The Royal Canadian School of Mechanical Engineering at Camp Chilliwack, British Columbia, assesses officer cadets on a five point scale, in terms of 13 qualities which are considered by RCSME to be characteristic of a "good man". This research was undertaken for the purpose of critically examining this assessment method to suggest possible improvements to it. The assessment method was examined in two ways : (a) By carrying out a job analysis by means of the critical incident technique to derive Critical Requirements for COTC cadets and use these as a basis for judging whether or not the criteria of assessment at present in use are well formulated; (b) By obtaining peer ratings by the cadets themselves to serve as a basis for-examining the validity of assessments that have been made by the existing procedures. The Critical Incident Technique, as outlined by Flanagan, was used to obtain incidents from the entire cadet population and from the instructors who were currently involved with or were familiar with COTC training, There were three major differences between cadets and instructors in the incidents collected: (a) the rank orders of incidents showed marked differences for a few Critical Requirements but in general considerable similarity existed; (b) the number of incidents collected from certain locations differed, and (c) a disproportionately large number of ineffective incidents were contributed by instructors. A detailed comparison was made between the Critical Requirements isolated in this study and the categories employed at the RCSME in the assessment of cadets. There were 11 Critical Requirements for which no corresponding categories existed. Three main objections to tie RCSME categories were discussed. Peer ratings were obtained for the entire cadet population. These predicted future officer performance without being unduly affected by popularity. The peer ratings of First Phase cadets were found to be more accurate than those of Second Phase cadets. Peer ratings were scored by weighted and unweighted scoring techniques. Both methods yielded almost identical results. The unweighted scoring technique, however, requires fewer calculations and is less time consuming. The results of this study indicated that peer ratings can be used as an independent measure of officer cadet performance. Two improvement procedures were suggested. First, that the Critical Requirements isolated in this study be used as a basis for assessment in the form of a check list or other device and, second, that the employment of peer ratings be incorporated as one of the components of the assessment method. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Eight years ago the members of the British Columbia Schools Trustees' Association recommended to the teaching profession in British Columbia that they give serious consideration to the proposition of including merit as one of the factors in the determination of their salaries. The British Columbia Teachers' Federation, representing the teaching profession in the province, was vigorous in its opposition to merit pay schedules. The purpose of the present study is to assess the attitudes of the rank and file in the profession, as opposed to the institutional stand of the Teachers' Federation towards this issue. A study of the existing salary structures for teachers in the province showed that the teachers were paid primarily on the basis of their training and experience. An examination of the literature on merit rating pointed out that the training and experience of a teacher could not be equated with his teaching performance, as the research studies conducted indicated very low correlationships between them. The first part of the study, therefore, concluded that the teachers in British Columbia are not being paid on the basis of their teaching experience. The attitudes of the teachers towards this issue of pay based on teaching performance were then examined. Responses from 402 teachers from all levels of the teaching profession were fed into an IBM computer and the results analyzed. Slightly less than half of them (48.0%) opposed merit rating, and the rest were either in favor (39.0%) or were uncertain or did not answer (13.0%). The study, however, showed that the opposition to merit pay was greater if this meant that salaries were to be affected by double increments or super-maxima salaries superimposed on the existing salary structure. The opposition would be lesser if the merit of a teacher was being recognized by rewarding him/her with supervisory posts carrying extra allowances, granting study leave or sabbatical leave, and awarding travel grants for approved purposes. The recommendations in the concluding chapter were made on this basis. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Práce předkládá možný postup ratingového hodnocení podniku bankou. Obsahuje zpracování finanční analýzy podniku v obecném pojetí. Tento pohled je nadále zůžen na pohled konkrétního uživatele, v tomto případě se jedná o banku, která by měla být schopna na základě finálního hodnocení podniku rozhodnout, zda tomuto poskytne úvěr. Objektem hodnocení je firma Plzeňský Prazdroj a.s.

This thesis deals with the action and impact of the credit rating agencies in the capital markets during the financial crisis. The work is divided into two parts; the first part stresses the importance of a proper understanding of the rating, its characteristics, functions, users and the rating process. The emphasis is put on the market analysis of ratings and rating agencies in the U.S. and European market. The second part of this work is devoted to examining the issue of rating agencies during the crisis, which contributed to the spread of the financial crisis, criticism relevant issues and regulatory arrangements.

Agreement between trained and untrained coders in assessing television content was investigated. A model integrating the different approaches to content analysis was proposed. The model contains three dimensions: audience coders versus expert coders, microanalysis versus macroanalysis, and quantitative versus qualitative analysis. The audience versus expert coders facet of that model was evaluated by having university students watch and assess the content of 24 television programs chosen from prime-time on the basis of their popularity. They were not trained in content analysis and did not know the questions about which they were asked until after viewing their program. Their evaluations were compared with similar evaluations given previously by trained (expert) coders. Each of the 24 programs was watched by 5 male and 5 female naive coders (total N=240). The groups were balanced for ethnicity and socioeconomic status. A statistic developed especially for this research was used to compare the naive and expert ratings on 22 selected variables. The results indicated that untrained and trained coders in general evaluated the programs similarly. Moreover, the questions on which the experts tended not to agree (that is, were unreliable) were generally the same ones on which the untrained coders did not agree, both amongst themselves and with the experts. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

