published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The professional literature contains little or no documentation of university curriculum in adult education that deals with ethical practice. Nor is there evidence indicating what graduate students learn about ethics in their professional studies.Purposes of this study were to identify: (a) the extent to which university graduates, at the doctoral level, in adult education were aware of ethical dilemmas in their practice; (b) how practitioners determined ethical behavior; (c) the influence of graduate studies on determining ethical situations; (d) self perceptions of preparedness to face ethical dilemmas; and (e) the extent to which adult educators rely on codes of ethics.The study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Are adult education practitioners aware of ethical dilemmas in their practice? (b) How often do they encounter ethical dilemmas in their practice? (c) Do they have a way to determine ethical behavior in their practice? (d) How do they describe the impact of their graduate work on their ability to make ethical decisions? (e) How do they perceive their preparedness to face ethical dilemmas? (f) Do they consider codes of ethics when making decisions?Findings include: (a) over 90% of the respondents indicated they are aware of ethical dilemmas/situations in their work; (b) while all respondents indicated that they faced ethical dilemmas in areas such as program planning, marketing of programs, evaluation of programs, and in the teaching of adults approximately two thirds said they encountered them infrequently; (c) virtually all respondents indicated they had determined what ethical behavior was in their practice and cited personal values and religious beliefs as the two primary sources of information; (d) 83.3% of participants described graduate work as a significant factor in their ability to make ethical decisions; (e) s significant majority (89.0%) of participants indicated they were very well or well prepared to face ethical dilemmas; and (f) less than half indicated they used a code of ethics in their decision making process.Conclusions from the study include: (a) ethical dilemmas are perceived to be pervasive in the practice of adult education, (b) a person's own value system and religious beliefs were the most influential on impacting the way participants approached ethical dilemmas, (c) although professional knowledge obtained in graduate school was deemed influential, it was not deemed more important than one's personal values and beliefs.Recommendations include: (a) further study is needed to probe the specific elements raised on evaluation of students as an area of ethical concern, (b) further study could reveal why practitioners differ with regard to the frequency of encountering dilemmas, (c) if a deeper understanding of the value of graduate school is to be achieved more study is necessary, (d) a clearer understanding of the value of codes of ethics is needed. / Department of Educational Leadership

This study explores and attempts to shed light on what motivates teachers and how teacher motivation is affected by a principal's leadership style. The worldviews of pragmatism and critical realism were used as the basis for exploring teacher motivation in a South African school. A primary school in the Eastern Cape of South Africa was chosen for the case study. Three data gathering tools, a leadership questionnaire, teacher survey, and interviews were used to generate data on teacher motivation and the interaction between leadership style and teacher motivation. In regards to teachers, religion, social justice, and self-efficacy were all identified as motivators. The principal was strongly charismatic in her leadership and along with transformational and social justice leadership played a major role in influencing teacher behaviors. Self-determination theory was identified as helping to explain different levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and thereby to better understand varying degrees of teacher motivation. There are many difficulties in South African education and around the world in general and this study is premised on the belief that if teacher motivation can be studied and advanced there will be an improvement in education and learning. This thesis was limited in its scope and ability to fully explore the different levels of ontology as outlined by the critical realist and this is identified as a possible future course of action for not only studying teacher motivation but getting to the 'heart of the matter'.

This study examines the effects of educators’ professional conduct on learners’ academic performance. The researcher used quantitative research methodology and design. Data was collected in eighty primary schools, mostly in a disadvantaged context, in the Vhembe District in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A researcher-designed questionnaire was administered to eighty primary-school principals who were randomly selected. The research revealed that the implementation of the educators’ code of professional ethics may improve the quality of educators. The achievement of high learner academic performance may be determined by the manner in which principals lead, manage and encourage educators to adhere to the tenets of professional conduct. This research also revealed that although educators are aware of professional conduct, they show unprofessional behaviour such as disrespecting learners, leaving class unsupervised, excessive use of mobile phones during lessons, and excessive absenteeism. Learners who lack effective educator support tend to achieve lower results than expected. Learners whose educators behave professionally achieve good academic performance. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

M. Tech. Public Management / The aim of this research is to test different opinions of whether there are instances of unethical and corrupt activities in Academic higher educational institutions in South Africa and to also discover the types of unethical behaviour and corruption taking place if any, in order to come-up with remedial measures. The participants in this research are the academic and administrative personnel. Participants are aware of what is expected of them by management within their different academic higher educational institutions. They can be able to detect instances of unethical and corrupt acts by their colleagues and these will allow them to make a valuable contribution in this research.

This study examines the effects of educators’ professional conduct on learners’ academic performance. The researcher used quantitative research methodology and design. Data was collected in eighty primary schools, mostly in a disadvantaged context, in the Vhembe District in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A researcher-designed questionnaire was administered to eighty primary-school principals who were randomly selected. The research revealed that the implementation of the educators’ code of professional ethics may improve the quality of educators. The achievement of high learner academic performance may be determined by the manner in which principals lead, manage and encourage educators to adhere to the tenets of professional conduct. This research also revealed that although educators are aware of professional conduct, they show unprofessional behaviour such as disrespecting learners, leaving class unsupervised, excessive use of mobile phones during lessons, and excessive absenteeism. Learners who lack effective educator support tend to achieve lower results than expected. Learners whose educators behave professionally achieve good academic performance. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

