Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1997. / Title from title page screen, viewed June 1, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Paul Baker (chair), Dianne Ashby, Sandra Corless, Anita Lupo. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-224) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 24, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 92-96)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--RAND Graduate School, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-186). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-135). Also available on the Internet.

D. Ed. (Adolescent Guidance) / An excessive amount of literature is currently available in the field of selfdevelopment. The sale of books, self-help courses, and the attendance of programmes in this regard have reached higher levels than ever before. It is impossible for the average person to assimilate all the available information, and unfortunately most of these learning materials were never verified to prove their results. It is undeniable that a need for self-development and enhancement programmes does exist - it is however necessary that they are evaluated to establish whether they do indeed work, and that they integrate some of the information to cover as broad an area as possible of the intrapersonal sphere of influence, without overloading the individual learner. In this study, a wide-ranging literature study lead to the researcher concluding that most information in the domain of intrapersonal enhancement can be divided into three primary categories. The first category, the Life Script, which is primarily formed during the childhood years and strengthened or altered by adult experiences, includes all the issues, events and endeavors of the individual's life that made him/her what he/she is today. The second category is the Life Plan, which is future-oriented and represents the dreams, desires and ambitions of the person. The final category is the Strategies, and contains the techniques and skills the individual needs to move from category one, the "as is"/Life Script-scenario, to the second category, the "to be"/Life Plan-scenario. Roughly guided by the 80/20 principle the researcher separated the "vital few'' from the "trivial many" and through the reasoning processes of analysis, derivation and synthesis, supplemented by personal experience in the field, generated a new conceptual framework for intrapersonal enhancement. A cyclical model, based on this conceptual framework, is postulated and described in detail, and showed the way for the development and compilation of the "Du Toit Self-Enhancement Programme." This programme is evaluated through research methodology that is qualitative, explorative, descriptive, and contextual in nature. Ten respondents within a corporate environment attended the programme, and their experiences in this regard explored through phenomenological interviews, reflective diaries, and field notes. The data was analysed, coded and categorized, and the results discussed in detail. The results suggested the existence of two main themes regarding the experiences of the respondents. The first theme is the experiences of change initiated by the programme, including all alterations to the established way of doing, thinking or feeling. The second theme is the experience of the utility value of the programme, including all experiences regarding the usefulness and profitability of the programme. From the discussion of the research results it is evident that the programme had a major effect on the individual learners. It can be concluded that the programme achieved its goal, which is, based on a new conceptual framework on intrapersonal development, to teach and facilitate optimal intrapersonal enhancement. The study's ultimate goal has also been achieved, which is the creation of an integrated and unique conceptual framework on intrapersonal behaviour, and the verification of the programme based on it.

