M.A. / A review of research titles produced since 1985 at RAU indicates that no formal research has been conducted on the evaluation of the counselling psychology curriculum. An overview of the literature in this field indicates that the profession has not consolidated a unique identity, and its evolution continues since its inception in approximately 1890 together with the origination of the general field of psychology. It thus becomes difficult to define a standard counselling psychology curriculum in this changing growth process, and this study examines only a single curriculum while attempting to determine efficiency, effectiveness and relevance within the changing South African context. Thus while the literature and existing theoretical models served to provide some bench marks in the evaluation process in terms of current trends, the related needs of a diverse and changing South African population were also utilised. It was anticipated that this evaluation process would provide the training system with relevant feedback to be used for possible future implementation. Given the limitations of a dissertation the aim was not to conduct an empirical study, but rather to obtain as much useful information as possible by using a questionnaire with rating scales and open ended questions in order to best determine efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of the training curriculum. While the analysis of the results appears to show that students experienced overall satisfaction with training, except for some modules, a trend is also noted where the programme itself has evolved by better meeting the needs of students. However, it is indicated that the programme does not adequately prepare students for the demands of private practice, and that the emphasis is too academic and less applied, which results in producing adequate knowledge but inadequate skills. Serious consideration is found to be needed regarding the relevance of the curriculum in terms of the broader South African community and needs.

M.A. / As compared with psychoanalytic and other psychotherapies, behaviour therapy appears to have three distinct advantages. First of all, the treatment approach is precise. The target behaviours to be modified are specified, the methods to be used are clearly delineated, and the results can be readily evaluated (Marks, 1982). Second, the use of explicit learning principles is a sound basis for effective interventions as a result of their demonstrated scientific validity (Kazdin & Wilson, 1978). Third, the economy of time and costs is quite good. Not surprisingly, then, the overall outcomes achieved with behaviour therapy compare favourably with those of other approaches (Smith, Glass & Miller, 1980). Behaviour therapy usually achieves results in a short period of time because it is generally directed to specific symptoms, leading to faster relief of an individual's distress and to lower financial costs. In addition, more people can be treated by a given therapist.

M.A. / Nonprofit organisations are facing a crisis of survival. The changing face of funding through the implementation of financial reform measures on government funding, new expectations from donors, decline in regular private donations and new forms of competition have all contributed to the financial constraints facing the Organisation under study. In addition, the emphasis on transforming services to embrace the developmental, strengths based approach, as well as the growing demand for services from the users themselves have called for the Organisation to reposition itself if it wants to not only survive but to succeed as well. This study focused on the Boksburg Child Welfare Society and was based on a need to develop an intervention tool that will enable the Organisation to address these changes in a creative and innovative manner. Thomas (in Grinne1,1981:591) calls for a new methodology, one where new energies can be directed to the changing tasks and methods of Social Work. Within a changing environment, a strategy in nonprofit marketing is the tool that will provide organisations with the impetus to not only work creatively but to think differently…

D.Phil. / The focus of the social work profession's efforts are the enhancing or restoring of the interaction of people with the systems that comprise their environment, i.e. their social functioning. A person's career or employment is naturally a vital system in their environment. Not only does a person earn a living from their work, but meet many psychological and emotional needs through work. Social work has been increasingly made aware of the integral part that a person's occupation plays in their intra- and interpersonal functioning. Assisting a client then, to recognize and utilize resources to make career related decisions and manage career related decisions is therefore a challenge to the profession. The purpose of this study was therefore to propose a life-counselling model, based on the life model of Germain and Gitterman that addresses a client's systemic functioning holistically, but then move son in the second phase to address career choices and management. Firstly the study presented an integrated methodological process for developing a practice model together with the necessary assessment instruments for social work research. This was essential since no methodology could be found in the literature that guided practitioners in the development of a practice model together with it's accompanying assessment instruments. Next a synthesis of current career counselling theory from the fields of psychology, education and industrial psychology, with the ecological model was presented. This formed the theoretical basis for the life-counselling model. The final stage was when four assessment instruments, namely the Sense of Agency Index, the Family of Origins Index, the Work Values Inventory and the Interest Inventory were designed, and a validation study conducted. Recommendations were made with regard to the final construction of the life counselling practice model.

