This master thesis presents the results of the inquiry-based science education at a country school. It compares the current coverage teaching with inquiry-based teaching in theory and describes the process, levels, benefits and limitations of this pedagogical approach.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Sally J. Yahnke / Jeong-Hee Kim / This study is a narrative inquiry into the lives of physical education teachers in order to gain insight into their identities as physical education teachers and their understanding of what it means to be physically literate as well as investigate into the thoughts of physical education teachers about the concept of comprehensives school physical activity programs. According to Whitehead (2010), physical literacy is a disposition to capitalize on the human embodied capability, wherein an individual has the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activity throughout a lifetime. Development of the debate regarding physical literacy was stimulated by the study of existentialist and phenomenological philosophers, such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, who articulate a particular stance towards the nature of our mind and body connection. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/2010) philosophy facilitated the gain of knowledge regarding 1) how stories of physical education teachers help promote physical literacy in schools; 2) how physical education teachers perceive the mind/body connection; and 3) how physical education teachers understand what it means to be physically literate. The contributions to the thought and practice of physical education as a result of this study will highlight 1.) physical literacy is embodied in adapted physical education; 2.) the role of physical education teachers is not just teaching and moving the body, but to help students learn better; 3.) A stressed mind affects the body, and having a healthy body helps students learn better; 4.) A new role of physical education teachers is to bridge the gap between physical education and the classroom by providing ideas to classroom teachers regarding brain breaks. 5.) Teacher education programs need to highlight reflective practices that help future physical educators draw upon knowledge from their own life experiences to enrich their teaching; 6.) Physical education teachers should collaborate with public health officials to implement comprehensive school physical activity programs.

In order to prepare students to be globally competitive, teachers must equip them with the knowledge and skills to be successful in the 21st century. To this aim, school spending on e-books and e-readers is at an all-time high, but evidence indicates teachers are not fully integrating them into the reading classroom. This qualitative study was grounded in sociocultural theory and explored veteran primary teachers’ knowledge of and persistent attitudes about using e-books in reading instruction. Within a collaborative inquiry group, five teachers explored the way to best use e-books in their primary reading classrooms. Through the cyclical process of planning, observing, acting, and reflecting, the teachers explored e-books during the meetings and then took them into the classroom to use with their students. Data sources included semi-structured interviews, participant observation notes, transcribed audio recordings, and reflective journals. Thematic and directed content analyses were used on the data, and findings of both analyses were presented in a pleated text that framed analytical texts with researcher notes. Findings demonstrated that there was an emotionality to reading books in traditional and electronic format, but by experimenting with the e-books in the supportive, dialogic context of the collaborative inquiry meeting, teachers changed both their knowledge of and persistent attitudes about electronic books. Important implications were noted for professional development coordinators, administrators, and policy-makers.

Magister Curationis - MCur / Male learners in the nursing profession could face self-leadership challenges. Self-leadership is an enabling process whereby a person learns to know him/herself better and, through this improved self-awareness, is better able to steer his/her work life. It involves personal and professional growth and maturity. This leads to empowerment of the individual and to fulfillment of goals and desires. The purpose of this study was to describe guidelines for male learner nurses on self-leadership during a four-year nursing programme at a nursing college in the Western Cape. The objectives of this study were to explore and describe the best experiences of self-leadership in male learner nurses during their four-year training programme at a nursing college in the Western Cape. An exploratory, descriptive, contextual and qualitative research design incorporating the philosophy of the Appreciative Inquiry paradigm was used. The research questions were framed from an AI perspective: ‘What are the best experiences of male learner nurses on their self-leadership during their four-year programme?’ ‘How can male learner nurses lead themselves during their four-year programme?’ The target population consisted of all the male student nurses from 1st to 4th year (n=151) in the R425 undergraduate diploma programme at a nursing college in the Western Cape. Data was collected by means of individual, semi-structured interviews with 12 male learner nurses until saturation occurred. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis consisted of thematic analysis using Tesch’s eight-step method to generate themes, categories and sub-categories. The findings consisted of five themes: Theme 1 – The peak experiences of the male student nurses relating to self-leadership occurred on multiple levels – academic, interpersonal, personally associated and practice-linked. Theme 2 – Self-leadership was a process (at times difficult) of growth, adaptation and developing attitudes that culminated in building character. Theme 3 – Future aspirations included professional and educational aspects and interpersonal leadership. Theme 4 – This revealed the qualities needed for attainment of future aspirations. Theme 5 – The value of the programme was enhanced through educational, fellow student and practice support. The conclusion of this study was that male student nurses have the ability to lead themselves; they display characteristics such as maturity, responsibility, advocacy, strong resolve, hard work, endurance, a willingness to sacrifice; they used self-talk; they made firm decisions; but they needed guidance and active support from family, friends and nurse educators as well as management. The value of their training programme was enhanced by educational support from lecturers and mentors, fellow students and practice support in the wards and simulation laboratory. Guidelines for self-leadership for male learner nurses were described from the findings of the study. Ethical considerations included obtaining informed consent from the participants, while ensuring confidentiality and anonymity. Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the Ethics Committee at the University of the Western Cape, Western Cape College of Nursing (WCCN) and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Trustworthiness was ensured throughout the research process through credibility, transferability, confirmability and dependability.

