Magister Educationis - MEd / This case study explored the lessons arising from the implementation of the Insurance Preparedness Project. This was a pilot project funded by the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority as part of a strategy for transforming the insurance industry and to establish a model for learnership implementation.Financial services industry. / South Africa

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Career indecision is one of the key aspects that professionals in career guidance counselling are interested in assessing. Career indecision, in the context of university students has been defined as the "inability to select a university major or occupation" (Borgen & Hiebert,2006, p. 58). Thus, with the purpose of addressing career indecision, the proposed study would examine the nature thereof amongst prospective university students. The prevalence of specific aspects of career maturity (namely, self-information, decision-making, career information,integration of self-information and career information, and career planning) underlying career indecision will be investigated, as well as the correlations between these aspects. In addition, the correlations between the aspects of career maturity and certain biographical variables such as gender, home language, declared career choice, differentiation of interests, and self-reported level of career indecision will be examined. Thus, career indecision is encapsulated as either a trait or state an individual encompasses. The term career indecision has been widely used with reference to problems relating to career development, particularly problems in making career-related decisions. The construct of career indecision is strongly coupled with society's expectations of certain chosen career paths and a strong belief that many should pursue these careers. Therefore, current societal trends push people to revise their career decisions over their life spans. As a result the perceptions and expectations that society holds can gravely impact a student's level of career readiness and the lack thereof. Furthermore, the role of the family as a fundamental influence on the career development of adolescents and young adults has been stressed by some classic theories of career development and choice. However, the exact nature and degree of the family's influence on career decision making is not completely understood. Thus, cognizance should be taken of the fact that there are multiple facets impacting on the levels of career indecision experienced by some and not all, prospective university students. Furthermore, deciding on a career is an most important aspect of individual's development and satisfaction and establishing what they are suited to do, and securing an opportunity to do it, is imperative to an individual's life goals. A biographical and Career Decision Making Difficulties Questionnaire was administered to respondents. The sample group (N=200) consists of Grade 10, 11 and 12 male and female students from model c, private and lower income schools in the Somerset West District in the Western Cape. Future research on career decision making difficulties experienced by students could yield interesting insights into the causes of these factors. The results indicate that irrespective of the type of high school these students attended, indecision exists and is prevalent amongst many students. Notwithstanding the insights derived from the current research, results need to be interpreted with caution since a convenience sample was used, therefore restricting the generalizability to the wider population of students.

Thesis (D Com (Human Resources Management))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

School guidance and counselling is a programme that is complementary to the education process and is seen as a support service for the pupil. However, owing to the apartheid policies of the South African government, all pupils did not have equal access to guidance services. In a post-apartheid South Africa it is anticipated that a unitary education system would emerge to provide equal access to education for all South African pupils and this implies that previous imbalances that existed would have to be addressed. In this study the present state of guidance and counselling services in Natal was investigated and policy options to redress past inequities and to make school guidance and counselling services a reality for all South African pupils, within the context of limited resources were explored.