M.A. / The present study was undertaken in an attempt to understand and ascertain the relation between personality traits and posttraumatic stress (PTSD) in the South African Police Service (SAPD) leading to chronic illness and work-related dysfunctions. The specific hypothesis for this study will show that by means of the Comrey Personality Scales (CPS) a statistic significant distinction between police officers with PTSD and police officers without PTSD exists. The testing of the hypothesis entailed a group of 120 functional police officers that consists of white, male nonofficers. They worked in the Pretoria area of the SAPD. The PTSD status of the subjects was assessed by means of the PTDS Interview Guide of Watson, Juba, Manifold, Kucala and Anderson (1991). Police officers that met the criteria for PTSD by means of the PTSD Interview Guide were place in one group (PTSD-group, n = 414. Police officers that did not meet the criteria were placed in another group (Non-PTSD-group, n = 79). Personality traits were measured by means of the CPS. There was a significant difference between the personality traits of the PTSDgroup in comparison with the Non-PTSD-group. The PTSD-group appears to be more compulsive and ordered, more introspective, more neurotic, more sensitive and more defensive in comparison with the Non-PTSD-group. It is postulated that these personality traits can possibly cause policemen to be more susceptible for the development of PTSD.

M.Ed. / The HIV and AIDS pandemic is changing the nature of the traditional family structure, particularly in South Africa, where the number of child-headed families is escalating and more teenagers are forced to head the home. These teenagers, are traumatised: many have suffered multiple losses (a father, mother, siblings), not to mention the possible additional losses of schooling, their hope for the future and their remaining childhoods. Hope is unlikely to emerge in teenagers left to fend for themselves and their siblings. Therefore, an approach that is both Afrocentric and ecosystemic needs to be adopted in building support structures to instil the possibility of hope in their lives. Hope, as a protective phenomenon, builds resiliency empowering teenagers heading a home to rise above their harsh circumstances. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore and describe the essence of hope in the lived experiences of teenagers heading an AIDS-orphaned home in order to make recommendations for support within the emerging inclusive educational system in South Africa. A qualitative study with a phenomenological research design was used with three teenagers from a Non-Governmental Organisation which assists child-headed households in Soweto, Gauteng. The participants were purposefully selected as hopeful — teenagers who had managed to stay in school, despite their circumstances, as a way of securing a brighter future. Data was collected through two in-depth interviews with the teenagers and included writing and drawing exercises. A story thickening the counterplot of hope in their lives, which are filled with the challenges of orphanhood, was written for each of the teenagers. The coconstructed stories were then used as data for analysis to write their descriptions of hope. Textual, structural and textual-structural descriptions of hope were written June 2008 based on the four processes of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation and synthesis. The findings generated from their stories of hope indicate that the "hopeful self" is socially constructed evolving in the spaces between people and in the interaction iii of the person with his/her environment. Some of the findings suggest that hope emerges in the context of opportunities, support and education, and needs the African spirit of "ubuntu" to sustain it. School in particular, was seen as a way to future success. On the basis of these findings, a social constructionist model for nurturing the hopeful self was recommended to help professionals in their thinking and planning of psychological support programmes for all children and teenagers identified as vulnerable. The model embraces ecosystemic thinking and envisages the hopeful self as being nurtured in three nested domains of support: the emerging inclusive education system; a network of care under the facilitation of educational psychologists based in the District Based Support Teams; and a psychological support system that has not as yet been implemented in the care children orphaned by AIDS. Psychological support is seen as crucial to ensure the emotional well-being of teenagers at risk who who are faced with the reality of heading a home at such an early age as a result of the AIDS pandemic

