Thesis supervisor: Kathleen F. Janz. Includes bibliographic references (p. 45-54).

Many young boys in South Africa are often recommended to take part in karate as a means of “anger management”, as well as to boost self-confidence, muscle tone, co-ordination and for various other purposes. As a karate instructor, the researcher has seen how karateka (people who take part in karate) have grown and developed whilst doing karate and has wondered how karate may have contributed to this. The researcher has also, over the last few years realised an increase in the number of girls partaking in karate and also growing through this experience. Various researchers have undertaken to try and ascertain the influence of karate on children with varying results. Adler (2003), Reynes and Lorant (2002 & 2004) conducted studies focusing on the ability of martial arts to reduce aggressive tendencies, primarily in young boys. However, little has been documented about the experiences of young girls who take part in karate. By focusing on young girls, the researcher hopes to, not only clarify karate’s influences, but also its role in a girl’s life. This research was conducted in a qualitative research paradigm. Three girls and a karate instructor were interviewed and the researcher wrote a reflective journal. From this research the child’s experiences, as well as specific guidelines, were made available for professions working with children such as teachers, occupational therapists and educational psychologists. As an educational psychologist, it will become clearer as to the contribution karate plays in the growth and development experienced by karateka and the use of karate as a referral for various needs. / Mrs. J.V. Fourie

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Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Credit risk analysis is an important topic in financial risk management. Financial institutions (e.g. commercial banks) that grant consumers credit need reliable models that can accurately detect and predict defaults. This research investigates the ability of artificial neural networks as a decision support system that can automatically detect and predict “bad” credit risks based on customers demographic, biographic and behavioural characteristics. The study focuses specifically on the learning vector quantization neural network algorithm. This thesis contains a short overview of credit scoring models, an introduction to artificial neural networks and their applications and presents the performance evaluation results of a credit risk detection model based on learning vector quantization networks.

The objective of this research is to investigate how mobile cellular network operators can increase the average revenue per user by stimulating the usage of mobile broadband services. There is a general consensus that the revenue from voice calls is slowly reaching saturation; hence, mobile cellular operators, service providers and content providers are looking for other sources of revenue from their new and existing customers. They are therefore beginning to focus more intensively on customer retention and on developing new strategies that will stimulate the usage of high speed mobile data services. The research shows that most people are aware of many of the mobile data services offered by operators, but that they thought that they were unreliable, slow, difficult to use and expensive. By and large, people signed up for mobile data services because they wanted a mobile always-on connection anytime, anywhere, with faster speed when accessing e-mail and other services or when downloading data from the Internet. The majority of people would use mobile broadband internet service if it cost less to use; if the speed were faster and the service were easy to use; if the cellular phone had a larger screen and used less battery power; and if the keyboard were larger. The relationship between Network operators, WASPs and content providers was found to be good, even though at times it is strained by the increased competition between them; this forces them not to cooperate on some issues for fear of compromising their competitive advantage.

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Secondary school students experience high level of stress related to academic issues, e.g. college entrance exam, along side with interpersonal relationship. In this study, a modification of a research on written emotional on college student was carried out on secondary school students to test whether writing about stressful events (1) decreases perceived stress level, (2) improves academic engagement, and (3) improves interpersonal relationship. Forty-six participants were randomized to write for 4 days about either stressful experiences (disclosure group) or time management (control group). Students rated their perceived stress level, academic engagement and interpersonal relationship before the treatment for baseline evaluation, and in the subsequent month for comparison. Results showed that the perceived effectiveness of the emotional disclosure intervention is notably greater in helping the participants to manage stress than the control condition of writing for time management. A significant time effect was shown in perceived stress level, suggesting that participants in both time management and written emotional disclosure conditions showed lowering of perceived stress level over time. However, there was no significant treatment effect for any of the three areas of concern. This study also provides an important finding showing that interpersonal relationship moderated treatment effect; implying that written emotional disclosure is an effective intervention for students who have poor interpersonal relationship. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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