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Emotions are one of the factors that define us as human yet, many people do not truly understand the extent to which our emotions are influenced by the external environment and how we allow emotions to control our behaviour which often translates into physiological and physical risk. The ability to recognise and manage our emotions is central to how we perceive and react to everyday life. Eskom as an organisation is totally committed to providing a safe environment for all their employees and no cost is spared in provided what they believe to be the best education and training to support their ZERO HARM philosophy. The question is however, with the unquestionable commitment to safety from management and staff alike; why is the vehicle incident rate (VIR) remaining at unacceptably high levels? This study was intended to identify the degree to which emotional intelligence, with specific reference to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and managing relationshipâs impact on driver specific attitude and behaviour. Emotional self-awareness allows individuals to start understanding how and why they react to specific external stimuli. Only once individuals recognise and acknowledge their emotions, will they be in a position to control how they react to these emotions. Understanding oneâs emotions is only the starting point in learning how to control your emotions but without this first step, no meaningful change will be possible. Emotional self-management is more of a process than a change in oneâs personality. It is the ability to accept oneâs shortcomings and manage the observable external responses to stimuli for the benefit of self and others. self-management is essentially a skill and as such, must be learned and practiced before it can be perfected Social awareness and managing relationships are possibly the more difficult emotional domains to master from a driver perspective, as it may be considered strange to think of social reactions with other road users as oneâs own responsibility. The social domains however, do have serious implications as to how these incidental relationships ultimately affect the behaviour of road users. It is clearly documented that road rage is common place in our driving culture. Analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data clearly indicates that emotional inelegance has a significant impact on driver behaviour. The participants in this study sited driver related emotional behaviour to include characteristics associated with road rage and general emotional incompetence. The quantitative data was less significant in determining the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) and driver behaviour in regard to age, gender and race; the fact remains however that the data identified a significant relationship between persons with a low EI and vehicle incidents. The analysis of the quantitative data relating to group, age, gender and race, when viewed against the same participantâs qualitative response, as well as the theoretical arguments presented in this study, would suggest that the qualitative data may be influenced by response bias. The degree to which response bias may have contaminated the quantitative data will need to be established through further research. The recommendations in this study should be addressed in order to test the theories discussed in the study with the view of authenticating how customised education and training can positively impact on driver behaviour and how such education and training should be structured.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of two methods of teaching written composition (i.e. traditional and process approach) on writing apprehension among ESL students, and also the effect of the process approach on the overall quality and length of their writing. Students enrolled in Written Communication 1 course at the National University of Malaysia were chosen as the subjects of this study. The students had been placed in three groups based on the results of previous courses and for the purpose of this study the top and the bottom groups were selected as the experimental groups and the middle one as the control. From the findings, it was concluded that both methods were successful in reducing writing apprehension, but that the process approach was considerably more effective in achieving this than the traditional approach. Moreover, the subjects in the process/experimental group were found to write better and longer essays than the subjects in the control group taught in the usual way.

This study centres on understanding teachers' curriculum decision making (CDM) and pupils' subject choice in physical education. The curriculum reform chosen to illustrate these two central issues is Higher Grade Physical Education (HGPE), a nationally available qualification in physical education that has been available to fifth and sixth year (16 to 18 year olds) Scottish secondary pupils from 1993. The focus on teacher CDM and pupil subject choice contributes more generally to our understanding of the social construction of physical education as a school subject. The framework used to investigate the social construction of knowledge, teacher CDM and pupil subject choice is Basil Bernstein's model of the social construction of pedagogic discourse. Bernstein's three fields of knowledge production and reproduction and his notion of pedagogic discourse allowed the framing of the examination of the development, mediation and reproduction of the HGPE course. The study illustrates how the dominant model for innovation in Scottish schools continues to be external leadership by the centre and how agents operating at this level constructed HGPE as a science-based, sport-performance-oriented discourse. The findings suggest that teachers' and pupils' interpretations of the HGPE discourse are not explicit reasons for the decision to offer or study the subject but are more likely to be embedded in the context in which individual teachers work and in pupils' enjoyment and future vocation. Emerging issues that are discussed include the process of managing HGPE by the SEB and the extent to which the SEB exercised power to mandate precisely the form HGPE should take as it was implemented in secondary schools. A lack of external support in delivering HGPE, teacher de-professionalisation and de-skilling and professional development support for teachers are all identified and discussed. The study concludes with suggestions for the future construction of knowledge within the Scottish education system and ideas regarding what can be done to promote HGPE.