M.A. / The aim of the study was to investigate whether evoked potential distinguishes between motor coordinated and-uncoordinated African children. Because the brain functions as a unified entity and different brain systems are integrated simultaneously, it was postulated that there is a relationship between the auditory evoked potential of the brain stem on the one hand and motor coordination on the other hand, that is, the sensory and the motor systems are related. Sensory- motor activity is thus perceived to form a unified function within the total framework of human functioning. The relevant literature points to a possible relationship between the auditory evoked potential of the brain stem and motor coordination. Patients with degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis exhibit abnormal evoked potential responses as well as unusual motor behaviour and coordination. Similarly, children with hearing problems also show unusual evoked potential responses of the brain stem as well as motor lethargy(delayed motor responses) and clumsiness. As a result of these tendencies it was postulated that evoked potential would be able to distinguish between motor-coordinated and -uncoordinated subjects. The brain's evoked potential response is a robust phenomenon that provides a record of electrical brain activity, even in trials where overt responses are not usually expected. The present study focuses on the auditory evoked potential of the brain stem (AEP). The evoked potential serves as a measure of the sensory transmission of information in the brain and consequently highlights the neural activity underlying normal sensory experiences. The subjects selected for the study were 46 eight- to twelve-year-old African children attending a farm school. They can be regarded as representative of the population of eight- to twelve-year old African farm children. All the subjects were administered the Quick Neurological Screening Test in order to catagorise them into two groups, namely the motor-coordinated group and the motor-uncoordinated group. Thereafter the auditory evoked potential of the brain stem was recorded from all the subjects in both groups ...

M.A. (Development Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

D.Litt. et Phil. (Applied Linguistics & Literary Theory) / In this thesis I wish to state the case for, and argue the merits of, the teaching of literature as an independent subject, in standards 6 to 10, in South African high schools. I shall therefore discuss the relevant sections of the Department of Education and Culture Core Syllabi for English Second Language and for English First Language Higher Grade for Standards 8, 9 and 10. These are the syllabi on which all present departments of education base their teaching and prescription of set works and the core syllabi also represent (being for the senior standards and the Higher Grade) the highest requirements set for English Second Language and for English 2First Language in South Africa. I shall also briefly discuss the Province of Cape of Good Hope Core Syllabus for English Literature, Standard Grade, Standards 8, 9, & 10 and the Province of Cape of Good Hope Kernsillabus vir Afrikaanse Letterkunde Standaardgraad, Standerds 8- 10. (While this thesis argues mainly from the point of view of English Second Language, the Kernsillabus vir Afrikaanse Letterkunde is included, because, at the moment, it is one of the only two literature syllabi available in South Africa.) From these syllabi I shall extract the present philosophy underlying the teaching of literature, and proceed to various purposes that can be served by literature as subject and I shall propose aims, learning content, prescribed material, methodology and testing methods for such teaching, because I believe that literature is enriching and: "Enrichment programs should be an organic part of the formal curriculum, not », optional extramural activities" (Mphahlele, 1990: 46).

The finance industry is an extremely fast and complex world dominated by the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). This theory contains many assumptions which include that investors are rational utility maximisers and that market prices reflect all relevant economic information available to the public. However, over the years, a new form of financial literature known as behavioural finance has been gaining momentum. Behavioural finance seeks to bridge the gap between psychology and economics in an attempt to gain a better understanding of how markets react to different situations. Behavioural finance has also gained much attention in recent years due to the EMH’s inability to explain many economic anomalies. This study first considers the differences between behavioural finance theory and EMH theory before explaining how an individual’s mood has the ability to influence one’s risk taking preferences. Mood changes were also found to be linked to changes in the way an individual reacts to different situations, the way they thinks and processes thoughts. Negative events were also found to have a greater influence on an individual’s mood than positive events did, resulting in an asymmetric relationship between positive and negative results. This study then examines numerous studies indicating how non-economic events can have a statistical and significant influence on stock market returns before analysing previous literature where sport was found to influence market prices. The aim of this study is to determine if South African national sporting performance can influence investors in such a way that it has the ability to impact on market returns. Using standard event study methodology, this study determines the constant mean return using the daily All-Share price index on the JSE for the period of 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2010. This study focuses on three of South Africa’s most popular sports, namely soccer, cricket and rugby and examine if these three sports have the ability to influence market returns. Although there is some evidence of a relationship between stock returns and sporting performance in the descriptive analysis, the regression results indicate that sporting performance in South Africa does not significantly explain abnormal market returns on the JSE. The study provides a number of possible reasons for this finding and concludes by suggesting areas for future research.