M.Ed. / In Chapter One, light was shed on the description of the problem, the outline of the problem, the methodology used and clarification of some of the concepts that were used in this research. The problem that the Department of Education faced after 1994 was that there had been no system of evaluating the performance of schools or comprehensive data on the quality of teaching and learning or standards achieved in South African schools. These problems led to the introduction of the policy on Whole School Evaluation, which aims at analyzing the performance of schools, and also to help schools improve. This study therefore investigated the way in which this policy is implemented and the role-played by school districts. A focused literature review was conducted and a structured questionnaire was used. Chapter Two focused on the review of literature based on THE ROLE OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WHOLE SCHOOL EVALUATION. The main aim of the research project was to see how school district teams provide support to schools in the implementation of WSE, which would lead to improvements at schools, and the enhancement of education. Against this background, the question is: How will schools benefit from the implementation of WSE? The study supports the view that schools, educators and school districts need to be accountable to their clients, and the department must ensure that all learners receive quality education. To achieve this, schools need to be evaluated and supported so that suitable strategies are put in place and a suitable range of management information is made available to enhance performance. From the literature review, it became clear that, in countries where WSE has been implemented, the accountability of stakeholders has increased and the performance of schools has improved with the help of recommendations that translate into School Improvement Plans (SIP). The design of the research was explained in Chapter Three. A description of the empirical investigation was provided. The questionnaire was discussed and the course of the research was briefly outlined. The items (questions) were arranged into three factors and ranked according to their mean scores. One of the questions that ranked high was the question that aimed at finding out if respondents thought that WSE should be conducted at all schools. This question had a mean score of 5,08, which means the majority of respondents (81,5%) agreed or strongly agreed that WSE should be conducted in all schools, probably because it is mandated. The analysis and interpretation of the empirical data were discussed in Chapter Four. The construction validity of the research instrument was investigated by means of two successive factor analytical procedures that reduce the 50 items to just three factors namely: • The extent to which educators feel positive about WSE (FB) 25 items with a Gronbach-alpha-reliability coefficient of 0,9202. • The general support (indirect) provided by school districts to schools (FC 1): 17 items with a Gronbach-alpha-reliability coefficient of 0,9202. • The specific (direct) support provided by school districts to school (FC 2): 7 items with a Gronbach-alpha-reliability coefficient of 0,8802. The three factors could thus serve as a basis for evaluating the role of school districts in the implementation of WSE. The detailed statistical analysis of the research was confined to a comparison of one example of two independent groups and one example of three or more independent groups. Hypotheses were set and multivariate statistics were used to analyse and interpret the data. The Hotelling T² test was used to examine the difference in the vector means if the two factors were taken together. Where significant differences were found at multivariate level, they were further investigated by means of the Student t-test. For three or more groups, the multivariate hypothesis on, for example, age was investigated, using the MANOVA. Where there was a statistically significant differences, the researcher investigated further by means of Scheffe and Dunnett T3 tests. After this summary of the aspects discussed during the research, findings emanating from the research are made. These findings are now briefly examined and recommendations for the role of the school district in the implementation of WSE are made.

D.Phil. / In the Republic of South Africa, higher education institutions today are challenged with the need to address a number of pressing demands. In a new democratic dispensation and following the imperatives set out in the National Plan for Higher Education in South Africa (2001), universities have widened participation to students from all population groups. With the ultimate goal of successful throughput, equal opportunity and access must be provided to all prospective students. However, already in 1996 it was acknowledged that equity of access needs to be combined with equity of success. The White paper (1997, clause 1.18) underlines that the principle of equity requires “fair opportunities both to enter higher education programmes and to succeed in them.” Though equity of access, and hence a more representative student body has been greatly achieved, present statistics and national research findings still confirm ignificant challenges in the retention and successful throughput of students. These results suggest that challenges in this regard remain unresolved. A less contradictory relationship between access to university education and academic success at university level needs to be cultivated. More effective admission and selection decisions, together with the identification of accurate predictors of academic success, can make a positive contribution in solving this dilemma. In the past, selection and placement decisions for studying at a university were made primarily on the basis of performance-related criteria and other cognitive variables. In this study the researcher wanted to determine whether the non-cognitive factor of personality, more particularly as it is represented in the Big Five model of personality (Digman,1990; McCrae & Costa,1987; Goldberg,1990), can be used as predictor of academic achievement (and consequently as a proposed instrument of selection and placement) in a multicultural South African context. The Big Five model of personality represents a hierarchical organisation of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions called Extraversion, Neuroticism, conscientiousness, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness (McCrae & John, 1992). Although the predictive validity of the Big Five factors in academic achievement has often been researched internationally, less research in this area has been completed in South Africa. Recent work in South Africa showed that measurement equivalence across population groups can be established for South African samples; less work had been done on the equivalence across population groups of the predictive validity of the Big Five factors with reference to academic performance. The overarching aim of the present study was therefore to investigate the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and the academic achievement of first-year B Com university students in South Africa, as well as to examine whether these relationships are equivalent for African and white students. In order to achieve this goal the incremental predictive validity of the Big Five personality factors, compared to cognitive ability, in the academic achievement of students was explored. In addition, the predictive value of Population group above and beyond that of intelligence and personality traits was researched. The possible interaction between the Big Five personality factors and Population group was explored in the final step.