This study deals with pastoral guidance for persons who, due to unresolved trauma, are often emotionally and spiritually wounded and consequently exhibit internalised lies. Some important questions relating to this theme put on the table here include the following: * What is the origin of an internalised lie? * What effect do these lies have on the life of the wounded person? * What is truth and how can it be discerned? * How can the wounded person be guided and protected in the renewal of his/her thinking? The basic–theoretical research shows that being emotionally wounded and the accompanying internalisation of lies usually take place during childhood. This is the period when the child does not have the verbal, emotional or spiritual competence to interpret correctly or assimilate trauma and the accompanying injury. Further it transpires that the emotionally wounded person is engaged in a daily struggle with Satan and that the struggle mainly lodges in his heart and thoughts, and is based on lies. From this section it is also clear that only truth can overcome the onslaught of Satan's misrepresentation and that the truth can only be reached in a relationship with Jesus Christ. The wounded person has the choice of whom to follow, Satan or Jesus. It is therefore essential for such a person to take up the daily responsibility for the renewal and control of his mind. For this the Lord provides special weapons with which the struggle for renewal of one?s thoughts can successfully be approached. Meta–theoretical research has shown that optimal brain functioning is of cardinal importance in the renewal of the mind since behaviour, personality, cognitive ability, emotions as well as thoughts all originate in the brain. The brain is the most complex organ in the human body and the way it functions affects a person?s choices, vision and personality as well as success or failure in life. In the case of a person manifesting broken relationships or compulsive behaviour patterns, it must first be ascertained whether the brain functions correctly before labelling the person with some or other abnormality. The study shows that the brain does have the ability to recover with the help of diet and exercise as well as attitude of mind. The empirical study involved six collaborators who had been exposed to inter–generative trauma and consequently had exhibited internalised lies. Information relevant to trauma, medical background, head injuries and the family of origin was collected and after being processed, was presented in a genogram. The structure and style of every family as well as the role of the particular respondent in every family was represented schematically and explained to the respondent. From the practical–theoretical section it clearly emerged that emotional and spiritual healing can only take place by means of God's Word and his truth. In this respect it is essential that the injured person should take daily responsibility regarding the renewal of his mind. After all, transformation is a process demanding patience and practice as well as faith in Christ and it is clear that there are no shortcuts to healing. To reach the necessary goals in this process an integrated holistic approach is necessary where the different neighbouring sciences are involved. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Self-concept structure has been extensively studied in the literature especially with regard to its relationship with psychological adjustment. However, the behavioral outcomes of the cognitive structure of the self and the mechanisms through which the relationship between self-concept structure and psychological adjsutment operate are still to be maintained. This study offered that the two dimensions of self-concept structure, differention and integration, would be related to the two dimensions of behavioral flexibility: Behavioral repertoire and deliberate adjustment of behaviors. iv Differentiation, tapping behavioral repertoire, was assumed to determine whether a person is flexible or rigid, while integration tapping deliberate adjustment were supposed to determine the quality of flexibility (i.e., whether the repertoire is controlled by the individual or by situational factors). By crossing these two dimensions, a model with four behavioral patterns was proposed: (1) Functional flexibility, characterized by both high integration and high differentiation / (2) situational flexibility, characterized by high differentiation but low integration / (3) stereotypical rigidity, characterized by low differentiation but high integration, and (4) effacing rigidity, which is low on both dimensions. Three studies were conducted on university students (N = 163, N = 123 and N = 242 for the three studies respectively) in order to test this model. Results revealed that the behavioral repertoire dimension of behavioral flexibility was linked to selfconcept differentiation, whereas the deliberate adjustment dimension was related to selfconcept integration. Functional flexibility and effacing rigidity patterns were clearly specified by measures of psychological adjustment, locus of control, need for cognition, need for approval and Big Five dimensions. Stereotypical rigidity and situational flexibilty patterns, however, seemed to require more elaboration. The model offering that flexibility mediates the link between self-concept structure and self-esteem was not supported.

