The only constant thing in today's world is change. Change is everywhere, even in the education sector. The education system has undergone tremendous changes in the past 10 years. This includes several curriculum changes. Change always contributes to stress, which individuals in the education department are experiencing quite intensively, judging by the popular media. Stressful events may lead to ill-health and might negatively impact the workforce and the overall well-being of these educators. The emergence of positive psychology has contributed to the increased research of well-being, rather than the negative antipode of illness, in relation to occupational stress. One of these positive aspects of wellbeing is work engagement, which is considered to be the opposite of burnout. Thus, describing burnout, engagement and stress is a first step in facilitating the work-related wellness of educators. Furthermore, individual dispositions that may act as resources or buffers in the handling of stress and burnout, facilitate engagement and protect educators7 health are also of interest. To measure burnout, engagement, stress and health, it is important to use reliable and valid instruments. Various studies are available on the reliability and validity of the burnout and engagement scales, but it is rather limited for educators in the South African environment. Furthermore, little information exists regarding the causes and effects of work stress, health, burnout and engagement of educators in South Africa. The first objective of this research was to standardise the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) for educators in the Goldfield region of the Northern Free State province. The second objective was to determine if biographical variables can be used to describe educators' burnout and engagement. The third objective of this research was to determine causes of stress among educators, and again to investigate the role of biographical differences. Lastly, the focus in this research fell on the determination of the role of optimism in predicting the health of educators in the Goldfield region of the Northern Free State province. A cross-sectional survey design, in which a sample is drawn from a population at one point in time, was used to attain the research objectives. Participants were randomly selected from the total population of educators in the Goldfield region of the Northern Free State province. A sample of 469 educators was used from the total population of 1014 (i.e. 46,25% of the total population). Schools in the Goldfields region of the Northern Free State province were randomly selected to participate in this research. The MBI-GS, the UWES, the Educator Stress Questionnaire (which was developed by the author for the purpose of this research), the Health Subscales of the Asset, the LOT-R and a biographical questionnaire was administered. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach alpha coefficients, inter-item correlations, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Pearson correlations, multivariate analysis of variance, one-way analysis of variance, t-tests, dummy coding and multiple-regression analyses with interaction terms were used to analyse the data. Structural-equation modelling confirmed a three-factor model of burnout consisting of Exhaustion, Depersonalization and Professional Efficacy. All three factors showed acceptable internal consistencies for three main language groups. A three-factor model of engagement was also confirmed, consisting of Vigour, Dedication and Absorption. These scales also indicated acceptable reliability. Results of a second order factor analysis indicated that the work wellness of educators can be described as consisting of two dimensions. The Burnout dimensions of Exhaustion and Depersonalisation can be grouped together on one factor, while the Burnout dimension of Professional Efficacy can be grouped with the Engagement variables of Vigour, Dedication and Absorption. Results showed that biographical variables that consist of the gender, marital status, home language, age and years work experience of educators could be used to describe educator burnout and engagement. It was found that Exhaustion could be predicted by gender. Educators who speak an African language scored lower than Afrikaans-speaking educators in terms of Exhaustion. Marital status could also be used to predict exhaustion. Educators between the ages of 37 and 46 measure lower on depersonalisation than educators between the ages of 22 and 30 years. Educators who have between 13 and 20 years of experience, have higher levels of depersonalisation than participants with 6 or less years of experience. Both English and African-language-speaking educators measure lower on Professional Efficacy than the Afrikaans language group. Language remains a significant predictor of Professional Efficacy. Educators who are older than 31 years of age measure higher on Professional Efficacy than those younger than 31 years of age. Professional Efficacy could be predicted among educators who are English speaking and/ or older than 31 years of age. Additionally, being married or divorced measure lower on Professional Efficacy when compared to their single counterparts. The eldest educators measure higher on Professional Efficacy. Female educators measure lower on Vigour than their male counterparts. Educators between the ages of 47 and 64 measure higher on dedication than educators between the age of 22 and 30 years. Married educators measured lower on dedication, when compared to single educators. The ESQ, a measure of educators' occupational stress that consists of 48 items, was developed and administered. During analysis, 4 items were discarded due to non-loading, and a further 8 items were discarded due to significant secondary loadings. Five factors were extracted and were labelled Rewards and Participation, Support and Communication, Job Insecurity, Role Overload and Task Characteristics. Furthermore, the biographical variables that were used to describe burnout and engagement among educators (language, age, gender, work experience and marital status), could also be used to describe educator stress. The various stress factors that were identified through the ESQ, could also be used to determine well-being among educators. This includes Support and Communication, Rewards and Participation, Role Overload, Job Insecurity and Task Characteristics. In terms of predicting the physical and psychological health of educators, separate analyses were carried out for the burnout and engagement components. It was shown that that educators' home language, their experience of optimism, role overload and task characteristics predicts physical health, and home language, participants' levels of optimism, experiences of rewards and participation, support and communication, job insecurity, role overload and task characteristics predicts psychological health. Additionally, the interaction terms Professional Efficacy and Optimism, as well as the interaction between Vigour and Optimism, proved to be significant predictors of physical health. The interaction term of Depersonalisation and Optimism, as well as the interaction term of Support and Communication and Optimism, proved to be significant predictors of psychological health. Language was also shown to be a constant predictor of physical and psychological health, where educators speaking an African language experienced significantly better overall well-being than Afrikaans and English-speaking educators. By way of conclusion, recommendations for future research and the education department are made. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