What I Meant to Say about Love is an ever-differing interstitial text which has left open spaces for artists, researchers, and teachers, called a/r/tographers, to contest the curriculum and pedagogy of reduction and pragmatic means-ends orientations that monopolize schools. This text wanders, meanders, and digresses to places where, through poetic inquiry, the notion that there is no pedagogy without love can be explored. In a broad understanding of midrash, as it is performed poetically, three years of an English teacher's life are recorded fictionally. James, the main character, discovers that love is a physically potent force that structures and deconstructs, just as it connects and disconnects. His story considers how the professional emphasis in education compartmentalizes and separates the inner life from the outer life. In love with life, with learning, and with others, the James of this story writes poetry to acknowledge love's power, and to restore its credibility in the classroom—that the lovers' discourse might be trusted again. This un/authorized autobiography ruptures the predictable stories of what it means to be a successful teacher by considering one teacher's journey as a limit case, examining phenomenologically how he connects his life of love and poetry to his classroom practice and how his students respond to his poetically charged way of being. My hope is that it might be possible to offer here, in this place, one poet's understanding and celebration of difference in the world. Recognizing the relationship between what is original and what is shifting, I hope to keep complexity and diversity alive, to resist answers, to continue to converse and traverse and transgress. Thus, with careful attention to poetry as a way of knowing and unknowing, and by attending to the paradox, humour, and irony in one poet's lived experiences, both public professings and inner confessings, as they are understood in relations of difference, or as they are understood in relations of decomposition and fertility, it is possible to consider how powerful emotive experiences, oftentimes relegated to the personal and therefore insignificant, can and do have profound transformational effects on praxis. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This thesis explores the question “What do teachers who have recently graduated from teacher education programs know, believe, and experience about supporting LGBTQ+ students?” This research was conducted using narrative inquiry and métissage, with a group of six volunteer participants who had completed their teacher education programs since May of 2012. The participants wrote narrative responses to written prompts and the researcher wove those narratives together with his own experiences to highlight points of affinity and tension. This research articulates a number of ways in which teacher education programs can better prepare teachers to support LGBTQ+ students. / Graduate / 2018-12-18

Bullying has severe consequences for school-aged adolescents who have experienced repeated victimization and for the families as well. While there is a considerable body of research on bullying and its effects on victims, very little research has been devoted to studying the experiences and resistance of the targeted young people and their families in the bullying situations. The literature on bullying characterizes victims as unable to defend themselves; this depiction is limited, simplistic, and one-dimensional. This dissertation presents an alternate view, focusing on the experiences and responses of victims and their families. The thesis draws on a poststructural view and a response-based framework to present a new perspective on the victims of bullying—a perspective that contrasts with the common depiction of “helpless, powerless victims” and foregrounds the personal agency of young people who have responded to bullying. Data for this study was collected in the form of narratives from the families and eleven to fifteen year old school adolescents who have been targets of ongoing bullying. The sample consisted of four families and five adolescents. The interview questions were based on Allan Wade’s response-based approach. The participants’ narratives focused on their responses to bullying. Each narrative was read thoroughly for themes related to the skills and the knowledge adolescents have used in responding to peer aggression. Similarly, parents’ narratives were examined for themes of their responses to the bullying of their children. The conclusion from the findings indicated that the parents and adolescents responded to bullying in many small but prudent and resourceful ways.

