Thesis (MEd (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / The quality of education in South Africa has drawn critical attention as children continue to perform poorly as they progress through school. Reflective practice is promoted and implemented internationally as a method to improve quality teaching and learning. Nationally a growing interest in the implementation of reflective practice is reflected in the Department of Basic Education’s suggestion that teachers make use of reflective practice to inform their classroom planning. The objective of this study was to investigate the knowledge and understanding Grade R teachers have of reflective practice. As Grade R is the first year and the foundation of a child’s school career, it was of interest to explore whether teachers reflect on their practice. This study was located in an interpretivist paradigm using a case study design. Two Grade R teachers were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Their annual, termly and weekly planning was analysed alongside the transcripts of the interviews, using thematic analysis to identify common themes of reflective practice in Grade R. Five themes emerged from the analysis, which enabled the exploration of the benefits and challenges of using reflective practice in Grade R. These five themes allowed for the development of the idea of using reflective practice as a means for improving teaching and learning in Grade R. The teachers interviewed value the idea of reflective practice as a way to meet the needs of the children. They describe it as an innate aspect of their teaching. However, they have a tacit understanding and knowledge of reflective practice and it was not evident in the documents they use to inform their teaching. For reflective practice to be encouraged teachers need support from within their schools and from the Department of Basic Education.

The present study examined the impact of COVID-related stress on the mental health and professional burnout in the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) workforce and to examine reflective supervision and consultation (RSC) as a possible protective factor that buffers against the detrimental impact of COVID-related stress. Participants included 123 adults (n = 121 female, modal age range 30-39 years) in the TN IECMH workforce (mean years of experience = 13.6 years) surveyed in June/July 2020. Sector representation was quite varied (home-visiting, childcare, child welfare, early intervention). Results indicated that 46% of the sample had depression symptoms (18% in the moderate-severe range) and 75% of the sample had anxiety symptoms (33% in the moderate-severe range). Higher COVID stress was associated with higher internalizing symptoms and burnout levels and this relationship was mediated by self-care behaviors, such that the more COVID stress one reported, the fewer self-care behaviors they engaged in, and the higher the risk for internalizing symptoms and burnout. Finally, the pathway from COVID stress to self-care behaviors was moderated by RSC such that IECMH professionals who received 1 year or more of RSC were buffered against the detrimental impact of COVID stress on lowering self-care behaviors whereas this protective effect of RSC was not present for individuals with less than 1 year (or no experience of) RSC.

It is well established that good writing derives from writers who understand the writing process. However, while the National Curriculum of England explicitly states that teachers should incorporate important parts of the writing process, such as drafting, revising and proof-reading, in their teaching, the Swedish national curriculum does not. The aim of the study was to investigate how reflective learning affects Swedish students' writing skills in an ESL setting. More specifically, it investigates how the implementation of drafting and redrafting in a writing project affects the quality of texts as well as students’ perception of working reflectively. To be able to evaluate these variables, the students’ first and final drafts were analyzed in order to find out how much the students had improved and in which linguistic areas out of grammar, formality, cohesion and structure. The students were also asked to write a reflective text about their opinion of the writing project. The data was then categorized and later analyzed by using Kolb’s experiential learning cycle and the GLL model. The results showed an insignificant change regarding the students’ grades and quality of text. However, most students were positive about the working process. These results suggest that reflective learning could have many benefits for Swedish students’ writing skills and students seem to find the working process helpful. However, more research is needed in order to further evaluate the impact reflective learning can have on students’ writing skills.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects on a student’s metacognition, reflection, and learning in a specifically designed educational simulation supported by unique technology. The simulation allows players’ actions to be recorded for the purpose of review to identify mistakes. The simulation also allows students to start at and redo actions while fixing previous mistakes instead of starting over at the beginning of a new scenario. When starting at the mistake or point of failure, as identified by a facilitator, during the redo of the initial saved scenario, students reflect on the actions performed during the initial scenario. Student thinking during a redo of a scenario, after the initial scenario reflection, may be called reflective redo when the simulation technology can support starting from the point of failure. This research investigated how metacognition, reflection, and learning were affected by reflective redo. Two key findings were identified when analyzing reflective redo in how students. learn the content and how they learn about their own use of metacognition and reflection. The first key finding relating to the influence of reflective redo on learning was that participants used reflection at levels that matched their need as a support mechanism. The second key finding was that the students’ abilities to place themselves in the problem space contributed to the amount of contextual information they needed to be successful— in this case, either starting from the beginning or from the point of failure.

