental design factors as well as factors intrinsic to the individual.</p>

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study is a qualitative description of the everyday lives of adolescent girls with epilepsy. The primary purpose of the research was to determine whether or not elements of stigma were present in narratives about participants’ day-to-day living. The researcher used open-ended and semi-structured interview techniques in a series of interviews with four adolescent girls with epilepsy. Elements of stigma were present in some of the constructed themes; however, the researcher also uncovered other unexpected themes. Themes constructed by the researcher included: 1) I Am Like Everyone Else (Except for my Seizures); 2) There are Worse Things than Epilepsy; 3) My Parents Trust Me; 4) Am I Having a Seizure?; 5) Bullying Because of Seizures; 6) Bullying Because of Something other than Seizures; 7) Coping with Bullying; 8) Academic Difficulties;9) Disclosure Management; 10) Seizures are Scary to Have and to See; and 11)If I have a Seizure, Don’t Attract Attention to Me! The researcher considers topics thought to be important to adolescents with epilepsy about which the participants kept silent. The researcher makes suggestions about how the research can be used to improve health care practice and guide educational policies for adolescent students with epilepsy. Based on the findings, the researcher suggests areas for future research in nursing and educational policy.

Prevalence rates for males and females with ADHD range from 2:1 to 9:1 depending on ADHD subtype and setting (APA, 2000). The purpose of the current study was to empirically review articles published between 2001-2010 from discipline-representative (psychology, pediatrics, and interdisciplinary) high- impact journals (JACP, JCCP, Pediatrics) to identify potential differences in the sampling or procedures of ADHD studies involving females and males. Results indicate females and minorities were both well represented across the three discipline-representative journals. However, no meaningful data were provided on minority ADHD females (0.04% of the overall N = 107,144 ADHD participants included in 212 studies). Recommendations to researchers and editors include a) increasing inclusion of minority ADHD females, b) requesting better documentation of overall inclusionary/exclusionary criteria, and c) increasing attention to potential biases in sampling procedures, referral practices, and data presentation approaches that hinder development of the literature concerning ADHD in minority females.

M.A. / The purpose of this study is to tell the story of sexual revictimisation of coloured women. The epistemological framework of this study is an integrated one including both modem and postmodern approaches to the study of revictimisation. The dominant postmodern approach is that of constructivism. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of research are used to collect and analyse the data. The story of revictimisation was recounted firstly through responses to a questionnaire by a sample of coloured women within the context of a coloured community. Secondly, the unique stories of sexual revictimisation were re-authored through the co-author's lens in the form of themes that emerged from the stories told by each of the three narrators. The effects of sexual revictimisation, as well as the specific ways each narrator survived their abuse experiences was discussed. Recurring themes evident in the stories of all three narrators were elucidated in a co-constructed story of stories. A comparison between the quantitative research results, the qualitative story constructions and the literature on sexual revictimisation concluded the re-constructed story where the numerous stories, within either a unique, cultural or universal context, were integrated into a conceptual whole. The information gained could serve as guidelines for those working with adult survivors of child sexual abuse within a coloured context. An understanding of sexual revictimisation and the risk factors involved in the effects of child sexual abuse may be useful in the prevention of sexual revictimisation.