Syftet med vår studie var att ge ett kunskapsbidrag till problemområdet motorik, utveckling och lärande med utgångspunkt från några pedagogers arbete med och förhållningssätt till fysiska aktiviteter och lärande i förskolan. Vi valde att genomföra en kvalitativ studie, där vi intervjuade sex verksamma förskollärare. Tidigare forskning har delade meningar om fysisk aktivitet och dess betydelse för barns lärande. Flera forskare konstaterar dock att det finns ett samband mellan motorik och lärande. Resultatet av studien visade att också verksamma pedagoger ser ett samband mellan motorik och lärande. Samtidigt visade studien andra faktorer som påverkar barns fysiska aktivitet och lärande, exempelvis miljön och sinnesorganen. Många av pedagogerna framhäver utomhusmiljön som en tillgång i arbetet med fysiska aktiviteter. Vid tillfällen som dessa, menar pedagogerna, tränas och stimuleras barns motoriska utveckling på ett naturligt sätt. Sammanfattningsvis upplever pedagogerna att motorik påverkar barn positivt; barnen blir rörligare, friskare och gladare.

Information literacy skills among university students have become a necessity rather than the norm. With the increase of information resources, the need for information skills among university students is important for their continued access to, and retrieval of, information. The purpose of this research was to investigate information literacy skills and competencies among incoming first-year undergraduate students in institutions of higher learning in Kenya, with special reference to the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. The objectives of the study were; to identify the types and formats of resources that incoming undergraduate students are aware of, to determine whether the incoming undergraduates are aware of search strategies for both print and electronic/online resources, to determine whether incoming undergraduate students possess basic information technology skills, to find out whether incoming undergraduate students know information retrieval tools and their use, and to determine whether incoming students are aware of intellectual property and copyrighted materials and their ethical use. The study adopted a quantitative approach and used the case study research method. The study targeted first year incoming undergraduate students at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa for the academic year 2013/2014. 137 incoming undergraduate students participated in the study. Data was collected by using self-administered questionnaires. Quantitative data was coded and analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Qualitative data generated form open-ended questions was presented in narrative form under respective subheadings. The finding of the study observed that: (a) Incoming first-year students have limited knowledge of strategies used to search for information. (b) The incoming first-year undergraduate students at the Catholic university of Eastern Africa do possess computer skills in applications such as the use of the internet and its applications (e.g. social networking sites and the World Wide Web) as well as the word-processing applications such as (Microsoft Office and Microsoft Word) and statistical applications such as SPSS. (c) Majority of incoming undergraduate university students are not familiar with the various retrieval tools and their applications. (d) The incoming first-year undergraduate students are familiar with both electronic and printed information resources. (e) A significant number of students were not aware what constitutes primary resources and secondary sources. (f) Incoming first-year undergraduate students exhibited little knowledge of issues relating to intellectual property rights and copyright. Several recommendations have been made based on the findings of the study. One of the recommendations is that the university library mandated with offering information literacy instruction to incoming students should adopt several incentives aimed at encouraging the students to attend library orientation. Another recommendation is to integrate the information literacy training with the normal university curriculum to become a credit-earning course for all incoming students. The university library should also carry out a needs assessment on information literacy training to help determine the existing gaps in the current information literacy programme. The programme should also be tailored to help in emerging issues such electronic plagiarism of information resources. The study further recommends a longitudinal study to determine whether students joining the university are able to gain information literacy skills over a period of time. / Information Science

Education / D.Ed. (Didactics)

The general aim of this research was to investigate the phenomenon of non coping among individuals on middle management level, directed by the paradigm of salutogenesis, and more specifically, the concept of Sense of Coherence. The Sense of Coherence questionnaire of Antonovsky (1987) was applied as a measuring instrument in order to determine the various levels of respondents regarding Sense of Coherence. This was followed by semi-structured interviews with an identified case series, followed by an integration of results. Research information derived from the total scores indicated an even distribution along the continuum of the instrument's scale. During the qualitative study, all individuals representing the case series experienced similar levels of stress, though various coping strategies apply. Although all individuals representing the case series attempt to cope, a tendency towards non coping or maladaptive coping occurred due to the influence of various sources Of managerial stress such as insufficient training. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