In the landscape of the 21st century, where competition in the financial sector is growing even more intense, the future will belong to those organisations that harness the power and potential of their human capital. It is the one huge reservoir left largely untapped, and those organisations which do this the best will be the business winners of this century. It makes sense then that different ways on how best to utilise and develop human capital for use as leverage in the competitive arena of the workplace should be investigated. Consequently, as an alternative to getting hindered by the swirling negativity and challenges, it was proposed that a positive approach is needed. It is believed that building positive psychological capacities within organisational contexts will be a powerful means of assisting South African organisations and employees to meet their new paradigm challenges. This will aid he successful transformation and augmentation and contribute to a truly ideal "Rainbow Nation" for South Africa. The researcher believes that this can be done by drawing from the positive psychology movement, where specifically selecting and developing certain positive psychological capacities may lead to desirable performance outcomes. The objective of the research was to determine if there was a relationship between positive psychological capacities (hope, optimism, resilience, self-efficacy), psychological empowerment and job performance of employees in a financial organisation. A correlational survey design was used. The study population (n = 155) consisted of call centre employees in a financial environment in Gauteng. The State Hope Scale, Life Orientation Inventory -Revised, Resilience Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale, Measuring Empowerment Questionnaire and a biographical questionnaire were used as measuring instruments. Cronbach alpha coefficients, factor analysis, Pearson product moment correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used to evaluate the data. It was found that the research group was experiencing above average levels of hope and average/moderate levels of optimism. The study also revealed that high levels of resilience and self-efficacy, as well as above average levels of psychological empowerment were being experienced by the respondents. Correlation analyses reveal a statistical and practically significant positive relationship between hope and job performance. A statistically significant relationship was found between optimism and job performance and self-efficacy and job performance. However, no statistical or practically significant relationship was found to exist between resilience and job performance and between psychological empowerment and job performance. With regards to the relationships between the constructs, correlation analyses yielded a statistical and practically significant relationship between hope and optimism, hope and resilience, hope and self-efficacy, and hope and psychological empowerment. There is also a practical and statistically significant relationship between optimism and resilience; self-efficacy and resilience and between optimism and self-efficacy. However, no practically significant relationship was found between resilience and psychological empowerment and between self-efficacy and psychological empowerment. This study also investigated if the positive psychological capacities of hope, optimism, resilience and self-efficacy and psychological empowerment, could be used to predict job performance. It was found that hope, optimism and self-efficacy can be used to predict job performance. Resilience however was found not to be a predictor of job performance. Finally this study investigated if psychological empowerment could be used to predict job performance and it was found that psychological empowerment was unfortunately found not to be predictor of job performance. Finally, recommendations were made for the organisation under study, as well as for future research purposes. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008