The psychological literature consistently finds strong associationsbetween self-compassion, difficulties in emotion regulation, and occupational burnout, especially in populations with high amountsof occupational stress. In healthcare, clinician health and performance are implicated by these variables. Downstream effects are also detected, where increasing clinician burnout diminishestreatment efficacy. This reduced efficacy compounds on pre-existing issues of the treatment community, and generates additional barriers to achieving stability and health. This effect has been indirectly implicated in the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) workforce, which includes professionals who engage and serve children and families, many of whom have high psychosocial risk. One way that the IECMH field has worked to address this pathway, is through the provision of RS/C (Reflective Supervision and Consultation). A key tenet of the IECMH practice, RS/C is designed to curb off the negative psychological aftermath ofoccupational stress. However, RS/C is largely unstudied, and requires additional evidence to gain traction as an intervention forhigh-stress occupations. As such, this study explored how RS/C interacts with self-compassion, difficulties in emotion regulation, and burnout in a population of IECMH professionals. Interest in protective factors led to test whether RS/C amplifies the protective capacity of self-compassion in the context of burnout (model 1), and whether of RS/C acts as a protective factor in the context of difficulties in emotion regulation and burnout (model 2). 141 clinicians who work in the IECMH field completed self-report measures of self-compassion, difficulties in emotion regulation, and occupational burnout, in the summer of 2020. Bivariate correlation indicated significant relationships between self-compassion and difficulties in emotion regulation (r = -.71, p < .01), self-compassion and burnout (r = -.57, p < .01), and difficulties in emotion regulation and burnout (r = .66, p < .01). Two simple moderation models were tested using Hayes’ PROCESS macro to determine if the relationships between X (self-compassion, in model 1, and difficulties in emotion regulation, in model 2) and Y (occupational burnout, in both models) were influenced by the presence of W (RS/C, in both models). Model 1 was not significant. For Model 2, the overall model was significant F(3, 93) = 27.51, R2 = .35, p < .001 and the interaction term was also significant (R2 change = .03, p = .02). Specifically, the relationship between X and Y remained significant across all levels of RS/C, and the strength of the relationship between X and Y was weakest when engagement in RS/C was highest, and strongest when engagement in RS/C was lowest. These results suggest that the reflective and supportive nature of RS/C may hold promising implications for protecting workforces from burnout via emotion regulation difficulties in high stress contexts.

Modern firefighter protective equipment is excellent at protecting firefighters from surrounding heat, but how effective is at deflecting incoming radiant heat, and would the use of more reflective textiles, be able to further increase the equipment’s protective properties? This study aims to understand the different properties that reflective materials, compared to standard firefighter outer layers, have against radiative heat flux. The textiles of firefighter turnout gear and the reflective textiles used in the smelting industry have been examined when exposed to varying levels of radiant heat in a cone calorimeter. The materials were examined before and after a layer of soot was applied to them, to understand their capabilities if used in a soot-rich environment. The change in material emissivity, when soot was applied, could then be calculated for each material. The heat reducing properties of the sooted and non sooted materials emissivities were tested, using computer simulations of a firefighter’s full turnout gear. First the radiative and convective heat fluxes were compared within a computational fluid dynamics software called FDS, second the skin level temperature was calculated using VGP, a finite element software that accounts for heat flow further into the skin and body.  During the experiment it was found that the emissivity of the reflective material even after soot application, performed better than that of the standard firefighter gear. In the simulations, the sooted reflective material emissivity would reduce the total heat flux to the firefighter with an average of 19% compared to the sooted standard turnout gear. Using the temperature of 44 °C as the limit for human skin damage, the use of a reflective emissivity would allow a 19% longer exposure to the same incident heat before possible skin damage would occur. Reducing the emissivity of current turnout gear would prove valuable as a method of reducing heat accumulation in a firefighter, especially at key areas more susceptible to the radiative heat flux from smoke-layers and radiative flames. This would in turn provide safer work environments for structural firefighting by reducing heat stress during active operations.

Research was conducted on broadband, anti-reflective coatings for fused silica and chalcogenide substrates in the infrared region of light. Using chemical preparation to create nano-porous through nano-particle based sol-gel solutions, the alteration of optical properties including refractive index and optical thickness was conducted. The nano-particles can modify the coating surface to allow only zero-order diffracted wave propagation reducing scattering while a partially graded profile of refractive index due surface evaporation lessened the precise phase relations of typical homogeneous coatings. My study of silica and titania sol-gel, and hybrid mixtures of the two were used to obtain the optical properties of the materials. The choice of experiments were rooted in theoretically calculated values, and parameters were selected based on quarter wavelength thickness and square root of refractive index theories of destructive cancellation of rebound waves for reduction of reflection. The fused silica system required anti-reflection in the region of 1.0-1.6 micrometer wavelength of the near-infrared. The base, uncoated transmission in this region is ~91%. A maximum transmission of 98% and no less than 97.3% over the entire region of interest was achieved. The chalcogenide system required anti-reflection in the regions of 1.0-1.6 and 3.5-5.0 micrometers of the near- and mid-infrared. The base, uncoated transmission of these regions is 61.9%. A maximum of 95% transmission was achieved for the 1.0-1.6 region and 87% for the 3.5-5.0 region. Solutions and coatings were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope, Atomic Force Microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, particle size, elipsometry, UV-Vis-NIR, and FTIR to reveal the science behind the development and synthesis of nano optical coatings.