Functional vision refers to the use of vision to perform day-day tasks and is assessed by the ability to perform these tasks. Assessment of functional vision is an integral component of the management of children with visual impairment. The results of the assessment help in designing appropriate educational and rehabilitation intervention strategies. The L V Prasad-Functional Vision Questionnaire (LVP-FVQ) is a reliable and valid tool for assessing self-reported functional vision performance (FVP) in children. Self-reports are obviously the child's perception of his or her ability to perform certain tasks but they may not reflect actual performance. Various studies of FVP in adults have used actual performance measures of everyday tasks, but very few studies, even in adults with visual impairment, have compared self-reports and performance measures and none have included identical tasks on the 2 methods of assessment. To date, no study has assessed FVP using performance measures of daily tasks in the paediatric population. Therefore, the aims of the current study were: (1) To develop performance measures of FVP and compare them with self-reports of FVP from the LVP-FVQ in a prospective cohort of Indian school-going children with visual impairment. (2) To investigate the effect of a psychological attribute, self-concept, on self-reports, performance measures and the relationships between the 2 measures. (3) To investigate the relationship between clinical measures of vision and FVP. Performance measures of FVP for children with visual impairment were developed for 17 day to day tasks for comparison with self-reports of the same tasks for the LVP-FVQ. The LVP-FVQ was verbally administered by the researcher to 178 Indian school-going children aged between 8 and 17 years with visual impairment. Similarly, the performance of each of the tasks by these children was measured by the researcher. The performance measures for most of these tasks were recorded on continuous scales and later categorized to match the ordinal ratings from the LVP-FVQ. The self-report and performance measure ratings for the 17 tasks were then converted into the same metric using a Rasch model allowing an accurate picture of whether and how these two measures of FVP compared with each other. Rasch analysis was used to estimate the person ability and item difficulty for FVP from the 2 methods of assessment. Self-reports showed stronger correlations with performance measures of FVP than were hypothesized. Similar to some studies in adults, binocular high-contrast visual acuity was found to be the single most significant predictor of a child's functional vision performance. Contrary to expectations, self-concept did not have a significant effect on the relationship between the 2 measures. A few reasons for the stronger than expected relationship between the 2 methods of assessment of FVP in children with visual impairment are suggested. Firstly, the use of identical tasks for self-reports and performance measures of FVP is likely to improve the relationship. Secondly, the LVP-FVQ was developed using focus groups of children with visual impairment, their parents, low vision specialists and rehabilitation professionals leading to good content validity. Since children were included in the development of the LVP-FVQ, the tasks were representative of a child's typical daily life. Thus, the performance measures were also suited to the day-day tasks of school-going children but were not tapping any social and psychological issues relating to visual impairment. Thirdly, the use of Rasch analysis which addresses many of the issues of unequal measurement and defines a hierarchy of items for self-reports and performance measures could have led to higher correlations in the present study. Finally, the high reliability and validity of self-reports and performance measures of FVP in the present study may have contributed to the higher than expected correlations. None of the demographic variables or self-concept affected the relationship between self-reports and performance measures of FVP, but self-concept had a weak significant association with self-reports. This result is unique to this study and warrants further investigation. Binocular high-contrast visual acuity alone, the most common visual function measured in ophthalmic clinics, explained between one-third and two-thirds of the variance in functional vision performance. This confirms the expected trend that with worse visual impairment, FVP is lower. The addition of the variable, self-concept, resulted in a very small increase in the variability explained for self-reported FVP. Similarly, the addition of other clinical measures of vision such as binocular low contrast visual acuity and colour vision resulted in a small increase in the variability explained for performance measures of FVP. The correlation between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and performance measures of FVP was statistically significantly higher than that between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and self-reports of FVP. There are a few possible reasons for this higher correlation. Firstly, performance measures are considered to be a more "objective" form of assessment, while self-reports are a child's perception of his or her ability and therefore lack a context, which may result in either over-estimation or under-estimation of actual ability. Furthermore, performance measures include dimensions such as the time taken to perform a task or other criteria specific to a task, while self-reports do not use such qualifiers. Secondly, the higher correlation may be the result of the visual complexity of some of the tasks. While self-concepts of children with visual impairment played a small but significant role in the self-reported FVP, studies in adults with visual impairment have suggested that other psychological factors such as mood, anxiety, motivation etc. are associated with an individual's perception of visual performance. Future studies are required to explore the possible role of these and other factors in FVP in Indian school-going children with visual impairment. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the field of paediatric low vision rehabilitation by providing performance measures of FVP and relating them to self-reports in children with visual impairment and their relationship with common measures of visual function. With self-reports, the child is reporting his or her perception of ability to complete a task, where performance measures examine the child's ability to complete a task by observing his or her performance. Thus, although the two methods are comparable, it is because of the different yields from each of these measures that they are not considered interchangeable. A combination of the 2 measures where practical would perhaps provide a richer depiction of the FVP of children with visual impairment. As developing countries such as India have limited resources allocated for eye care services where less than seven percent of the gross national product is spent on health care, self-reports can be utilized together with clinical measures of vision (mainly visual acuity) to assess the FVP in children with visual impairment in a community setting. However, both methods of assessment of FVP together with clinical measures of vision are essential if a comprehensive assessment of FVP is to be carried out in children with visual impairment. Information from these assessments can help clinicians better understand the functioning of children with visual impairment and incorporate them in the management of low vision in school-going children with visual impairment in India.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

This study investigates differences in academic achievement and self-concept of students enrolled in a traditional public school program and a public school Montessori program. The attitudes of parents of students are also compared. The population includes 182 experimental and control kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade students in a Texas metropolitan school district.

Syftet med studien är att förstå hur två gymnasieelever i läs- och skrivsvårigheter, på olika yrkesprogram, upplever sin undervisning i kursen Engelska 5. Följande frågeställningar har valts för att nå studiens syfte: Hur upplever eleverna att deras läs- och skrivsvårigheter påverkat deras studieresultat i kursen Engelska 5? Hur upplever eleverna att studieresultaten i kursen Engelska 5 påverkat den akademiska självbilden? Hur upplever eleverna olika bedömningspraktiker i engelskundervisningen? Studien har en kvalitativ ansats med livsberättelseintervju som metod. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten i studien är fenomenologi och Amedo Giorgis femstegsmodell har tillämpats för att analysera studiens data. I resultatet framkommer att eleverna upplever att deras läs- och skrivsvårigheter har påverkat både studieresultatet i kursen Engelska 5 och den akademiska självbilden negativt. De upplever att undervisningens upplägg, med stora undervisningsgrupper, begränsat lärarstöd och inga stödinsatser, är bidragande orsaker till att de inte lyckats nå kunskapskraven i kursen Engelska 5. Eleverna upplever att den muntliga feedbacken från läraren är mest effektiv för kunskapsinhämtandet samt att strategin kamratbedömning upplevs som negativ på grund av nya gruppkonstellationer varje läsår i kursen Engelska 5. Båda elever anser att de kommer ut i ett yrke efter gymnasiestudierna oavsett om de lyckas nå kunskapskraven i kursen Engelska 5 eller ej. / The purpose of the study is to understand how two students in upper secondary school, with reading- and writing difficulties, experience their education in the course English 5. To clarify and deepen the aim of the study three questions have been used: Do the students experience that their reading- and writing difficulties have affected their academic results? In what way do the students experience that their academic results have affected their academic self-concept? How do the students experience different types of assessment? The study has a qualitative approach with life stories as a method and the theoretical frame of the study is phenomenology. Amedo Giorgi's five steps model has been used to analyze the data of the study. The results show that the students experience that their reading- and writing difficulties have affected both their academic results and their academic self-concept negatively. They experience that the structure of their lessons, with big classes, limited teacher support and no special educational support, affect their possibility to accomplish the knowledge requirements. The students experience that the oral feedback from the teacher is the most important thing to accomplish knowledge. The strategy peer review is experienced as negative due to new classes every semester in the course English 5. Both students are convinced that they will be employable after their studies regardless if they have accomplished the knowledge requirements in the course English 5 or not.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T16:34:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EDUARLApg1_90.pdf: 536997 bytes, checksum: 2d88f4f2ed8086799deacdb951348683 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-23 / Resilience is a construct that refers to the ability of human beings to successfully face the adversities of life, overcome them and even be strengthened or changed by them. Fields of psychology research, such as Health Psychology, Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Behavior, have considered the resilience as an important way to understand the positive and healthy aspects of human beings. This work aims to expand knowledge about the resilience and their relations with other constructs in the organizational context. For this, the objective of this research was to verify the predictive capacity of intragroup conflict (relationship and task), of social support at work (emotional, informational and instrumental) and of professional self-concept (health, realization, self-confidence and competence) on resilience (positive adaptation or acceptance of change, spirituality, resignation towards life, personal competence and persistence in the face of difficulty) of military police. The study included 133 military police officers of a battalion in the state of Sao Paulo, prevailing male subjects (97.7%), mean age 30 years (SD = 5.7). The following scales were used to measure the variables:Resilience Rating Scale reduced, Intragroup Conflict Scale, the Scale of Perceived Social Support at Work and Self-Concept Scale. The data were submitted to descriptive calculations and at analyses of multiple lineal regression standard. The results indicated that the model that grouped the antecedent variables (intragroup conflict, social support at work and professional selfconcept) significantly explained the variance of the dimensions of resilience: 30% of persistence in the face of difficulties, 29% of positive adaptation or acceptance of change, 28% of personal competence and 11% of spirituality. Variables that were statistically significant impact on persistence in the face of difficulties were emotional support at work, whose direction of the prediction was opposite, and confidence, whose direction of prediction was direct. Positive adaptation or acceptance of change was as inverse predictor the health and as direct predictor the self-confidence. The personal competence had a significant impact on the variable selfconfidence, wich was a direct predictor. Spirituality, in turn, had a single significant predictor, the variable realization, whose direction of prediction was direct. The results suggest that among the independent variables, the professional self-concept demonstrated greater explanatory power of the variance in resilience. In light of the theory of the area were discussed these findings. Finally,limitations and the suggestion a research agenda that confirm and expand the