This research report is a case study, the aim of which is to describe and analyse the methods used by a non-profit organization in teaching Grade Seven (7) learners with reading difficulties in an Alexandra Township school, by using a combination of the whole language and phonics approaches. It involves Phenduka Literacy Project facilitators immersed in a two to three week literacy intervention with an average of 30- 35 Grade 7 learners at Dr Knak Primary School. The aim of the Phenduka programme is to improve learners’ levels of reading so that they can meet the demands of high school education. Data was collected by analysing the teaching material, carrying out semi-structured interviews with Phenduka facilitators, and observing the facilitators at work. The findings revealed that there is no one suitable method for teaching reading; rather, using an integrated approach would bear much fruits. It is envisaged that the findings of this study would enlighten teachers in disadvantaged communities in South Africa who face the same scenario of dealing with poor readers and using limited teaching/learning resources.

Västerås is a city with an industrial heritage. One of the larger companies in Västerås is ABB AB, which has multiply businesses located at the area Finnslätten. High concentrations of trichloroethene (TCE) were found in the soil and groundwater at Finnslätten 1 during a phase II environmental site assessment. Due to the result of the assessment a supplementary investigation and a site specific risk assessment were made of building 358. The source zone and plume of trichloroethene have not been characterized even after several investigations at the site. The aim of this study was to make a risk assessment of three other buildings inside the area were degreasing with TCE have historical taken place. The collected information resulted in a risk class 2 of the three objects and shows that the buildings might be potential pre-emission sources of trichloroethene. The second aim contains a comparison between traditional and alternative approaches to enlighten the importance of effective characterization methods. Two potential characterization strategies were chosen; TRIAD approach and CMF approach. The result showed the importance of systematic project planning, dynamic work planning strategy and the use of multiple techniques to form the best “hybrid” during characterization of DNAPL. In order to bring the investigation to a successful conclusion it is of great importance to consider the uncertainties or diminish the uncertainties by collecting essential information.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of cognitive versus multisensory interventions on handwriting legibility of primary students referred to occupational therapy for handwriting difficulties. Using a randomized three-group research design, 72 first and second-grade students were assigned to either a cognitive intervention, multisensory intervention, or no intervention (control) group. Letter legibility was measured before and after 10 weeks of intervention. Analysis of variance of difference scores showed no statistically significant difference between the intervention groups. Grade 1 students improved with or without intervention, but grade 2 students showed dramatic improvement with cognitive intervention compared to multisensory intervention (d = 1.09) or no intervention (d = .92). Several students in both grades showed declining performance in the multisensory and control groups, but no students had lower legibility after cognitive intervention. These results challenge current occupational therapy practice of using a multisensory approach for remediation of handwriting difficulties, especially for students in grade 2.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of cognitive versus multisensory interventions on handwriting legibility of primary students referred to occupational therapy for handwriting difficulties. Using a randomized three-group research design, 72 first and second-grade students were assigned to either a cognitive intervention, multisensory intervention, or no intervention (control) group. Letter legibility was measured before and after 10 weeks of intervention. Analysis of variance of difference scores showed no statistically significant difference between the intervention groups. Grade 1 students improved with or without intervention, but grade 2 students showed dramatic improvement with cognitive intervention compared to multisensory intervention (d = 1.09) or no intervention (d = .92). Several students in both grades showed declining performance in the multisensory and control groups, but no students had lower legibility after cognitive intervention. These results challenge current occupational therapy practice of using a multisensory approach for remediation of handwriting difficulties, especially for students in grade 2.

No description available.

This auto-ethnographic project concerns itself with the processes of how meaning in an organisational setting is created, changed, sustained and 'achieved'. Its contributory value lies in the inductive development of a 'tropological approach' to the investigation of sensemaking processes in organisations. Positioned in an interpretive-hermeneutic tradition, the major research strategy of participant observation and its supplementary techniques (e. g. qualitative interviewing) were activated to explore sense-making processes. This engagement in the field was complemented by the application of three frameworks derived from the discipline of linguistics. These were: a structuralist approach (as based on Saussure, Jakobson, Lodge), speech act theory (Austin, Searle) and discourse analysis (Fairclough). The application of the first framework to data explored the character of signs as well as the relationship between signs. The latter were defined as either metaphorical or metonymical in character. The tropes derived from these relationships, i. e. metaphor and metonymy, provided an early trajectory for further data interpretation. Naturally occurring talk, including organisational stories, talk as recorded in meetings, artifacts including written texts, buildings, equipment and geographical arrangements were analysed in terms of their metaphorical and/or metonymical significance in processes of meaning creation. The interplay of metonymies, i. e. processes on the basis of physical or causal contiguity, and metaphors, translation and interpretation processes were shown to render the experience of the organisation essentially symbolic. A third trope, irony, emerged as an important figure during the research process and was integrated into the tropological approach. Metonymy and irony are undertheorised in organisation studies. Within the second organising framework the performative value of tropes was investigated, i.e. in how far 'talk and action' form a dialectic whole. In particular, the question how organisations become active agents, who "think" and "speak" and "act" was investigated with the help of the voice metaphor, exploring the relationship between individuals, agents and principals. Different voices (new voices, fading and fluctuating voices, dissenting voices, having no voice) were investigated. Meaning, although inchoate and in perpetual flux was shown to be linked to the ability to transcend individual status and claim agency on behalf on a higher principal. Deviant meaning and interpretation were investigated as occurring in the trope irony, but also in the denial of metonymical causal linkages between signs and divergent particularisation processes within metaphorical interpretation. Finally, meaning as derived from a wider discursive environment (Higher Education environment) was investigated from a critical point of view, focusing on hegemonial processes and the manufacture of consent, which "normalised" the hidden assumptions of certain discourses by drawing on metaphorical and metonymical devices inherent in language. Irony, again, was shown to be an expression of divergent meaning interpretation. The exercise of power as well as resistance were shown to be dialectically enacted at the interstices of everyday practice. These transient, elusive processes are expressed in language, in particular the figures of speech. In sum, the suggested tropological approach shows metapho as being both constraining and emancipatory in its performative value, metonymy as being the first and foremost habitus of cultural knowledge and iron as being precariously suspended between conservatism and change. The contributory value of this approach lies in the inclusion of two tropes, metonymy and irony, which have not been sufficiently understood or theorised in organisation studies.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This research is a case-study based primarily on theory and pre-existing documents describing the history and the current situation in regards to violence against children in Indonesia. The theory of intervention is analysed against the context of Indonesia with an aim to find which of the selected intervention approaches – the systems approach, the human ecology approach, the lifecycle approach and the community based approach – are considered most appropriate, in terms of minimal obstacles or barriers, for recommendation to be implemented by religious leaders to eliminate violence against children. Furthermore, this research finds which types of violence against children – those with religious motivation or those with cultural motivation – each of these four intervention approaches are best suited for. The study finds that the former two approaches are lesser recommended for religious leaders on their own to lead, and that the latter two are better able to provide the necessary social programming. While conditions apply, each of the approaches are capable of intervening violence motivated by both religious and cultural norms.