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Need for Reading: According to Betts, (2) on of the chief goals of education is personality development that contributes to good citizenship. Since much of our education depends on our ability to read, we are especially concerned about this important tool of learning. The Educational Policies Commission, a commission of the National Education Association and the American Association of School Administrations, classes the objectives of the Elementary School into four main groups. ... Bond and Wagner in explaining the relationship of each of these objectives t the other emphasizes that fact that reading pervades each. In order that these objectives be realized the child must have reading ability developed to a high level. / "August, 1953." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55).

"Many educators recognize the function of the school to be that of fostering within pupils a physical, social and mental well-being through the development of skills, understandings, and attitudes which will best enable them to participate in, contribute to, and draw from the society in the achievement of personal fulfillment. If this statement is accepted, modification of the school program must be in line with this philosophy. To the list of improvements needed should be added that of extending the program downward so as to help the pre-school child develop a broad foundation on which to build his educational program"--Introduction. / "August, 1958." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Edna E. Parker, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-37).

"Since reading is a skill of utmost importance for successful academic progress, its teaching has become a topic of major concern to all educators. The promotion of policies of many schools are based on reading achievement as measured by the teacher's informal appraisals and tests. There is a necessity of investigating the conditions present at the beginning stages of reading for there is a higher percentage of pupil failure in the first grade than in any other grade"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "June, 1952." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Elizabeth Hamlin, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-36).

The delivery of medium and mega project has been a challenge for a number of decades, with attempts made to reduce the associated issues around engineering projects implementation. Project delivery before 1950 mainly relates to cost, time, and scope, with a lack of documentation pertaining to methods, as well as inadequate techniques to achieve a quality final product. The concept of Asset Operational Readiness (AOR) emanates in the 1950s from the military as means of providing the “developmental state of weapons systems”. The concept gained momentum as it was associated with “system safety” in the 1980s for decision-making. AOR can be defined as an establishment of a state or configuration which, after completion of the project, “places the right people in the right places at a right time working with the right hardware according to the right procedures and management controls”. The research work covered in this thesis, aims to propose a best-practice AOR framework for mega-projects in the power generation industry. A thorough Literature Review provides an overview of best practices on the AOR requirements for various industrial fields. The survey shows that AOR implementation follows the Project Life Cycle Management (PLCM) principles, from conceptual and pre-feasibility phases to commissioning and operation phases. In addition, the survey considers methodologies and techniques, which aids to enhance AOR framework development such as Root Cause Analysis (RCA) exercises. The study has provided an opportunity to develop an AOR theoretical framework refinement methodology, inclusive of RCA, AOR assessment tools, qualitative survey tool, and scoring systems. The AOR best practice framework and refinement methodology application to a real mega project case study, with historical data, enables a stage wise assessment of each component for individualized performance rating. This provides an identification of the areas that require refinement to have an improved AOR framework as outcome. The research outcome shows that there are implications for inadequate development and implementation of items in the proposed framework. The implications range from rework during manufacturing and construction, poor product quality delivery, poor performance post commissioning, and overall cost overruns. In addition, the study provides evidence that implementation of the AOR framework aids a project to realize its potential and yield positive results, which ultimately benefits an organization in terms of quality product delivery, cost reduction, and optimal Operations and Maintenance of the established asset. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Civil Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Doctor in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies in the Faculty of education at the University of Zululand, 2018. / In an effort to understand why there is a general outcry about the poor quality of teachers who are produced by many institutions of higher learning, despite the practice teaching which is highly emphasised and offered to all pre-service teachers who intend to become teachers; this study sought to evaluate the pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach. The expectation in education is that pre-service teachers should complete their studies having been adequately prepared to teach. On the contrary, most of them exit the programme underequipped to teach. Within the qualitative methodology, a case study of a South African University was used. Sixteen third year B.Ed. pre-service teachers who were placed in uMkhanyakude and King Cetshwayo districts were purposively selected and observed during their practice teaching period. They were also interviewed and documents which consisted of their files as well as university supervisors’ reports were analysed after practice teaching. Furthermore, sixteen subject mentors were interviewed because they spend adequate time with the pre-service teachers in schools during practice teaching session. The findings revealed, among others, that although the pre-service teachers displayed appropriate professionalism in schools, most of them lacked content knowledge as well as pedagogical skills. However, subject mentors portrayed them as being outstanding in content and pedagogy. Another finding was that the pre-service teachers did not have adequate competence on lesson presentation and development. They also lacked confidence in maintaining order in their classrooms. Because of the above mentioned findings, this study therefore suggests, among other things, the need for the institution of higher learning to revisit the curriculum of pre-service teachers and involve the partner schools during the redesigning of pre-service teachers’ curriculum to strengthen the confidence of both pre-service teachers and subject mentors. It also posits that pre-service teachers should be provided with sufficient teaching practice session in order to be well equipped with all activities that are rendered in schools from the beginning to the end of the school period.

Extant information systems literature has viewed systems acceptance and adoption from a technocentric viewpoint that emphasizes post-implementation intentions and attitudes - mainly usefulness and ease of use. Further, the effects of organizational hierarchy and work-environment factors have not been adequately factored largely because the single level user-level perspective has dominated. This dissertation addresses this gap by incorporating work environment factors while focusing on users’ preliminary, pre-implementation attitudes, perceptions, and intentions. It thus employs a multilevel perspective that allows for deeper insights into the interplay between workgroup- and individual-level phenomena. The objectives herein are, first, to illuminate change readiness as a plausible lens through which system acceptance and adoption can be viewed. Although change readiness is predominantly studied in organizational behavior, it has not yet been applied in information systems research. Consequently, it presents a promising approach to explore users’ responses to new systems. Secondly, this dissertation aims to empirically explore the multilevel nature of the change readiness constructs as envisaged in the framework of the antecedents and outcomes of change readiness. The research model is adapted from the multilevel framework of the antecedents and outcomes of change readiness as propounded by Rafferty et al. (2013). Appropriate hypotheses are developed and a survey instrument established to test those hypotheses. To ensure validity, preliminary investigations are conducted after an expert panel review. Subsequently, data was collected and analyzed to assess the extent to which the proposed model and hypotheses are empirically supported. Results and findings from this dissertation have theoretical and practical implications. Extant literature notes the dearth of research that theorizes outcomes of change readiness in the organizational behavior domain. This dissertation theorizes intention to adopt as an outcome of change readiness. Practice benefits from the context-based empirical results which (1) examine whether change readiness has any significant impact on system adoption and (2) the effect of workgroup change readiness on individual’s intention to adopt the system.

Yes / A comprehensive literature review reveals a lack of empirical studies investigating the influence of individual readiness of change (IRFC) as a multidimensional construct on effective quality improvement programmes (often referred as TQM) implementation. Much of the normative literature is conceptual in nature. Moreover, there is very limited research investigating the mediating role of employee affective commitment to change (IACC) between IRFCs and TQM. Therefore, this study proposes to fill this gap by providing empirical evidence leading to advancement in the understanding of direct and indirect influences of IRFC components on TQM implementation. To achieve this, a questionnaire-based survey was developed and self-administered to 226 middle managers in Algerian manufacturing organisations (AMOs) with a good rate of return of 52%. The analysis of the collected data revealed that two of the IRFC components, namely personally beneficial and change self-efficacy are the most supportive IRFC dimensions for TQM implementation. Furthermore, the results of this study show support for the mediating role of IACC in the relationship between IRFCs and TQM implementation. Therefore, this paper makes a novel contribution by providing a refined and deeper comprehension of the relationships between IRFCs and TQM implementation.

The purpose of this study was to capture employers' and recent high school graduates' perceptions of employability skills in a rural region in southwestern Virginia. The specific objectives of this study were: a) to describe the employers' perceptions of expected proficiency levels of workplace readiness skills for new employees in the New River Region; b) to describe the recent high school graduates perceptions of the importance of workplace readiness skills for new employees in the New River Region; and c) to describe employers and recent high school graduates; perceived skills gap for new employees in the New River Region. The study used a multi-method QUAN + QUAL methodology. The data were collected using a researcher-created survey instrument and focus groups. The results from this study revealed that employers' perceptions concerning workplace readiness skills are consistent with skills mentioned in the literature. Work ethics was identified as the highest priority need for employers. Other priority needs identified from the literature were accountability, dependability, empathy, punctuality, and work ethic. One pedagogical implication of the study is that career and technical education teachers should emphasize workplace readiness skills because they are essential for securing and retaining employment. / Doctor of Philosophy / The purpose of this study was to determine employers' and recent high school graduates' perceptions of workplace employability skills in the New River Valley region of southwestern Virginia. The objectives of the research were to: a) examine employers' views of expected proficiency levels of workplace readiness skills for new employees; b) investigate recent high school graduates' perceived levels of their workplace readiness skills; and c) assess the gap between employer expectations and recent high school graduates' levels of job readiness. Data were collected using a researcher-created survey instrument and focus groups. The results indicated that employers' views regarding necessary workplace readiness skills are consistent with those emphasized in the literature. Employee work ethic was identified as the highest priority need among employers. Other priority needs identified in the literature, including employee accountability, dependability, empathy, punctuality, and emotional intelligence, were supported by the research. The study underscored the need for career and technical education teachers to focus on workplace readiness skills to assist students in securing and retaining employment.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor Of Philosophy in Library and Information Science in the Department of Library and Information Studies at the University of Zululand, 2018 / E-records readiness is key to the implementation of electronic records management programmes and ultimately the e-Government in the public sector. However, past studies about Swaziland show no evidence of research that ascertains the depth of e-Records readiness in the context of the current e-Government strategy. Studies that have been documented on records management systems in the country have largely focused on paperbased records management in government ministries. The aim of the study was to assess e-Records readiness in the Swaziland government ministries with a view to conceptualising framework for the effective management of e-Records as a facilitating tool for e- Government. The study sought to establish the national legal and policy framework governing management of electronic records in Swaziland’s government ministries in the context of e-Government; the level of compliance to policies, standards, tools, procedures and responsibilities for e- Records management in the government ministries; establish the e-Records management products and technologies existing in the government ministries; examine resource capacity and training for e-Records management staff; find out if there is internal awareness of the link between the e-Record management and the e-Government strategy; as well as explore the depth of the government wide digital preservation strategy. The IRMT (2004) E-Records Readiness Tool was adapted and used as the analytical framework for this study. This tool is designed to assist organizations to benchmark themselves and to determine where they stand in respect to the management of electronic records. The study mainly used the quantitative research approach exploiting a survey that utilized a questionnaire as a data collection instrument. The quantitative approach was however complemented by a qualitative research approach which utilized observation and interview techniques. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches made it possible to triangulate and validate the findings. The unit of analysis was the Swaziland government ministries, with a survey design involving all the 19 Government Ministries. The target study participants comprised of the Directorate of Swaziland National Archives, the Directorate of Computer Services, the Directorate of E-Government, the records officers and the action officers.