Parents often perceive schools as the sole educator of their child when in actuality the school prefers parents to be involved as partners in the learning process (Comer and Haynes, 1991). Likewise, schools make the assumption that parents realize their role in the learning process, but do not effectively communicate the partnership to parents, and misconceptions about the parents and teachers roles and behaviors arise. Research has shown that both schools and parents have a major influence on children as they develop and that they learn best when schools and parents work together (Comer and Haynes, 1991). The purpose of this study was to examine parent and teacher perceptions of effective communication. This was a non-experimental quantitative study that compared the differences between parents' and teachers' perceptions of effective communication. The study consisted of a survey for parents and teachers on a Likert scale. The survey data were compared through the use of the t-test statistic and a One-Way Analysis of Variance. The information discovered in this study will allow the researcher to bridge the learning gap regarding how parents and teachers can actively participate in the effective communication process to enable both parties to send and receive messages and limit the amount of misunderstanding on educational topics relating to students. This information will be provided to principals and school leaders in order to better manage the communication process between parents and teachers to include the information, attitudes, and perspectives that exist, thus, impacting student achievement and school success. Findings included identified differences between parent and teacher perceptions regarding the effectiveness and frequency of communication, and difference between teachers at the two schools and between parents at the two schools. / Ed. D.

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Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION in the Department of Philosophy of Education at the University of Zululand, 2002. / This study advocates to examine the efficacy of values clarification with particular reference to its impact on critical thinking and effective communication for secondary school learners. The capability of discerning and focusing on critical aspects of situations and seeing the patterns characterising those situations is a far more holistic capability than those commonly defined in competency-based approaches. Such holistic capabilities represent the links between disciplinary knowledge and professional skills. Secondary school educators find certain values important for their learners and these are articulated by means of the curriculum and studied or taught through values clarification. Values clarification is a process of helping the individual to arrive at his or her own values in a rational and justifiable way without a set of values being imposed. Values education therefore exists in order to strengthen the transfer of values in the school while critical thinking aims to develop a reflexion on values and a value development by means of analysing and comparing opinions and communicating effectively about them. Moral development is dedicated to the stages of cognitive development for learning values and the skills to reflect on them. In this way they are both cognitive, skills-oriented educational tasks. It is clear that education is concerned with critical thinking and many skills have been formulated that learners need to acquire in order to facilitate thinking critically and communicating effectively. Critical thinking manifests itself in a plethora of skills such as identifying assumptions (both stated and unstated both one's own and others), clarifying, focusing, and remaining relevant to the topic; understanding logic and judging sources by their reliability and credibility. This calls for not only skills but dispositions such as being open-minded, considerate, impartial as well as suspending judgment, taking a stance when warranted, and questioning one's critical thinking skills. By implication, this reflects on teaching values clarification and critical thinking, since critical thinking derives from the fact that learners should be taught to think, to solve problems and to communicate, and to encourage involvement in their own learning. Learners need to think critically as citizens in society — being able to detect bias, recognizing illogical thinking, avoiding stereotyping of group members, reaching conclusions based on solid evidence and guarding against propaganda. For this reason critical thinking must pervade the secondary school curriculum. In conclusion, the fundamental purpose of education should have its manifestation in the acquisition of knowledge (knowing what?) and skills (knowing how); and the manipulation thereof to think critically and communicate effectively

The importance of enhancing internal communication and its content during organisational change appears to be neglected by many organisations. Although change management literature agrees generally about the role that communication plays in facilitating change, there is still a dearth of empirical studies that focus on improving internal communication during organisational change phases. The evolution of communication technology has provided some new tools that can enhance internal communication within an organisation. This study explores the role of using of one of these new communication technologies in communicating organisational change through the development of a novel conceptual model. The developed model covers the communication needs in each phase of a planned change, and combines the benefits of communicating organisational change with the benefits of using Enterprise Social Networks (ESN), as found in the literature. The aim is to investigate empirically how ESN as a new internal communication technology can be employed to communicate organisational change effectively in order to facilitate that change. To do so, the researcher in this study has applied a qualitative approach through a case study strategy in order to validate the conceptual model being proposed. The researcher conducted 32 interviews and analysed all of them qualitatively using Nvivo software. The findings of the conducted study revealed that using ESN had many positive impacts on employees, such as increasing their awareness, engagement and participation, which helped to facilitate the overall change projects. Moreover, the study proved the suitability of the validated novel model to contribute in facilitating organisational change through ESN, which can guide leaders, managers, change agents and academics on how ESN can be used to communicate planned change effectively in order to facilitate it.

Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Communication is central to palliative care. It unifies all nursing practice, and plays an integral role in the operationalization of palliative care. To deliver quality palliative care, it is paramount that nurses have adequate communication skills. Positive patient outcomes are derived when communication between the nurse and patient is effective. Ineffective communication may result in inaccurate information on treatment/medication increase patient risks and may cause patient dissatisfaction with care. It is therefore necessary to be familiar with the facilitators and barriers that influence communication. This study aimed to describe barriers and facilitators of effective communication between nurses and patients receiving palliative care. A literature review of fifteen articles was utilized to answer the study’s aim. Searching the CINAHL Complete and MEDLINE databases performed data collection. Data was analyzed using the matrix method. The findings were categorized into two main themes: barriers of effective communication and facilitators of effective communication. Three subthemes emerged under the barriers of effective communication and two sub themes for the facilitators. The main barrier to effective communication was the nurse’s lack of knowledge and skills. In conclusion, the nurse-patient interaction is compounded by variables such as: nurses’ competence, patient’s attributes and environmental or care setting. All together these factors require the nurse’s ability to overcome the communication barriers and highlight the facilitators. It would be of benefit if nurses receive training in communication skills in palliative care with emphasis on transitions and how to handle them within the palliative care scope.

No description available.

O correio eletrônico, ou tecnologia de e-mail, é uma forma de comunicação e de geração de informações, que ocasionou mudanças observadas em todos os setores da sociedade e que gerou grande impacto nas organizações. Constata-se que este instrumento excede cada vez mais seus espaços, fazendo com que ferramentas tradicionalmente utilizadas tornassem-se rapidamente obsoletadas, como é o caso, por exemplo, do fax. Essa situação estimula a ampliação do pensamento a respeito do que grandes mudanças geram e sobre como seus impactos têm ocorrido a nível comportamental e organizacional nas empresas, em especial no trabalho em grupo. Algumas das mudanças foram estudadas a partir de processos decisórios realizados por grupos de pessoas, que fizeram uso de correio eletrônico como ferramenta de comunicação, coordenação e colaboração. Para o desenvolvimento deste estudo, de caráter exploratório, propõe-se como metodologia um estudo de caso único com coleta de dados secundários (e-mails referentes a alguns processos decisórios selecionados para análise) e dados primários (uma pesquisa da percepção dos usuários em relação ao uso do e-mail nesses processos). Buscou-se, assim, formas de identificar os resultados e a efetividade do uso de uma ferramenta que deixou de ser, de modo veloz e dinâmico, simplesmente de comunicação para tornar-se ferramenta de ação e de decisão, que tem impactado nas atividades da organização estudada e de seus colaboradores. Os resultados obtidos indicam possíveis caminhos na busca de elementos que contribuam para o aumento da eficiência e qualidade quando utilizado esta ferramenta na tomada de decisão. / Electronic mail, or e-mail technology, is a form of communication and information generation, which caused the observed changes in all sectors of society and that has generated great impact on organizations. It appears that this instrument increasingly exceeds their space, making traditional tools used become rapidly obsolete, as is the case, for example, the fax. This situation encourages the expansion of thinking about the big changes that generate and how its impacts have occurred at behavioral and organizational enterprises, especially in group work. Some of the changes were studied from a decision-making processes carried out by groups of people who used e-mail as a tool for communication, coordination and collaboration. To develop this study, exploratory, it is proposed methodology as a single case study with secondary data collection (emails regarding some decision-making processes selected for review) and primary data (a survey of users' perception regarding the use of email in those cases). We tried to thus ways to identify the results and effectiveness of the use of a tool that has ceased to be so fast and dynamic, communication simply to become tool for action and decision that has impacted the organization's activities studied and their collaborators. The results indicate possible paths in the search for elements that contribute to increased efficiency and quality when used this tool in decision making.