There has been a movement across South Africa's education sector to widen access and participation in higher education (HE). Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programmes offer an opportunity to do so by providing access to HE to those who do not necessarily have the prerequisite requirements. There is still much to learn regarding RPL programmes and the unique needs and challenges of RPL students, as most of these programmes are still in the pilot stage. This study is specifically concerned with the transition of RPL students into postgraduate HE, as little research has been conducted on this topic. To gain a deeper understanding of RPL student transition, the researcher followed a case-study approach in which the experiences of RPL students enrolled in an online postgraduate diploma programme in management in marketing (PgDipMM) at a South African university were investigated. The programme piloted a novel RPL assessment and selection process which aimed to address criticisms of previous models. Qualitative data was obtained through eight open-ended, in-depth interviews with RPL students enrolled in the programme. Using a thematic analysis approach, nine key themes were identified as possible mechanism that facilitated RPL students' successful transition into the postgraduate diploma and six themes that did not. Findings indicated that, to a large extent, the novel RPL assessment and selection process appeared to have facilitated RPL students' successful transition into a postgraduate diploma through technical preparation and building students' confidence in their abilities. Possible enablers and barriers to RPL students' successful transition were also identified and discussed. In short, the enablers included learner maturity, transference of prior knowledge and skills, social support, sense of belonging, access to effective resources and financial security. Conversely, the barriers included academic difficulties, under preparedness for the intensity of HE and time restrictions. The study had theoretical and practical implications in that it contributed to our understanding of RPL student transition to HE and provided suggestions for ways in which their successful transition can be facilitated

Magister Curationis - MCur / The nursing profession is the backbone of the healthcare system glob-ally. However, due to the ongoing shortage of nurses there is a growing demand for nurses across the world. This demand puts pressure on the continued recruitment of new nursing students. The factors that influence students’ reasons for entering nursing vary and require investigation to improve recruitment practices

Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast and subjected the city of New Orleans to disastrous flooding, which resulted in numerous after effects that impacted the children and adolescents of the city. The disaster contributed to high levels of stress, increased risk of psychological disorders, and was associated with an increased percentage of New Orleans children presenting symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To help address these problems associated with hurricanes and other disasters, the current study investigated how age, gender, race, and pre-existing conditions increased or decreased the likelihood of a child being diagnosed with PTSD following Hurricane Katrina. A binary logistical regression was utilized in this study. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory formed the framework of the study, based on the functionality of an individual's life and development in his or her environment. The findings revealed age to be a significant predictor on PTSD. As children's ages increase, the likelihood of having PTSD increases. The result can promote positive social change by providing mental healthcare professionals with comprehensive information regarding possible health risk of developing PTSD and the possibilities of getting treatment with evidence-based therapeutic support, medicine, and psychotherapy.

A small college in the Midwestern United States has a prior learning assessment (PLA) program that has never been evaluated from the perspective of the faculty and staff. The problem is that campus leaders have a limited understanding of faculty and staff knowledge and their role in the PLA program. The study was approached from an appreciative perspective while exploring faculty and staff knowledge and perceptions related to PLA to address 3 research questions. The first 2 research questions were developed to better understand how faculty and staff describe their understanding of the PLA program and what they envision for the program. The final research question was a reflection of the descriptive data collected from the responses to the first 2 research questions. This formative program evaluation included an open-ended survey of 36 faculty and staff as self-selected to participate in the study from the entire faculty and staff population. Additionally, formal documents, including catalog, forms, and internet references associated with PLA were evaluated. Analysis was performed through manual methods including axial coding for the surveys, descriptive and axial coding for the formal documents, followed by thematic analysis. Faculty and staff reported that they had a limited understanding of the institution's PLA program and said they would like to have a stronger program than what they have now. Key results from the analysis indicate that the institution can improve the PLA program by clarifying the purpose, enhancing the policy supporting the program, improving processes, and further promoting the program. Positive social change can occur through the college developing improved PLA practices, thus helping to support students' education endeavors.