This study investigated the conditions for developing science teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). It also explored the opportunities offered by two strategies to enhance science teachers’ ability to design technology-based inquiry activities for science learning: Experiencing Inquiry Model (EIM) and Metacognitive Scaffolding (MS). These strategies were adopted to support the processing necessary for developing teachers’ knowledge and for negotiating the integration of computer technology in science instruction. Situated Cognition Theory was used as a theoretical framework for learning, and TPACK was used as a conceptual framework for technology integration. 33 science teachers from four intermediate and high schools participated in the study. 17 and 16 teachers were conveniently assigned to EIM and MS, respectively. The study employed a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative evidence. As per the quantitative method, a quasi-experimental design that employed the 2 Teaching Strategy (EIM or MS) × 2 Time (pre- and post-intervention) of learning split-plot factorial design was applied in the study. Concurrently with the quantitative data collection, the qualitative evidence was collected from the researcher’s logbook, participants’ written documents, and interviews. The findings suggested that there were no significant differences between EIM and MS for developing the knowledge components embodied in TPACK. Nevertheless, the participants who learned through the MS strategy outperformed their counterparts in designing technology-based inquiry activities for science learning. The latter result suggested that teachers who received metacognitive scaffolding were more equipped to connect curriculum goals with technology and instruction.

In my thesis I deal mainly with the issue of selecting enterprise resource planning system. In the initial passage I describe the ERP systems in general, briefly map their history to the present and mention actual trends and provide categorization of ERP systems. Part of the first passage is devoted to actual trends in the area of implementation of ERP systems and analysis of the ERP market on national scale and worldwide as well. In the following part of thesis I deal with the ERP system selection procedure which is followed by recommended content of ERP inquiry document, analysis and categorization of inquiry documents which were freely available on the internet. This passage ends with chapter devoted to contracts under implementation of ERP system. The beginning of the practical part of my thesis contains short description of selected organization, history of its actual information system and its current status. Main part deals with the concept of the ERP system inquiry document for selected organization. Work ends with a brief summary of the findings and results.

Globally, great strides have been made in developing essential strategies and knowledge necessary to prevent vertical transmission of HIV. Retention in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme is essential for the achievement of this aspiration. The study applied Mixed Method Sequential Explanatory Design to explore the factors that underscored the retention decisions of newly diagnosed HIV positive pregnant women. The study was set in the PMTCT programme in the Takoradi Government Hospital, Ghana, a lower middle income country. PMTCT records were retrospectively reviewed. Subsequently, the Appreciative Inquiry process using the 4Is terminology was applied to unearth the experiences and aspirations of mothers (n=12), midwives and Community health nurses (CHNs) (n=12) engaged in the programme. Ethical approval was granted by University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences Human Ethics Research Committee and Ghana Health Service Ethics Review Committee. Retention rate at six weeks postpartum was 67.4%. Retention stories of women enrolled in the PMTCT programme reflected a life-enhancing experience in the face of a life-threatening diagnosis. Four themes were generated: Transitioning to the ‘new’ woman, Journeying with committed companions, Glimpses of triumph and Tying up the loose ends: A daring new path. The study highlighted development of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation, supportive network of family, healthcare professionals and religious leaders, and the commitment and companionship of the midwives and CHNs that culminated in the successes of the programme. ‘Healthy’ HIV-infected mothers and ‘exposed’ infants who tested negative to HIV at the end of the mother-infant pair’s journey in the PMTCT programme was evidence of the diligence of mothers, midwives and CHNs. A collaborative discussion resulted in the development of action plans to improve service delivery, enhance clients’ experiences and improve retention. The study recommends that PMTCT services should be structured to promote hope and empowerment for the clients through shared clients and healthcare professionals’ designed improvement programmes, instituting programmes that promote the emotional health of the health practitioners to sustain the programme, and promptly addressing health system challenges that contribute to disengagement.