Academic optimism is a relatively new construct that combines collective efficacy, academic emphasis, and faculty trust in students and parents. The cumulative measure represents a robust picture of the social interactions within a school that influences the beliefs, behaviors and emotions of organizational members. Academic optimism has been established as a predictor of student achievement controlling for student socioeconomic status. However, past studies have not included student ethnicity in statistical models utilized to test the effect of academic optimism on student achievement, even though research and state achievement data show gaps among students of color and Anglo students that are just as substantial as those identified along socioeconomic. Additionally, there was a need to determine if academic optimism is simply a product of school context or if there is additional variance left to be explained by psychosocial interactions within schools. Therefore, the intent of this study was threefold: first, examine the relationships between the theoretical underpinnings of collective efficacy, academic emphasis, and faculty trust in students and parents; second, produce a more rigorous test of the effect of academic optimism on student achievement by including student ethnicity in addition to other student background characteristics; and third, determine to what magnitude school context explains a schools level of academic optimism. The author utilized multi-level analysis to test the relationship between school academic optimism and student achievement controlling for student ethnicity, socioeconomic status, previous achievement and school size within a new sample. The relationship between school academic optimism and school context was tested by employing multiple regression analysis. In a sample of 10,464 students nested within 97 elementary schools the author was able to determine that academic optimism is a positive predictor of student math and reading achievement. Furthermore, academic optimism is capable of mediating the negative relationships existing between both low socioeconomic status (SES) and student of color status and student achievement. Additionally, the studied revealed that only 52% of the variance in school level academic optimism is determined by school context.

Thesis (MPsy(Specialisation))--University of South Australia, 2003.

Mémoire (M.Ps.)--Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2000. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (M.A.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Psychology, 2008. / Thesis advisor: Brent Donnelan. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 29, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-76). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 129 p.; also includes graphics Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-85). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 128 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-88).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Iowa, 2006. / Supervisors: Dhananjay Nayakankuppam, Baba Shiv. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-61).

La perception optimiste que les gens ont de l’avenir a fait l’objet de nombreuses études. Elles ont conduit à observer une expression auto-avantageuse lors des comparaisons de son avenir à celui d’autrui (i.e., l’optimisme comparatif). Ces études ont examiné minutieusement les conditions de son émergence et ses explications intra-individuelles (motivationnelles et cognitives). D’autres études, rares mais souvent convaincantes, ont montré l’impact de la situation, de la position sociale et de la culture dans lesquelles l’optimisme comparatif est exprimé. Les explications qui en découlent interrogent plus largement l’influence des systèmes idéologiques, dans lesquelles sont insérés les gens, sur l’expression de l’optimisme comparatif. Ce dernier, principalement obtenu dans les cultures occidentales et des systèmes idéologiques libéraux, caractérisés par une dimension compétitive forte, entretient de nombreux liens avec la compétition. Afin de tester la dimension compétitive de l’optimisme comparatif ou dans quelle mesure la compétition facilite l’expression d’optimisme comparatif, nous avons mené sept études. Pour l’essentiel, elles montrent que la compétition tend à être associée à l’optimisme comparatif et à l’accroître. En outre, elles montrent la dimension d’utilité sociale de l’optimisme comparatif et que la relation entre compétition et optimisme comparatif est médiatisée par les buts de performances. Nous en concluons que l’optimisme comparatif, reflet de la compétition induite par la comparaison à autrui, est l’expression des conditions, notamment idéologiques, ultra-compétitives de nos sociétés occidentales, dans lesquelles il est exprimé. / Optimistic perception that people have of the future has been the subject of numerous studies. They led to observe an advantageous self expression when comparing his future to that of others (i.e., comparative optimism). These studies have scrutinized the conditions of its emergence and its intra-individual explanations (motivational and cognitive). Other studies rare but often compelling, showed the impact of the situation, social position and culture in which the comparative optimism is expressed. Explanations ensuing question more broadly the influence of ideological systems in which people are inserted, the expression of comparative optimism. The latter, obtained mainly in Western cultures and liberal ideological systems, characterized by strong competitive dimension, maintains many links with the competition. To test the competitive dimension of comparative optimism or to what extent the competition facilitates the expression of comparative optimism, we conducted seven studies. In essence, they show that the competition tends to be associated with comparative optimism and grow. In addition, they show the dimension of social utility of comparative optimism and the relationship between competition and comparative optimism is mediated by performance goals. We conclude that the comparative optimism, reflecting the competition induced by comparison to others, is the expression of conditions, including ideological, ultra-competitive in our Western societies in which it is expressed.