The Adult Education sector in South Africa (SA) occupies a crucial space in higher education (HE) in terms of securing access and opportunities for a diverse group of non-traditional students to further their development. Amongst this diversity are highly marginalized subgroupings of adult learners, especially black working-class women. Participation of these women within HE requires serious attention given the low social ranking that this group continues to occupy in all spheres. Evidence drawn from Adult Education research suggests that not enough attention has been given to this group of learners with respect to how they are impacted by issues of geographic, cultural and racial diversity in the Adult Education setting. This study undertaken here reports on transformative dimensions underlining Adult Education pedagogy, with a specific focus on the concept of empowerment and how this is attained by RPL learners. A qualitative case-study methodology using a critical interpretive perspective grounded in phenomenological enquiry, was used to develop contextual understandings of four disadvantaged adult female learners' experiences of their transitions into HE. The focus is on these learners' perceptions of the forms of empowerment they have gained from their participation in a Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course, and the extent to which such empowerment has impacted positive change in their lives, even beyond the course. The argument made in this qualitative study is that the active participation of marginalized black women in Adult Education, does lead to the attainment of multiple levels of self-empowerment. Such empowerment is realized when the objectives of national educational provisions, operationalized through Adult Education legislature, are correctly aligned with the transformative and social justice mission of Adult Education theory and practice. Proper alignment yields desirable outcomes in terms of enabling transformative learning environments that engender experiences of self-empowerment, agency and control. To this effect, an evaluative study was conducted of the Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course offered by the University of Cape Town. The findings in this study demonstrate that factors such as race, geographic setting and cultural location, impact experiences of empowerment amongst adult learners. Furthermore, it is evident that such experiences of empowerment is a multi-layered and dynamic process which occur at cognitive, personal and social levels that can only be realized through praxis. The bringing together of educational policy, theory, and practice in proactive and productive ways in this study, also offers the potential for designing new hybrid frameworks for assessing the extent to which Adult Education provisions successfully achieve their transformative function, beyond the educational setting.

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The research study focuses on the Factors influencing Consumer Purchasing Behavior of Organic Skin Care Products in Sri Lanka. The researched has carried out a quantitative study using a structured questionnaire taking the sample size as the customers who are in the Western Province of Sri Lanka.Customer knowledge and value have an association on purchase intent, according to the study. As a result, it's clear that product knowledge, prior experience, environmental awareness, and health awareness all play a role in customers' decisions to buy organic skincare products in Sri Lanka. The study's findings aid top executives in setting strategic goals while concentrating on new product positioning areas that improve financial performance. As a result of this research, organic products can be tailored to meet the needs of customers, encouraging them to adopt a more organic lifestyle.

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Annotated text corpora facilitate the linguistic investigation of language as well as the automation of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. NLP tasks include problems such as spam email detection, grammatical analysis, and identifying mentions of people, places, and events in text. However, constructing high quality annotated corpora can be expensive. Cost can be reduced by employing low-cost internet workers in a practice known as crowdsourcing, but the resulting annotations are often inaccurate, decreasing the usefulness of a corpus. This inaccuracy is typically mitigated by collecting multiple redundant judgments and aggregating them (e.g., via majority vote) to produce high quality consensus answers. We improve the quality of consensus labels inferred from imperfect annotations in a number of ways. We show that transfer learning can be used to derive benefit from out-dated annotations which would typically be discarded. We show that, contrary to popular preference, annotation aggregation models that take a generative data modeling approach tend to outperform those that take a condition approach. We leverage this insight to develop csLDA, a novel annotation aggregation model that improves on the state of the art for a variety of annotation tasks. When data does not permit generative data modeling, we identify a conditional data modeling approach based on vector-space text representations that achieves state-of-the-art results on several unusual semantic annotation tasks. Finally, we identify a family of models capable of aggregating annotation data containing heterogenous annotation types such as label frequencies and labeled features. We present a multiannotator active learning algorithm for this model family that jointly selects an annotator, data items, and annotation type.

Background: Founders hold a powerful position that can shape the future and direction of their new ventures, especially in the early stages of venture development. Prior work experiences are known to be influential for future growth, but the relationship between founders' prior work experiences and their growth intentions is poorly understood.  Purpose: The study aims to contribute to the existing literature by furthering the awareness and understanding of how founders are using their prior work experiences when shaping and evaluating their growth intentions. The study answers the research question:  How do founders' prior work experiences influence growth intentions in the early stages of venture development?  Method: Our method is based on qualitative research and adapts an explanatory purpose to capture the process between prior work experiences and growth intentions and elaborate the understanding of how growth intentions are created in the early stage of the ventures' development. Through a case study with semi-structured interviews, we have interviewed nine new venture founders in the tech sector, which have been the ground for our empirics. The analysis of data was conducted in three steps, namely empirical analysis, retroduction, and corroboration.  Conclusion: Our study advances the explanation of how founders' prior work experiences shape how they manage their ventures' internal environments, which impact their growth intentions. By conducting a conceptual model, we explained how building social working environment, structuring people and practices, and implementing routines manifest as mechanisms in the process between prior experiences and growth.