Career psychology in South Africa has traditionally been constituted by the vocabularies, assessment methods, counselling practices and research objectives of the modernist-positivist paradigm. This paradigm has produced a rich but disparate and fragmented range of career theories, research perspectives and career education practices that have been limited in their consideration and integration of the broad range of contextual factors that influence the career development of South African adolescents in unique ways. This limitation has had, and still has, the potential of promoting prescriptive and disqualifying constructions of career development for South African youth. A search for alternatives to traditional modernist-positivist understandings of career has led, however, to a further fragmentation of the career field into what can broadly be termed qualitative and quantitative approaches. This twofold fragmentation, as well as the dynamic complexity of the world of work in the twenty-first century, has inspired this study’s investigation of an integrating framework that employs a wide range of career theoretical perspectives in the service of constructing experience-near accounts of the complex and fluid interrelationship between individual career makers and their specific social, environmental and societal contexts. The present study has therefore employed the Systems Theory Framework (STF) in investigating and co-constructing representations of the career development of a group of South African adolescents in a way that acknowledges their unique systems of career influence and discursive contexts. The research adopted an exploratory-descriptive design in collaborating with the participants in this investigation. In the first phase of the study a sample of 70 grade 11 male and female adolescents from middle socioeconomic status environments were invited to complete the My Systems of Career Influences (MSCI) workbook in re-presenting systemic constructions of their career development. Tesch’s model of qualitative content analysis and frequency counts has been used to re-present that process to you in this text. In the second phase of the study the researcher collaborated with one participant in a systemic narrative career counselling process. During this process an account of the participant’s career narrative was co-constructed in conversations guided by a poststructural narrative approach to career counselling and the MSCI’s structuring of the participant’s complex systems of influence. The co-constructed account was critically examined according to Parker’s approach to discourse analysis. The second phase investigated how the counselling and research processes had positioned the participant in relation to her influential systems and their privileged discourses of career development. The study is particularly pertinent to a growing need for the development of respectful, critical and non-discriminatory career assessment, career research and career counselling collaborations between professionals and career makers navigating the unique and diverse South African context.

Currently, no career theories exist that sufficiently explain the career development of South Africa’s diverse population groups. Consequently, South African researchers have been entirely dependent on international, western-informed career theories. While such theories have taken on a more ethnocentric complexion in recent times, they remain essentially decontextualised for South Africa. Furthermore, although the influence of family and the significant roles of parents have been theoretically acknowledged as critical influences in adolescent career development, there is still a considerable lack of research in South Africa on this topic. The present study therefore explored the perceptions of systemic influences on adolescent career development from the perspectives of both Black middle-class South African Grade 11 learners and their parents. The research was conceptualised within the Systems Theory Framework (STF) of career development and used its derivative instrument, the My Systems of Career Influences (MSCI, Adolescent). The present study utilised a qualitative research method, using answers derived from the MSCI (Adolescent) booklets to inform semi-structured interviews. The data analysis procedure involved the use of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to qualitatively analyse data obtained from the semistructured interviews. Findings revealed a number of influences within the individual system (personality, values, abilities), social system (adolescents’ parents and teachers) and societal-environmental system (financial support, the opportunity to work overseas, geographical location, job availability, and the location of universities) that were acknowledged as having an influence on the career development of South African Black middle class adolescents. Each of these findings were explored and unpacked under the four xii identified Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) superordinate themes of Family Dynamics, Great Expectations, The Ghost of Apartheid and Coconuts Fall Far From the Tree. Lastly, the limitations of the present study, as well as recommendations for future research are discussed.

