This study’s research approach shows the foundation of an epistemology that is taken from a postmodern, postfoundationalist theology. The research method is embedded in the narrative approach as established in social constructionism. The research method is also further upheld by the Seven Movements Model of doing research, which in this research also accommodates a participatory action research methodology. This research is a study of the narratives of lay people in a local context. It shows and explores the actions of these people in a situation of care and support. Their local context expresses the journey of people who belong to the same church called the Family Trinity Church in Valhalla, Pretoria. Their backgrounds go back to areas like the Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape and are not originally from Pretoria. Their social relationships and church affiliation are compiled from a military background. Their narratives that relate to this research originate from a journey of care and support. The narratives of my co-researchers discovered and recognized different themes as divulged from their stories in conjunction with their experiences. Some of these themes were related to the literature studies as part of the dialogues between interdisciplinary conversations in the process of research. Apart from the telling and re-telling of the stories, literature studies were used to open up a process of a deeper understanding of these narratives. Literature was used to critically discuss the narratives as to give more clarity on the actions of the co-researchers. This research shows an open process of discussions and the input of other thoughts of beliefs and reason as presented by the involvement of the scientific community. The in depth discussions helped to clarify the aim and objectives as proved by the outcomes of this research. The outcome of this research is based on the experiences and the real situation that demonstrates a contextual framework. The narratives and the unique research outcomes clearly support the fact that ordinary laypeople can lead and manage a church without the leadership of a fulltime minister. It shows the important relationship of care and support that transpired in a deepened spirituality, which brought about healing and transformation. The uniqueness of this research is based on the eagerness of people who journeyed with one another in a group and who also directed this kindness to others who did not belong to this group. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The aim of this study is to evaluate the supply of markers for the identification of syringes distributed by pharmacy needle exchanges and to determine if this product and service delivery offers a feasible method of marking syringes to promote the reduction of accidental sharing of syringes and needles amongst injecting drug users (IDU) and thereby reduce the risk of transmission of blood borne viruses (BBVs) and other related infections. This study involves the assessment, implementation and evaluation of syringe markers as a pilot study within three community pharmacy sites in Glasgow. The secondary aims of the study were to identify whether the supply of syringe markers from community pharmacy needle exchanges was acceptable to IDU and if it enabled them to mark their syringes. The literature review demonstrates that providing a means of identification of personal injecting equipment has been proposed as a viable option that should be promoted to prevent the inadvertent accidental sharing of syringes within a group setting. Needle exchanges (NEX) are important component parts of the harm reduction responses designed to reduce the physical health harms caused to individuals through injecting drug use. The literature is reviewed on BBV transmission and the historical, legal and policy context associated with the development of NEXs. Community pharmacies act as a source of health advice and can help to facilitate access to treatment services for those attending the NEX. However the specific aim of this study is not to investigate the totality of the benefits of a NEX but to examine the supply of a potential means of reducing accidental and unintentional sharing of all injecting equipment and thereby contribute to minimising some of the health harms linked to injecting drug use. Three established community pharmacies were identified as suitable sites to pilot the supply of syringe markers. A number of criteria were used to select the sites. These included an assessment of the geographic locations, staffing arrangements, NEX attendances and transactional activity and the availability of private consultation facilities. The health board central database which holds records on a range of factors including, the characteristics of those who attend NEX and detailed information on all transactions, was used to identify the most suitable sites to pilot the new intervention. This indicated that the characteristics of those who attended the three chosen sites were broadly similar to the wider NEX attending population. The evaluation was conducted in two separate periods. The first 4 week period was the supply phase where markers were distributed over this period to all patients receiving NEX packs from the 3 pharmacies. The second data collection phase was undertaken in the following 4 week period. Data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire. In order to reduce the potential interviewer bias it was decided to incorporate the use of peer researchers in the administration of the questionnaire. The Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) was approached and agreement was reached to use members of the Service User Involvement Group (SUIG) to assist with the design and administration of the questionnaire. A submission was made to the health board Research Ethics Committee (REC) and approval was given to enable the study and the research evaluation to proceed. Before the start of the study, joint briefing and training sessions were held for pharmacy staff from the 3 sites and the 6 participating SUIG members. A total of 177 questionnaires were completed during the second data collection phase of the evaluation. Information was collected on personal details and injecting behaviours (including deliberate and accidental sharing), any current means of syringe identification, use of the markers and on the usefulness of the instruction card. Most individuals (75%, n=132) had been supplied with the markers to trial during the first supply phase of the study with 63% of the 132 (n=83) of those individuals reporting use of the markers. The results of the evaluation and subsequent analysis of the findings indicated that the syringe marker supply could be successfully implemented using pharmacy NEXs. The product and the supply method were acceptable to both staff and service users. Initial bivariate analysis was conducted using a number of dependent and independent variables identified within the questionnaire. These findings highlighted a number of areas worthy of further exploration, including emerging differences between male and female respondents, and indicated specific target groups for future developments in syringe identification. The contribution of the peer researchers was found to be a significant factor in successfully completing the evaluation. However it is not possible to make any definitive statements on how effective the intervention is in terms of reducing the transmission of BBVs and other related infections. The findings of the evaluation indicated a number of potential areas of work that could be usefully explored to investigate the effectiveness of the markers in reducing the transmission of infections. The limitations of the evaluation became apparent during the course of the study and the implications of these limitations are discussed.