The initial aim of this study was to explore the changes in the students’ perceptions of learning over their study years in the education colleges in the Sultanate of Oman. A number of years ago Perry developed a scheme to describe students’ perceptions of learning. Johnstone adapted this scheme. In both the original scheme and the adaptation, the development of students’ perceptions of learning was considered in four areas: the lecturers’ role, the student’s role, the nature of scientific knowledge, and assessment. The Johnstone’s adaptation was used in this study. The first stage was to carry out a survey with a sample of 889 students and 1165 pupils from education colleges (age 18-22) and secondary schools (age 15-18). The schools data provided a background against which the student data could be considered. A questionnaire was devised and distributed to three study years in secondary schools and four study years in the education colleges. The results show that although there is a growth in students’ perceptions of learning over their study years, this growth varied from area to area. In the areas of the lecturer’s role the growth was generally good. In the area of the nature of scientific knowledge the growth was very poor while in the assessment area the growth was good in some questions and poor in others. The results also revealed that students’ perceptions of learning correlated positively with their academic performance. It was also evident that females in general had better perceptions of learning than males. In secondary schools, it appeared that science stream students had better perceptions of learning science than arts stream students but this may merely reflect the contextual nature of Perry development.

This study reports on an investigation of the effectiveness of the Learning Resource Centres (LRCs) in the Colleges of Education in Oman. It considers the aims of the LRCs/libraries and explored the extent to which the LRCs achieve their aims and identified the defects which represent obstacles to improving the LRCs. The extent to which the LRCs support the Colleges of Education to achieve their aims is also explored. Accordingly, this thesis examines the effectiveness of the LRCs and leads to recommendations, which if implemented, will improve the LRCs for the users. In order to achieve the research purposes the study surveys the LRCs in the Colleges of Education in Oman. The survey includes observation of all six LRCs, responses to questionnaires from 140 academics and 436 students and interviews with 24 employees from the staff ofLRCs. In consideration of the fact that the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman (MOHE) tries to benefit from the Canadian experience in LRCs/libraries, interviews were conducted with nine employees working in LRCs/libraries at six Canadian Universities. The study indicates that, in general, the LRCs have satisfactory factors such as the provision of resources, accessibility, support from personnel to users, training of users to develop their skills and increase the utilisation of facilities. Consequently these enhance the possibility of achieving the aims of the LRCs as well as supporting the Colleges to attain their aims. The availability of the previous factors also indicates to the reasonable effectiveness of the LRCs. On the other hand, the findings of the study consider that the main obstacles to improving the LRCs are: centralisation of acquisition of human and material resources at the MOHE, space, policy, and the incomplete classification system and catalogue. Finally the study proposes recommendations which can overcome the identified obstacles and improve the effectiveness of the LRCs in the Colleges of Education in Oman.

This thesis has examined selected federal legislation, presidential executive orders, and regulatory agency guidelines to determine the impact the federal government and its various regulatory agencies have had upon personnel administration in higher education. The federal legislation analyzed in this study is: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII as amended; Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 as amended; Wage and Hour Provisions, Equal Pay Act of 1963 as amended; and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 as amended.The Presidential Executive Order analyzed is #11246, "Nondiscrimination under Federal Contracts." The regulatory agency guidelines examined are those promulgated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The guidelines are the Sex Discrimination Guidelines, Religious Discrimination Guidelines, National Origin Discrimination Guidelines, and the Testing and Selecting Employee Guidelines.The survey instrument measured participants' responses to thirty-seven questions encompassing several phases of the personnel and employment system.The compilation and analysis of the participants' responses clearly support the original hypothesis that the federal government and its various regulatory agencies have had an impact upon personnel administration in colleges and universities. The various laws, presidential executive orders, and regulatory agency guidelines have prompted a reshaping of the personnel policies and practices of institutions of higher education.