This study investigated caregivers' perceptions with regard to vaccine-preventable diseases in terms of six constructs of the Health Belief Model. A qualitative research design that is explorative, descriptive and contextual in nature was employed in order to understand and describe the perceptions influencing access and utilisation of services that lead to missed immunisation opportunities and consequently outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. The data-collection techniques were individual unstructured in-depth interviews, field notes and clinical records. The sample consisted of twenty two (N=22) caregivers who volunteered to be interviewed. The study has highlighted that caregivers' perceptions or cognitive factors play an important role for having children in completing immunisation schedule to protect the public from vaccine-preventable diseases. It is recommended that mass media programmes are needed to address the role of vaccines in reducing high morbidity and mortality rates caused by vaccine preventable diseases and improvement in access to immunisation services. / Health Studies / MPH (Health Studies)

Applied research was utilised in order to identify the challenges experienced by employees of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality regarding preparation for retirement. The purpose of the study was to explore the challenges experienced by employees in the age bracket of 50 to 65 years. A quantitative approach was utilised. Probability sampling with a systematic sampling method was used to obtain a representative sample of 100 employees from the larger population of 4,453 employees. Survey research was undertaken in order to provide a numeric description of the opinions of employees of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, by using questionnaires as the data collection method. The cross-sectional survey design was most appropriate as it involves one contact with the respondent and is comparatively cheap to undertake and easy to analyse. Questionnaires were handdelivered to some respondents to fill in themselves and collected upon completion, whilst other respondents were assisted with the questionnaires by Wellness Champions. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences program (SPSS). The research demonstrated that the challenges faced by employees of EMM are financial, psychosocial and physical in nature. Surveyed employees indicated that they were not aware of any retirement preparatory programme offered by EMM and expressed a strong need for such a programme. One of the recommendations is the development of a retirement preparatory programme by EMM in order to mitigate some of the post-retirement difficulties that may be experienced by retirees. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Community participation is an important aspect of South African government policies that deal with integrated development planning and sustainable development. This report presents aspects of community participation in infrastructure delivery and in particular housing in Reeston which is part of the Duncan Village Redevelopment Initiative in East London area of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. The importance of community participation is acknowledged as it enhances the ability of the community members to demonstrate and use their own views to deal with specific issues and to address the needs and problems that emerge and prevail in their societies. The two emerging paradigms of community participation suggest that the participating communities should be involved in the ‘selection, design, planning and implementation’ of projects that will have an effect on them and from which they are going to benefit ; and that continuous feedback to communities forms a fundamental part of any development activity. This report explores how the “Breaking New Ground in Housing” (BNG) policy of the South African Government meets its objectives in the context of community participation.

While it is acknowledged that CI is important to SMEs, it is not being practiced optimally in SMEs. The study of CI in SMEs has not been as well documented as it has been in larger enterprises. Moreover, there is no evidence of CI awareness and practices in SMEs. The purposes of this study are to, establish the level and extent of awareness and practices of CI in SMEs, identify the challenges SMEs face in implementing CI, and equip SMEs for decision making in order to help SMEs to gain competitive advantage in a turbulent global market and to enhance their economic growth. This research indicates that SMEs are aware of CI. It also indicates that while SMEs practice CI, they do so informally. It also shows that CI provides competitive advantage to SMEs. / Business Management / M.Com. (Business Management)

A quantitative, descriptive method was used in this study. A purposeful sample of 239 (N=239) participants was chosen. At a theoretical level, the study provided insight into the causes of stress among educators, the impact of stress on them and the influence of school management teams to support educators in the management of their stress. The literature review confirmed that stress of educators is caused by internal and external factors. It also confirmed that stress may lead to physical and mental illnesses and may influence the emotional state of an educator. The literature confirmed that where school management teams support educators, it reduces the stress levels of the educators. From an empirical perspective, the study confirmed that external factors such as long working hours and workload do have an impact on the educator’s stress levels. This then leads to educators feeling irritated, exhausted and burned out. On the role of school management teams supporting educators to manage the stress levels, the empirical outcome was neutral. / Educational Management and Leadership / M. Ed. (Educational Management)

The purpose of the study was to investigate grade 11 learners’ problem solving skills and conceptual reasoning on concepts in stoichiometry. Two theoretical frameworks were used in this study namely, cognitive load theory (CLT) and typology of curriculum representation (levels of curriculum alignment). The explanatory sequential mixed method research design were applied where 410 physical sciences learners in their intact classes and eleven of their teachers participated in the study. The participants completed purposefully designed research instruments consisting of an achievement test (LAT), a teacher and a learner questionnaire (TSQ and LCQ), and a teacher lesson plan on stoichiometry-related concepts (TLP). Other instruments used include a semi-structured interview schedule (LIS), classroom observation schedule (COS) and learner work books (LWB). The study was underpinned by five research questions. Pearson correlations showed that the justifications given by learners for choosing right or wrong objective options were not due to chance and suggested a learner choosing the right objective option has the right conceptual reasoning. Findings indicate that there is a positive correlation between problem-solving skills and conceptual reasoning where conceptual reasoning statistically predicted learners’ problem-solving skills using Regression. Problem solving is an important cognitive activity in everyday and professional contexts. Therefore, it requires teachers to know where to focus their teaching and how to assess learners’ work to avoid unnecessary overloading of the working memory of learners which might affect their performance. Conceptual reasoning and problem-solving errors were made during the problem solving, for example, learners could not apply mole ratio, they were unable to do change of subject and they interchanged the meanings of chemical terms such as mole, molecule, atoms and mass. In terms of possible reasons for the errors, and how it linked to the way learners were taught, the curriculum levels were considered. Findings indicate that there is a mismatch between what is expected in stoichiometry from the CAPS curriculum termed intended curriculum and the implemented curriculum which includes teacher lesson plans, classroom observations and learner workbooks. The classroom observations schedule was designed in line with the teacher lesson plan. There were topics planned in the lessons that were not found in the learner workbooks. The analysis of the content of learners’ workbooks for topics treated under stoichiometry, revealed that 75.7% of concepts were being taught while 24.3% were not. The analysis showed that learners experienced difficulties with calculating the concept of limiting reactant. There is a mismatch between implemented and attained curriculum as well. In the TSQ, teachers indicated that the errors were due to misconceptions, misunderstanding, carelessness and misinterpretation. These were found during marking of the learner achievement test. In conclusion, this study did not find a direct link between the way the learners were taught and the errors they committed during problem solving based on the implemented (TLP, LWB and COS) and attained curriculum (LAT, LCQ, LIS and DoBE report) / Science and Technology Education / Ph. D. (Mathematics, Science and Technology Education)