results of this research were presented. / A resiliência é um construto que remete à habilidade do ser humano de ter êxito frente às adversidades da vida, superá-las e inclusive, ser fortalecido ou transformado por elas. Campos de investigações da psicologia, como Psicologia da Saúde, Psicologia Positiva e Comportamento Organizacional Positivo, têm considerado a resiliência como uma importante via para a compreensão dos aspectos positivos e saudáveis dos indivíduos. Este trabalho pretendeu ampliar o conhecimento acerca da resiliência e suas relações com outros construtos no contexto organizacional. Para isto, definiu-se como objetivo geral deste estudo verificar a capacidade preditiva do conflito intragrupal (tarefa e relacionamento), do suporte social no trabalho (emocional, informacional e instrumental) e do autoconceito profissional (saúde, realização, autoconfiança e competência) sobre a resiliência (adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, espiritualidade, resignação diante da vida, competência pessoal e persistência diante das dificuldades) de policiais militares. Participaram do estudo 133 policiais militares de um batalhão do interior do estado de São Paulo, prevalecendo indivíduos do sexo masculino (97,7%), com idade média de 30 anos (DP= 5,7). Para a medida das variáveis foram utilizadas as seguintes escalas validadas: Escala de Avaliação de Resiliência reduzida, Escala de Conflitos Intragrupais, Escala de Percepção de Suporte Social no Trabalho e a Escala de Autoconceito Profissional. Os dados foram submetidos a cálculos descritivos e a análises de regressão linear múltipla padrão. Os resultados indicaram que o modelo que reunia as variáveis antecedentes (conflito intragrupal, suporte social no trabalho e autoconceito profissional) explicou significativamente a variância das dimensões da resiliência: 30% da persistência diante das dificuldades, 29% da adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, 28% da competência pessoal e 11% da espiritualidade. As variáveis que tiveram impacto estatisticamente importante sobre a persistência diante das dificuldades foram o suporte emocional no trabalho, cuja direção da predição foi inversa, e autoconfiança, cuja direção da predição foi direta. A adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças teve como preditor inverso a variável saúde e como preditor direto a autoconfiança. A competência pessoal teve impacto significativo da variável autoconfiança, que se mostrou um preditor direto. A espiritualidade, por sua vez, teve um único preditor significante, a variável realização, cuja direção da predição foi direta. Os resultados sugerem que dentre as variáveis antecedentes, o autoconceito profissional evidenciou maior poder de explicação da variância da resiliência. À luz da literatura da área foram discutidos estes achados. Por fim, foram apresentadas as limitações e a proposta de uma agenda de pesquisa que contribua para confirmação e ampliação dos resultados desta investigação.

Denna studie har, genom en tvärsektionell design, undersökt relationen mellan positiv och negativ självbild och fyra aspekter av internaliserad och externaliserad problematik. Självskattningsinstrumenten Structural Analysis of Social Behavior och Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire har fyllts i av en klinisk grupp bestående av 327 ungdomar i åldrarna 12 - 19 år. Data har analyserats med hjälp av stiganalys. Resultatet visade en positiv relation mellan negativ självbild och både uppförandeproblem och emotionell problematik, samt en negativ relation mellan positiv självbild och emotionell problematik. Sammanfattningsvis tyder resultatet från denna studie på att en klinisk ungdomsgrupp har liknande relation mellan självbild och problembeteende som ungdomar utan psykopatologisk problematik; där en negativ självbild associeras med mer- och en positiv självbild associeras med mindre problembeteenden. Studiens resultat accentuerar betydelsen av att inkludera både interpersonella och intrapersonella aspekter när problembeteenden utreds och behandlas. / This study examined the relationship between positive and negative self-concept and four aspects of internalized and externalized problem behaviors, through a cross-sectional design. The self-assessment instruments Structural Analysis of Social Behavior and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were completed by a clinical group consisting of 327 adolescents aged 12-19 years. Data were analyzed through path analysis. The results showed a positive relationship between negative self-concept and both behavioral and emotional problems, as well as a negative relationship between positive self-concept and emotional problems. In conclusion, the result of this study suggests that a clinical youth group has a similar relationship between self-concept and problem behavior as do young people without psychopathological problems; where a negative self-concept is associated with more- and a positive self-concept is associated with less problem behaviors. The study's results accentuate the importance of including both interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects when problem behavior is investigated and treated.

This study sought to determine the effectiveness of an instructional program for developing creative thinking, a positive self-concept, and leadership among intellectually and academically gifted elementary students in grades four, five, and six. The purposes of the study were to determine the effect of experimental treatment on test scores measuring creativity, self-concept, and leadership; to compare the performance of the moderately intellectually gifted with that of the highly intellectually gifted; to determine whether boys or girls benefited more from instruction; and to determine whether fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-grade students achieved greater test gains after experimental treatment.