Education in Swaziland is faced with the challenge of degenerating professional standards among teachers. This study sought to determine the relevance of the current teacher training curriculum in preparing pre-service teachers on professional ethics regarding teacher-pupil relationships. The study’s participants were from two universities; University of Swaziland (UNISWA) and Southern Africa Nazarene University (SANU), and three teacher-training colleges; William Pitcher, Ngwane, and Swaziland College of Technology. Participants comprised five purposefully selected heads of education departments, five focus groups of eight final year student teachers randomly selected from each institution, 100 new teachers with less than five years teaching experience (graduates) from the participating teacher training institutions. Data were collected concurrently using a semi-structured interview for the heads of department, focus group interviews for student teachers, a questionnaire for new teachers and document analysis for collecting data from documents of the institutions. Instruments were pilot tested on samples with similar characteristics to those of the participants. Data analysis was guided by the research questions. Qualitative data from the interviews and focus group interviews were analysed inductively, presented narratively through the use of verbatim quotations. Content analysis was used to analyse data from the documents and presented similarly to that from interviews. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics such as means, frequencies and percentages using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20. Findings of the study revealed that the extent to which teacher training institutions implemented professional ethics regarding teacher-pupil relationships was not as adequate as it should, in terms of content and methods of implementation. The teacher training institutions generally offered professional ethics not as a course but as part of a course or courses. Therefore, the study recommended that the curricula in teacher training institutions should incorporate a course specific to ethics of the teaching profession. A further study on challenges faced by teacher training institutions in the implementation of the curriculum on professional ethics is necessary. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

1 juli år 2013 trädde en ny skollag i kraft i Sverige. Den nya lagen ger papperslösa barn i Sverige rätt till utbildning. Detta gäller både om barnet har fått avslag av Migrationsverket på sin uppehållstillståndsansökan och om barnet lever gömt och inte sökt uppehållstillstånd. Idag har papperslösa barn rätt till utbildning men detta innebär inte att dessa barn har en skolplikt, utan det avgör barnet själv eller familjen till det papperslösa barnet om rätten ska nyttjas. Denna valfrihet leder till att flera papperslösa barn inte utnyttjar sin rätt till utbildning. Det finns flera orsaker till detta som exempelvis att många papperslösa familjer inte känner till den nya skollagen och att polisen de facto har rätt att omhänderta en papperslös elev från skolan. Då det inte existerar någon garanti för att den papperslösa elevens trygghet i skolan väljer många papperslösa familjer bort denna rättighet på grund av rädslan att barnet skall bli omhändertaget av polisen. I samband med detta har vi identifierat olika dilemman för lärare, dilemman som uppstår vid en sammanstötning mellan lärares yrkesetik och lärares lagstadgade plikter såsom anmälningsplikt. I Sverige har lärare en skyldighet att anmäla, om de misstänker eller får kännedom om att ett barn far illa skall de meddela socialtjänsten. Denna anmälningsplikt orsakar ett stort dilemma för lärare då konsekvensen av en anmälning kan bli förödande för den enskilde papperslösa eleven och dennes familj. För att få en klarare bild av lärarnas dilemman utförde vi intervjuer med olika lärare på Skånska skolor. Vid intervjutillfällena fick vi förklarat för oss att dilemmat med anmälningsplikten och skyddande av papperslösa elever är någonting som lärare fruktar. Utifrån Barnkonventionen, lärares yrkesetik, tystnadsplikt samt specifik skolsekretess kan lärare skydda den enskilde papperslösa eleven. Dock så finns rädslan kvar bland lärarna om vad som händer om en specifik situation leder till att socialtjänsten måste kontaktas. Resultatet av analysen ger en bild av att lärares yrkesetik inte är så stark som andra yrkesetiker, således kan lärare stå upp mot andra myndigheter och neka deras begäran om tillträdde på skolan. / July 1 2013 a new law entered into force in Sweden. The new Education Act gives undocumented children in Sweden right to education. This is regardless whether the child has been rejected by the Migration Board on their residence permit application and shall be rejected or if the child lives in hiding and has not applied for a residence permit. Today, undocumented children's right to education does not mean that undocumented children have a school attendance, this determines the child himself or the family of the undocumented child´s the right to be utilized. This choice leads too many undocumented children do not exercise their right to education. There are several reasons for this, such that many undocumented families are not aware of the new Education Act, but also that the police actually have the right to seize an undocumented student from school. Then there exists no guarantee that the undocumented student's safety at school, many undocumented families declines this right because of the fear of being found and cared for by the police. In connection with this issue, we have identified various dilemmas for teachers, dilemmas that arise when there is a clash between teachers' professional ethics' and teachers' statutory obligations such as notification requirements to authority. In Sweden, teachers have an obligation to notify if they suspect or become aware that a child is being abused to social services. This notification requirement causes a big dilemma for teachers as the consequence of a notification can be devastating for the individual undocumented student and their family. To get a view of the teacher's dilemmas, we conducted interviews with teachers from Skåne. In the interviews we got told by teachers that the dilemma with the notification requirements and protection of undocumented students is something that teachers fear. Thanks to the Convention of Children´s Rights, teachers' professional ethics, teacher´s obligation to observe silence and confidentiality that exists at the school, teachers can protect the individual undocumented student. However, there are fears remain in the teachers about what happens if it comes to the situation where a claim must be made to social services. The results of the analysis gave us that the teachers' professional ethics is not as strong as other professional ethics so that teachers can stand up to other authorities and deny their request for the entry of the school.