I investigated the experiences of teachers as co-researchers in a long-term partnership with university researchers in an asset-based intervention project known as STAR1. The goal of STAR is to investigate how teachers can promote resilience in scare-resource and high need schools. To inform participatory research methodology, I explored and described how coresearchers (teachers) experience power relations. I conducted the participatory reflection and action (PRA) study by using feminist standpoint theory as guiding epistemological paradigm, Gaventa’s power cube as theoretical framework and participatory research as methodological paradigm. I conveniently chose two cohorts (schools) in the STAR project to partner as the unit of analysis. I thus applied convenience sampling to select information-rich cohorts. The schoolcohorts included a primary school in the Eastern Cape Province and a secondary school in a remote area in the Mpumalanga Province. I then purposefully selected participating coresearchers (n=15: 14 females, 1 male) from the participating schools. Over a two year period, I employed multiple PRA data generation techniques (observation, four focus groups and two semi-structured interviews) and documentation procedures (field notes, research journal, visual data and verbatim transcriptions). I used thematic analysis and categorical aggregation for data analysis, with three themes emerging. In terms of the nature of power in participatory partnerships, co-researchers expressed factors which influenced power and partnership in a participatory project. For co-researchers, these factors enabled them to experience a sense of power-sharing. Regarding the role of agency in relation to power and partnerships, co-researchers indicated that agency resulted from power-sharing and partnerships they had established. The agency meant that they took action through leadership to empower others in school-communities. Co-researchers’ meaning-making of power and partnerships culminated in their construction of power in a participatory project as both a way in which their working environment enabled them to do what they wanted to do, and also as a personal space where they felt capable and had initiative to coordinate project activities. Findings of this study correlate with existing literature where (i) power is seen as the ability of actors to express and act on desires, (ii) power can be redistributed as action for inclusive benefits, (iii) partnerships imply balancing time, and (iv) partnerships evolve over time, are dynamic and involve issues of trust and confidence. In contrast to existing knowledge on power in participatory research, I found that teachers did not view power as dominance or as exclusively owned. I developed a framework of power sharing partnerships to extend Gaventa’s power cube theory. This framework, and its five interrelated elements (leadership as power, identifying vision and mission, synergy, interdependent role of partners, and determination), provide insight into the way co-researchers shared their experiences of participatory research methodology. I posit an evidence-based conceptualisation of power as leadership where community partners play influential roles as co-researchers. I theorise power sharing partnerships as a complimentary platform hosting partners’ shared strengths, skills and experience, creating synergy in collaborative projects. I argue that synergy in power sharing partnerships relies on recognition, appreciation and mutual respect inherent in interdependent roles of partners. Furthermore, the power sharing partnership framework explains how power and partnership depends on determination amongst partners which manifests as agency to drive social change. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Der folgende Artikel stellt zwei Untersuchungen und ein Forschendes Lernen-Projekt im Rahmen von Service Learning am ProfessionalCenter der Universität zu Köln vor. Die Untersuchungen hatten die Motivation der teilnehmenden Studierenden sowie die Beweggründe der Projektpartner_ innen zum Gegenstand. Als Beispiel, um den Facettenreichtum und den Nutzen von Service Learning sowohl für Studierende als auch für zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen zu verdeutlichen, dient die für die Kölner Freiwilligen Agentur durchgeführte Wertbeitragsanalyse der Initiative Lesewelten als Best Practice-Projekt. Abschließend werden weitere umgesetzte Service Learning-Projekte aus diesem Bereich vorgestellt.