A counsellor task check list comprised of 168 tasks described in behavioral terms, was completed by 15/18 counsellors in West Vancouver. It, along with 11 statements which pertained to recommendations from the British Columbia Ministry of Education's 1980 Task Force report on counselling, provided the information necessary to design a survey instrument using a five point Likert scale. Its purpose was to support the thesis that although school-related groups: students, parents, teachers, counsellors, and administrators; would differ in their perceptions of the importance of counsellor functions, there would be some which would be rated high in importance among all five groups. A random sample of students in Grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 (n=360), and parents with children in Kindergarten to Grade 12 (n=360), as well as all the teachers (n=256), counsellors (n=15), and administrators (n=33) were surveyed. Return rates varied among the groups from a low of 17.9% for the parents to 54.5% for the administrators. Results obtained supported the thesis at both the elementary and secondary levels. Hierarchical lists for both levels ranked the items by average scores in order to illustrate the importance the groups as a whole placed on each task. Recommendations were then made to assist counsellors in the process of drafting and articulating a role and job description for themselves. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of program type and selected predictor variables on the vocational placement and feelings of self-esteem of disabled male workers. It was predicted that: (1) a physical capacity assessment program (PCA), designed by the investigator, would result in a higher rate of successful vocational placement than conventional placement techniques, in a shorter period of time and with a better vocational match; (2) increased measures of self-esteem would be experienced by the PCA group and at a more significant level than conventional vocational programs; (3) there would not be a significant interaction between the vocational placement variables and the independent variables of age, degree of disability and injury type; and (4) there would not be a significant effect of selected moderator variables between groups on the vocational placement variables. Fifty disabled workers were randomly selected from the active caseloads of the Vocational Rehabilitation Department of the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia for participation in the study. Their average age was 33.32 years, and their average length of time on wage loss was 245 days. All subjects were injured as the result of an industrial accident, were no longer undergoing medical treatment, had been cleared for a return to work but were suffering from a residual disability that prevented them from returning to the work force. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions involving vocational counselling with job search training (JS) and vocational counselling with physical capacity assessment (PCA). Following completion of the program, subjects began job search activities and were monitored for a period of 6 months or until successful vocational placement was achieved. Data analyses showed that: there was a significant main effect between groups for success in vocational placement with PCA placing more subjects than job search; there were no significant differences between groups on measures of self-esteem following completion of the programs; there was a significant interaction effect of age, degree of disability and type of injury with success in vocational placement and; there was a significant interaction effect of several moderator variables including marital status and length of time on wage loss with success in vocational placement and time to vocational placement. The results tend to support the use of physical capacity assessment for the guantification of individual capacity to perform work. Further, the results suggest that the use of PCA information in the identification and selection of appropriate vocational alternatives can significantly enhance the success of vocational placement disabled workers. Recommendations were made for future research. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

D.Litt. et Phil. / The main aim of this study was to compile a career interest inventory – the Career Preference Inventory (CPI) – that would succeed in identifying the career preferences or vocational interests of learners from Grades 9 to 12. The specific objectives of the study involved an empirical examination of the content validity, construct validity, as well as reliability of the inventory. A study was also made of the structure of vocational interests of the test groups that formed part of the study. The study entailed two empirical investigations. When the inventory was administered for the first time, additional items were added to the SAVII and the test group was made up of a representative sample of 1385 Grade 9 and 12 learners in the North West Province. As a result of the item analysis that was based on this sample, 54 of the items in the questionnaire were either changed or replaced. The reliability coefficients of the subfields of the SAVII for the population involved in the first administration were acceptable and ranged between 0,747 and 0,901. After an analysis of the items in the SAVII and the selection of the most suitable items, the questionnaire – by now known as the Career Preference Inventory (CPI) – was administered once again. The reason for the second administration was to establish whether the amended items met the statistical requirements that had been set. Convenience sampling was used in this part of the study, since it was not possible to draw a representative sample of the population. The sample consisted of 1271 Afrikaans first language speakers, 2699 English second language speakers and 306 English first language speakers. Item analysis revealed that all the items were acceptable. The reliability coefficients of the fields of the CPI were also acceptable and varied between 0,714 and 0,860 for the particular test group. Test-retest reliability coefficients could be calculated for a group of 197 English second language speakers only and varied between 0,689 and 0,863. A factor analysis was made to determine the constructs or factors that emerged with regard to the CPI. Initially six factors were specified, but since the fields for Clerical-Administrative, Business, and Management manifested within a single factor, seven factors were subsequently withdrawn to establish whether the two latter-mentioned components could indeed function independently. The following fields or dimensions eventually realised: 1) Human-Communication; 2) Medical and related; 3) Technical-Scientific; 4) Practical-Handcraft; 5) Artistic; 6) Business and Management; and 7) Clerical-Administrative. The final questionnaire contains 18 fields that are described individually and that are not categorised into 6 main fields. The questionnaire is also supposed to disclose the vocational information in Career Mentor in an ordered and structured manner. The 18 fields are therefore linked to more than 500 occupations and the CPI results serve as a search strategy that unlocks the mentioned occupational database according to specific vocational preferences.

No abstract available. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted