published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The goal of this project is to create a web application to help people learn about the stock market. The Virtual Sports Stock Exchange (VSSX) simulates market trading based on the world of sports. It allows users to experiment with different economic models. Virtual Sports Stock Exchange (VSSX) uses HTML and Java Server Page to generate the output and calculations and it uses Java Servlet to interact with the Oracle 9i database.

Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

Thesis(PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Professional socialisation can be described as a subconscious process whereby persons internalise behavioural norms and standards and form a sense of identity and commitment to a professional field. The primary goal of professional socialisation is considered to be internalisation of the professional culture and the development of a professional identity. It is learned through interaction with professionals and educators during a student’s education. It is a continuous, life-long process of learning formal knowledge, skills and rules, as well as informal and tacit knowledge, norms, values and loyalties within the profession. An understanding of the professional socialisation process is vital to all persons involved in postsecondary education, for it is the professional socialisation process that allows education to achieve its goals. This dissertation determined whether students of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences in South Africa are professionally socialised into developing a professional identity within the Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences profession. The objectives of the research included; to examine through a literature review the development of the profession and to propose a new position for the profession in South Africa; to identify the factors that influenced South African students when they decided on Family Ecology and Consumer Science as a field of study and the factors that influenced them while they were obtaining their degree at a South African university; to determine whether Family Ecology and Consumer Science students evidence the developmental stages of the Cohen model of the professional socialisation process; to determine Family Ecology and Consumer Science professionals’ perceptions of their professional preparation environments; and to analyse and compare Family Ecology and Consumer Science programmes at South African universities. A quantitative research methodology in the form of an analytical survey was undertaken with the participation of students and staff at South African universities where Family Ecology and Consumer Science programmes are offered by means of postal questionnaires. Three questionnaires were used in the research, namely; the Professional Socialisation Influences (PSI) questionnaire; the Professional Socialisation Staging Scale (PS3) questionnaire; and the Emphases, Process and Influences on the Professional Preparation Programmes questionnaire. A conceptual framework was used to compare the Family Ecology and Consumer Science professional preparation programmes presented at South African universities.. Descriptive statistics and the factor analysis method were used to examine the objectives to determine which factors influenced students to select Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences and the factors that influenced them while they were studying for a degree at a South African university. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Bonferroni Post-Hoc tests were used to examine whether Family Ecology and Consumer Science students evidenced the developmental stages of the Cohen model of the professional socialisation process. Descriptive statistics were used to examine Family Ecology and Consumer Science professionals’ perceptions of their professional preparation environments. The main findings drawn from the study indicated that Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences students, when selecting Family Ecology and Consumer Science as a profession, were influenced by the ‘Service Ideal’ and ‘Entrepreneurial’ factors. Aspects that elicited the highest percentage of positive responses from the respondents were; ‘desire to help others’; ‘a desire to improve the quality of family living’; ‘a desire to help people learn to do things’; and ‘entrepreneurial possibilities of the course’. While studying for a degree in Family Ecology and Consumer Science, they were influenced by the factors ‘Student Interaction’ and ‘Departmental Influences’. Aspects such as; ‘career opportunities available’; ‘application of what I learned to my personal life’; and ‘employment opportunities available’; were those that had the biggest influence.

The purpose of the Texas Cooperative Youth Study was to gather basic data on the problems and interests of youth from youth themselves, their teachers, and their parents in the stages of early, middle, and late adolescence. The study was made to determine interests, attitudes, and concerns of youth in relation to home and family life; to determine whether homemaking education in the school takes into account these concerns and attitudes; and to find out whether interest in homemaking education is related to selected background and sociological variables.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This dissertation is a contribution to understanding the relationship between schooling and gender inequality. The study explores how gender as a social relation is organized and embedded in the daily experiences of classroom life and in the discourses of people who dwell there. The study deals with how classroom encounters contribute to the reproduction or transformation of gender categories and how students' and teachers' discursive practices build and support patriarchal structures. The study is grounded in critical education theory, feminist theory, and ethnographic research. The specific site for the study is the knowledge area described as the Practical Arts, namely home economics and technical studies. The research is limited to a single Grade 8, coeducational, home economics and technical studies program in an inner-city, multi-ethnic, secondary school in western Canada. Evidence is based on participant observation of classrooms, for one school year, with one group of students as they proceed through a combined home economics and technical studies program. Evidence is also obtained through interviews with students and teachers. The study illustrates how classroom practices support the patriarchal structures of division of labour, violence against women, and sexuality. The study shows how the students' and teachers' discursive practices produce girls and women, and less powerful boys, in subordinate positions and as objects of regulation. As well, students' previous experiences in domestic and technical work, and classroom discourse, produce and support the division of labour. The study shows how the conditions of teachers' work, their authoritarian, product oriented approach, and their powerful, institutional discourses grounded in biological and psychological development and equality of educational opportunity, prevent them from challenging patriarchal structures. Although the study shows how students and teachers are actively engaged in the production rather than the transformation of traditional gender relations, it also shows how patriarchy is incomplete: there were divisions within gender categories and there were many contradictions. The study shows how power relations are not static - they are constantly in process of negotiation, thereby opening possibilities for social change.

Conceptualising teacher learning in terms of participation in a teacher learning community is a relatively new phenomenon in South Africa. This study explores the usefulness of applying a social practice theory of learning to a community of novice Economic and Management Sciences teacher learners involved in the Teaching Economics and Management Sciences (TEMS) teacher development project. It examines the influence of contextual constraints, teachers' biographies and professional career trajectories on teachers' ability to participate in a learning community. By drawing on Wenger's theory of learning in a community of practice and Wenger et al's stages of community development framework, it also illuminates and theorises the potential that a community of practice framework has for teacher development. Wenger's framework offered important insights that informed and shaped the development of the TEMS programme. It also provided a useful tool for analysing teacher learning as constituting four components, namely, meaning, practice, identity and community. The complex relationship that exists between these different components of learning is examined. The study offers a critique of the feasibility and appropriateness of using Wenger's framework for analysing a teacher learning community. Methodologically, the tenets of symbolic interactionist ethnography were employed in the collection of data for this study. An exposition of the complexity and challenge of adopting the dual role of researcher as observer and participant is presented. An analysis is also provided of the methodological challenge of gaining access and acceptance in a South African education research context. The study examines how the essential tension in teacher professional development, namely, that of curriculum development and deepening subject matter knowledge is managed in a teacher learning community of novice Economic and Management Sciences teachers. It reveals the potential that a learning community framework has for teacher learning through different levels of participation, and points to the importance of the input of an outside expert, particularly during the early stages of development of a community of teacher learners who lack subject content knowledge. It argues that teacher learning communities present a fruitful and viable alternative to the current 'deficit' models of teacher development that typify the present South African teacher development scenario, as teacher learning communities suggest a conceptual reorientation of the discourse on teacher development. / Theses (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

M.Ed. (Curriculum Science) / The demands for the renewal of education in South Africa and the poor performance of black learners in the Standerd 10 final examination in Home Economics gave rise to the empirical study on the needs of black learners. These needs were used as a co-determinant for the design of a future subject curriculum. A literature study was conducted on curriculum designs and design models which resulted in a recommended design model. The qualitative research paradigm was used for the empirical study. Data were collected through interviews supplemented by document-analysis. The research focused on the needs of the learners concerning: The relevance of the subject, i.e to what extent the subject is related to the learners' everyday life experiences and interest. The subject content as it could be applied in the daily lives of learners as well as the future world of work. Teaching methods, which include methods that contribute towards maximum learning and which accomodate learners' differences. Evaluation as an integral part of the implementation of the curriculum. Identified learner needs were taken into consideration in compiling guidelines on the different elements of a future curriculum design for Home Economics where both the learners' needs and the requirements of the subject will be accomodated.

This thesis looks at language as the medium of all our ideas and sentiments. The thesis represents a position statement regarding the development of isiZulu as an academic language. The field of Economics is used to merely illustrate and support the points that are being made in this work. It is argued that each language is viewed as the means of expression of the cultural heritage of its people, and it remains a reflection of cultural groups who speak that particular language. It is a fact that indigenous African Languages have been, for obvious reasons, blatantly understudied during the apartheid years in South Africa (Rudwick 2004). Languages have market value and the desirability of English as the most important global language today has an effect in most Black learners in South Africa. The study examined the development of indigenous African languages, isiZulu in particular, in Zululand University where ninety percent of students and lecturers are isiZulu first language speakers, and came to a conclusion that there is an urgent need for Black South African students to learn academic subjects through their mother tongues. This would help them in thorough understanding and interpretation of analytic text presented in a foreign language such as English. The study advocates that isiZulu, which is the mother-tongue of many students at the University of Zululand, should be a language for upward mobility to these students, but as the situation stands, isiZulu becomes a neglected or marginalised language since it is not the normal medium of instruction and it is not used for effective communication in their education system.