Teacher attrition in schools is a common and ongoing phenomenon experienced nationally and internationally. Teacher attrition takes place continuously in schools either voluntarily or involuntarily in the form of retirement, resignation, transfer, dismissal, redeployment, ill-health and death, affecting the teaching and learning process in a negative way. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of female principals on teacher attrition. The study was conducted in the public schools of Tshwane West District of Gauteng Province. Transformational leadership theory and ethics of care theory underpinned this qualitative study positioned within the constructivist paradigm. A case study design was used to explore the case of teacher attrition. Purposive sampling was used to select the female principals to participate in this study. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis. Qualitative content analysis was employed for data analysis. The study found that teacher attrition affects schools negatively. It disrupts and destabilises the schools, affecting the morale of the teachers as well as affecting learner performance and discipline as it takes place throughout the academic year. The female principals employ various strategies to address the issue of teacher attrition and to motivate for teacher retention. The study recommended that female principals be empowered to enable them to cope with their role of managing teacher attrition. / Educational Management and Leadership / Ph. D. (Education (Educational Management and Leadership))

This research study deals with the role of ward committee members in local government and administration in South Africa with reference to the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). Most importantly, the transformation of local government and administration in South Africa and the role of the state as well as local government from the public administration perspective in this study highlight the importance of municipal regulatory framework and policies in decision-making. There are two scientific research methodologies called qualitative and quantitative methodologies. In this research project, the qualitative research methodology has been used to assess the roles, functions and performance of ward committees in enhancing service delivery in the local communities. It involved collecting data, processing and analysing data to necessitate a reflection on the planning, and the structuring and execution of the research in order to comply with the demands of truth, objectivity and validity. The methodology has resulted in a research project through which the ward committee system in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM) can be understood within the government service delivery programme and one that attempts to clarify the involvement of local communities and stakeholders. A hypothetical process model for ward committees in the City of Tshwane outlines and clarifies the roles and functions of ward committees in the service delivery processes. A City of Tshwane ward committee model system is proposed to promote working relationships in the municipality and efficacy in service delivery to the local communities other stakeholders by the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM) departments. The recommendations from the findings is that the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM) should build the capacity of ward committee members through continuous training and development and consider increasing the term of office of ward committees to be concurrent with the elections of councillors and that communication, verbal and written for the local communities meetings, should be improved. Monitoring and evaluation of departments within the current performance management system of both ward committee members and local communities, holding the municipal government accountable should be included. Copyright / Dissertation (MAdmin)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) / unrestricted

This study has its beginnings in the intriguing idea of how people think things are as opposed to the way things really are. This idea forms one of the central themes of the post-modern paradigm of knowledge that underlines the more inventive role of language in the constitution of knowledge. So much intrigued by this idea, I decided to plot my own expedition to gain more insight into two particular appearances of the conceptualisation of the Tshwane urban space, namely: the picturing of the current urban condition and the preferred concepts used by planners to shape a better urban future. The expedition consists of two voyages. The first voyage (Part 3 of the travel journal), paraphrases the latest themes on the contemporary spatial scenery. In these sketches I tried to make sense of the s(t)imulating sites and sights by offering a personal localisation/contextualisation of these emerging spatialities. This part of the expedition highlighted the need for considerable modifications to the concepts we as planners currently use to describe the spatialities of our time. With this expectation, I commenced with my second voyage (Part 4 of the journal). By employing my refined mode of deconstructive reading, termed expansive scanning, I firstly (1) began to critically appraise how the current spatialities of Tshwane is observed, visualised and described and secondly (2) what shades of a better urban future are directed into position. The travel journal concludes with a review that attempts to bring the multiple revelations/field notes together in a more meaningful whole as my answer to the query I staged at the start of the expedition. The reading is also ended with some reflections on possible openings for further readings and more pertinent descriptions and actions by planners. / Dissertation (M (Town and Regional Planning))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Town and Regional Planning / M (Town and Regional Planning) / unrestricted

Effective and satisfactory security service is critical to private security officers (PSOs) working in the private, state-owned and public sectors as it plays a pivotal role in improving organisational productivity and helps to promote good working relationships. When PSOs project poor attitudes, clients are seriously affected by such negative behaviour and the level of service rendered will eventually deteriorate. This study sought to understand and explore the factors that contributed to unsatisfactory services rendered by PSOs at GPW in Tshwane. The researcher utilised a nonexperimental quantitative research approach and a self-administered questionnaire survey was used to collect data. Data collected was analysed and interpreted using quantitative methods and procedures. The findings emanating from the research revealed that the levels of service rendered by PSOs at GPW in Tshwane was ineffective and unsatisfactory and various factors contributed to ineffective service delivery. Several recommendations are proposed to improve the level of service rendered by PSOs. / Criminology and Security Science / M. Tech. (Security Management)