Production of hot peppers, Capsicum spp., in Jamaica is constrained by the aphid-transmitted potyviruses, tobacco etch virus (TEV) and potato virus Y (PVY). The virus epidemiology was not understood and no effective virus management system existed for these viruses. This study sought to identify possible management strategies for aphid-transmitted viruses of hot peppers in Jamaica, using TEV and Capsicum chinense, var. 'Scotch Bonnet' and 'West Indian Red', as models. Field spread of TEV to pepper was mainly by secondary spread from primary infections. Secondary infections were spatially correlated to primary infections for up to 25 meters. Natural infections of TEV were associated with aphid flight activity. Over 30 species of aphids were collected on pepper farms in St. Catherine parish. These aphids included five known vectors of TEV, Aphis gossypii Glover, A. craccivora Koch, A. spiraecola Patch, Lipaphis erysimi Hille Ris Lambers and M. persicae (Sulzer), and 12 new records for Jamaica, Aphis amaranthi Holman, Brachycaudus helichrysi (Kaltenbach),Capitophorus hippophaes (Walker), Geopemphigus floccosus (Moreira), Hysteroneura setariae (Thomas), Lipaphis erysimi Hille Ris Lambers, Rhopalosiphum padi (Linnaeus), Schizaphis graminum (Rondani), Schizaphis rotundiventris (Signoret), Trichosiphonaphis poligoni (van der Goot), Uroleucon ambrosiae complex (Thomas) and Uroleucon pseudoambrosiae (Olive). A. amaranthi and U. ambrosiae were associated with TEV spread. Weeds on and near farms influenced the abundance and species of aphids captured. West Indian Red pepper showed tolerance to TEV. Scotch Bonnet pepper yield reduction was greater if plants were infected with TEV during the vegetative stage through flower initiation rather than after the start of fruit set. Stylet oil and reflective mulch used together delayed the incidence of TEV in pepper plots for over two months. TEV management programs should aim to delay the virus from infecting peppers during the first two months after transplanting. A risk analysis is proposed for management of TEV and other aphid-borne viruses. / Ph. D.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Metacognition, the ability to self-regulate one’s learning and performance, is well-known to provide numerous academic and professional benefits for students, educators, and clinicians. However, few studies have studied metacognition specifically in the context of anatomical sciences education. Therefore, the overarching purpose of this dissertation was to explore the metacognition of students and educators who are learning and teaching the anatomical sciences. This dissertation investigated the metacognition of allied health students (physical therapy, physician assistant, and occupational therapy; n=109), first-year medical students (n=1802), and anatomy educators (faculty, associate instructors, and teaching assistants; n=13) in anatomy courses through three multiple-methods studies. Quantitative data were collected using assessment data and either the Metacognition Awareness Inventory (MAI), Practice-Based Learning and Improvement (PBLI) assignments, or Teacher Metacognition Inventory (TMI). These data were then analyzed using the appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data were also collected through reflective writing activities (e.g., online discussion boards or reflective journals) and analyzed using thematic or framework analysis. Overall, both students and educators improved their metacognition across a semester of either learning or teaching anatomy, with certain subgroups demonstrating greater metacognitive ability or growth than others. Higher performing allied health and medical students were both more accurate at predicting their exam performances compared to their lower performing peers. Faculty also demonstrated the greatest teaching-specific metacognition, though teaching assistants exhibited the greatest growth in their teaching-specific metacognition. These improvements were primarily in their reflective ability and awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses as teachers. Several notable themes relating to metacognition were also identified such as student willingness to monitor learning diminishing over time due to competing academic or professional commitments. Additionally, novice educators were more inwardly-focused on personal traits and content mastery, whereas experienced educators were more outwardly-focused on interpersonal factors (e.g., student rapport and inclusive language). These insights into the metacognition of both students and educators can inform how to best support and improve teaching and learning in the anatomical sciences. Given the significance of metacognition, it may be beneficial to incorporate educational activities that can support the metacognition of both students and educators, simultaneously.

The present thesis is devoted to synthesis, through the environmentally friendly citrate sol-gel route, of YIn0.9O3 −ZnO near infrared reflective based pigments, having different chromophore elements (Mn, Cu, Fe), with the aim to add in binder and obtaining cool coatings. A “cool” coating for roofing consists of paint (or glaze) containing color pigments, which do not absorb the infrared portion of the solar spectrum. Cool coatings applied over buildings surface provide an effective solution for passive cooling of building indoors and influencing local outdoor microclimate, mitigating urban heat islands effect (UHIE). The primary purpose is to produce pigments according to an environmentally friendly route, using non-toxic raw materials, as well as short times and low temperatures for synthesis, and without residual waste. The resulting pigments must have high reflectance in the near-infrared so that they can be used in the field of cold paints. To realize the corresponding coatings, pigments were dispersed in two different binders (standard PMMA and industrial binder). For the most interesting pigments, in terms of NIR reflectance, other property, was decided to explore, which define these NIR reflective pigments as smart pigments for building application: the photocatalytic ability.