D.Comm. / In commercial corporations shareholders, at least in theory, evaluate the performance of the boards they have appointed. Such evaluation is mainly based on the financial performance of the entity. Public (state funded) entities have only the state as shareholder and the performance of their boards is not evaluated by the taxpayers who ultimately pay the directors' fees. The term "public entity" refers to 20 corporations with an annual turnover in excess of R 55 billion which are substantially tax-funded or are awarded a market monopoly in terms of legislation by parliament. Although these public entities are regularly criticised by the press, the academic literature reports neither an assessment of the quality of governance by their non-executive directors' nor any instrument to use in such an assessment. The aim of this study was to measure the expectations and perceptions of executives in public entities about their non-executive boards' corporate governance service. This began with a literature was analysis, firstly to define what "proper" corporate governance and secondly to find a recognised methodology to use in the development of an assessment instrument. It was found that two main corporate governance models were generally recognised, namely the United Kingdom model and the German model. The United Kingdom model advocates a single board comprising both executive and non-executive directors while the German model has a supervisory board of non-executive directors overseeing the activities of an executive management board. It was further found that, contrary to King's (1994) recommendation to use unitary boards, the 20 listed public entities all had supervisory boards as advocated in the German model. A procedure advocated by Churchill (1979:65-72), in his paradigm for developing measures of marketing constructs, proved to be very successful in the development in the United States of America of an instrument named SERVQUAL which was applied in the general service arena where a paying client evaluated a service. Churchill's method was therefore used in this study to develop an instrument called ECGSI to measure the quality of governance of listed public entities' non-executive boards. The opinions of executives attending board meetings, e.g. to make presentations, were used both to develop ECGSI and to measure the quality of the non-executive directors' service.

This thesis deals with changes in the Czech insurance market, especially in view of the consequences of the financial crisis, which caused a lot of changes. In this part of thesis is analyzed the price war, anti-discrimination directives and other important events. The following section is devoted to rating and both generally - term rating, description, rating process and rating of selected insurance companies. Specifically Česká pojišťovna a.s. and ČSOB pojišťovna a.s. and its changes over time. Then attention is focused on the development of regulation of rating agencies and the end of the work is devoted to future prognosis of the life and non-life insurance.

No description available.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION (D. Ed) in the Department of History of Education and Comparative Education at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 1997. / This study was designed to investigate different perceptions held by respondents about the quality and impact of evaluation on teachers' work, behaviour and attitude to their work. The second aim was to examine different perceptions of respondents to factors of teacher evaluation that promote positive, meaningful and successful teacher evaluation. Lastly, the study aimed to determine whether personal variables such as gender, race, age, teaching experience and qualification have influence on perceptions of teacher evaluation. These perception are important in designing an evaluation system because they indicate teachers' willingness to participate and be evaluated. The data was gathered by means of a questionnaire from teachers, principals and inspectors of education in KwaZulu-Natal north coast. The researcher divided the sample into three groups, that is, teachers, principals and inspectors of education. The researcher used a cluster or multistage sampling design to select the sample of teachers, principals and inspectors of education. Three questionnaires were administered to the respondents. To achieve the above, the researcher used a causal-comparative research design. The One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the Scheffe Test of Multiple Comparison were utilised to determine statistical significant differences among the three groups The major findings of the study are the following: - teachers, principals and inspectors of education differ in their perception of the overall quality of teacher evaluation. - teachers viewed the evaluation process as having a positive impact towards teachers' attitude about their work, behaviour, teaching strategies, and their understanding of teaching and learning, while principals and inspectors of education saw the evaluation process as having little impact. - gender and age have no influence on perceptions of evaluation, while racial group, teaching experience and qualification have a significant influence in the way teachers, principals and inspectors of education perceive teacher evaluation factors. - the respondents not involved in the evaluation process differed significantly in their perception than those involved. However, there were no differences with regard to evaluator perception; information gathered; feedback from evaluation and context of evaluation in relation to the respondents' involvement. The recommendations of this study are: - it is necessary to consider the performance management system in order to achieve maximum results to improve teachers' performance: appropriate selection of teachers for specific tasks, their induction and probation, on the-job-training, supervision and management, performance evaluation, incentives and rewards, and management of under-performance. - that the role of teachers, principals and inspectors of education in the evaluation process needs to be restructured and clarified in such a way that teachers understand the purpose of evaluation and the criteria for evaluation. Teachers' views and concerns should be sought during the development of evaluation instruments. Finally, a training programme for evaluators should be developed so as to equip them with evaluation skills necessary to conduct effective evaluations. The programme has to involve teachers, heads of departments, deputy or vice principals, subject advisors and inspectors of education so that all concerned are aware of what is expected of them. / University of Zululand

Thesis (Ph.D. (Curriculum Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / The purpose of the study was to explain how teacher evaluation is implemented in sampled schools of two districts; Mogalakwena and Waterberg of the Limpopo Province. The interpretive paradigm was followed to investigate how teachers at the sampled schools implement teacher evaluation, Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS). Within the interpretive paradigm, qualitative approach was followed to gain an in-depth understanding of social realities as well as comprehensive portrait of range of attempts, interactions, situations and perceptions. Data collection was done using interviews, observations and document analysis. Twenty-four participants participated in the study (eight principals; eight School Developmental Teams (SDTs) and eight teachers). Principals provided information on how they support, motivate teachers to implement the evaluation system and manage the implementation process. SDTSs provided information on how they plan, supervise, coordinate, and monitor the implementation process. The eight teachers provided information on how they classify areas that needed development. The study has highlighted how teacher evaluation, IQMS should be implemented and the methods that may be used to measure teacher performance. The findings revealed that schools were not implementing teacher evaluation, IQMS as stipulated in the IQMS manual (2003), and that this might result in teachers experiencing difficulties in implementing the evaluation system and obstruct the attainment of quality teaching