This study is a narrative research within the postfoundationalist and social constructionist paradigm which underpin the narrative approach to theology. The present research listened to the stories of Korean missionary children to ascertain their educational difficulties on the mission field. The history of Korean missionary abroad is not a long one. Korean missionaries, having little previous experience, often have difficulty in deciding how to raise their children. They also have difficulty to know the educational options available and which to choose. Up till now there are only a few Korean missionary children who have grown up on the mission field until adulthood. Missionary families face various education options on the mission field, and options are different in terms of each situation on the field. Today, there are up to 12,000 Korean missionary children around the world. Of these, approximately 60% attend schools on the mission fields and 40-50% are at MK/International schools. Most of MK/International schools are mainly based on the western education system, using mediocre English. Yet, Korean missionary children have a different background from Western, specifically in terms of language, culture, society, race and the educational systems they are used to. Most of Korean missionary parents have high expectations for their children’s education with a good academic career. It poses several problems to Korean missionary children’s education. Considering the struggle with education that Korean missionary children experience on the mission field this study aims to contribute towards the understanding of their situation, and thus to help them through their research process. To be effective, this study focused on a small number, specifically five Korean young adult missionary children who have grown up in Africa, currently living in South Africa, South Korea and North America. In order to gain a deeper understanding of educational issues Korean missionary children experience, children were selected from different educational backgrounds. With the co-researchers, individual, face-to face-interviews were held in Korea and in South Africa, and networking has been used when a face-to-face relationship was not possible. The internet phone was frequently used in the research process. The influences of traditions of interpretation over the co-researchers were discussed from the collaboration with them, and alternative interpretations emerged on their traditions through interdisciplinary conversation. Through this narrative research process the co-researchers were lead to understanding and empowerment, and they developed new meanings for their preferred stories for the future. As the narrative approach is open-ended rather than results-oriented, this research is not closed ended, but rather allows for growth and development to take place. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Music researchers are seldom at the center of attention as a user group within LIS. Thus, investigations of search possibilities for digitized music manuscript collections with a user perspective are lacking. Here, three digitized music manuscript collections (the Schrank II collection in Dresden, the Utile Dulci collection in Stockholm, and the Düben collection in Uppsala) are examined with regard to the accessibility of their contents to the target user group in two steps: First, music researchers are asked about their information seeking process and queries. They are observed in surveys, interviews, and think-aloud protocols. Second, the three retrieval systems are subjected to a performance evaluation by means of precision, recall, and F1 measures. The results show that music researchers are seeking information either with known-item searching, browsing, or subject search, yet the latter with considerably different subjects than, for example, in the domain of literature. In addition, while music researchers are expressing their satisfaction with the discovery systems, the observations from protocol analysis and the performance evaluation show that all three have issues in retrieving relevant documents for music-specific queries.

In this Research Commentary, we describe 3 journal metrics–the Web of Science's Impact Factor, Scopus's SCImago Journal Rank, and Google Scholar Metrics' h5-index—and compile the rankings (if they exist) for 69 mathematics education journals. We then discuss 2 paths that the mathematics education community should consider with regard to these citation-based metrics of journal quality: either working within the system to enhance our positioning or resisting or modifying the system itself.

Studies of the publishing practices in mathematics education have situated sets of journals in tiers of quality. These reports document the rankings and prestige of only a subset of the wealth of journals available for publishing in mathematics education. We posit that there is value, quality, and purpose to be found in journals that present studies that are of value on a regional level, and that the studies are extremely important to the field. This is particularly important for journals published in languages other than English, and the studies referenced above are almost entirely English-language journals. In this paper we seek to demonstrate that we as a field of researchers cannot discount the value and role of these regional and small-country journals. Using a case study of one small European country, we quantitatively present the areas of strength and weakness in the publishing practices in mathematics education journals that are unlikely to be seen beyond the region of their publication. We conclude with recommendations to publish in areas where research is lacking as well as recommendations to the community at large to recognize the value of such outlets.

The author presents a case study for the development of an evidence synthesis service serving researchers outside of the health sciences at a large academic library. The purpose of this project was to highlight the importance of integrating existing core services and workflows that create seamless delivery of evidence synthesis support and yield quality service. The paper provides decisions that university libraries must consider as they are planning the implementation of these services. The research-intensive nature of evidence synthesis projects provides liaison librarians with a perfect entry to deliver high-quality and relevant services, especially to graduate students and researchers. Through this work, libraries will demonstrate strong evidence for their engagement and contributions to research on campus. Librarians interested in supporting this latest type of research can use this study to gain a sense of where their own professional strengths fit within this new functional area and plan how to enter this developing research space. This study may be of interest to administrators, reference and instruction librarians, and librarians serving graduate students. Issues are presented in a way that surfaces difficult topics, which will help guide planning conversations between supervisors and librarians regarding workload assignments.

Evidence-based educational policymaking has become a global phenomenon (Wiseman, 2010). According to the Institute of Education Sciences, evidence-based education is "an integration of the professional wisdom and the best available empirical evidence on making decision about how to deliver instructions" (IES, US Department of Education, 2012). This suggests that best practice requires teachers to ensure that instructional strategies and programs implemented in their classroom have been studied in scientific experiments to determine their effectiveness. The general public, as well as practicing teachers, holds an assumption that educators have knowledge as to what is evidence-based education. However, this is not always the case. The objective of this these include: to document how pre-service teachers access research findings and what types of findings they use in their practice, to identify the purposes of its utilization, to identify the factors that influence research utilization, and to ensure the accessibility of the findings of this study. The population for this study will be pre-service teachers at a large public higher education institution and one state college. In order to meet these objectives I conducted a survey, a pre-service teacher focus group, and an interview with faculty. Research findings will impact pre-service teacher preparation programs and increase our understanding of the link between the researchers and educators.