The Mauritius School for the Blind is primarily funded through government support. Therefore, it is currently a requirement of the School to adhere to the same curricula as used in all primary schools in Mauritius. This research highlights the necessity for a curriculum that can be specifically designed to meet the needs of visually impaired children. The objectives of the study were; to conduct an evaluation to determine the visually impaired children’s educational goals; to establish the key orientation, mobility and independence skills required by children and young people at the School who are visually impaired; to identify ways in which the skills development programme can be implemented within, and beyond, the School’s curriculum; to propose a set of self-help skills training processes that can form part of the current curriculum to enable visually impaired children at the School for the Blind to become more independent. A triangulation research methodology constituting both qualitative and quantitative research was used. The participants consisted of 12 visually impaired children, the Head of the School, three NGO staff members and six teachers. Thematic analysis led to themes and categories emerging in the arena of self-help skills development. Independence and self-help skills were the main themes determined through data analysis. The secondary themes which emerged from the main ones consisted of social skills, travel skills, daily living skills and education. Sub-themes derived from social skills were cultural differences and its associated feeling of discrimination. Sub-themes under travel skills included independent travel and assistance. Finally, education comprised of sub-themes such as a special programme on self-help skills and training for teachers. The above analysis stressed the need to set up a committee in order to start developing a curriculum in the arena of self-help skills. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The purpose of this study was to determine factors that affect pre-kindergarten children’s successful play behaviors. Using a multimethods research design, a series of separate studies were combined to determine the relationships among gender, social skills, sociometric status, and play behaviors. The study was conducted in two child development centers where children who have long been together at the center are joined by new children for their pre-kindergarten year. Each child participated in a sociometric analysis by choosing pictures of up to five classmates he/she most likes to play with and responded to interview questions on how children successfully join in play. Teachers assessed each child’s play behaviors using brief Likert Scale surveys. From the sociometric scores, the most chosen boys and girls and the least chosen boys and girls from each classroom were observed during outdoor play sessions while the researcher coded social and nonsocial play behaviors, play entry strategies, and gender and size of the group being entered. The following questions guided this basic research study: (1) What are the effects of gender and familiarity on children’s sociometric choices? (2) Do often-chosen and seldom-chosen children differ in play entry and play behaviors exhibited during outdoor play? (3) Is there a relationship between a child’s knowledge of play entry strategies, social status, and the child’s play behaviors? (4) Is there a relationship between a child’s sociometric score, observed social skills, and a teacher’s assessment of that child’s social skills? This study found the following: Children of both genders prefer same gender playmates. Gender was not a determinate of whether a child chose a student new to the center as a playmate. Seldom-chosen children make more polite requests to play than often-chosen children. Often-chosen children respond to more approaches and spend more time in social play than seldom-chosen children. Most children have knowledge of appropriate play entry strategies, but they do not always implement strategies they know are successful. Teachers know which children spend their time in social play but not which children are most chosen by classmates. Suggestions for teachers and centers and recommendations for future research are provided.

As a result of the recent NHS reforms following the white paper, liberating the NHS (Department of Health, 2010a), which subsequently became the Health and Social Care Act 2012, it is clear that primary care, led by GPs, faces a considerable change to how healthcare to the population is delivered. Meeting these challenges proves to be difficult due to the nature of primary care contracting, in that GPs are responsible for their own organisations and are required to reconfigure their organisations accordingly. Due to the traditional structure of primary care, GPs appear to lack skills in business management and leadership. The study gains an understanding of the qualities GPs have, and need, from a business perspective, in relation to primary care management, and further develops a qualities framework for use by both current and future GPs. This has been achieved through a qualitative study making use of both structured and unstructured research methods, with the use of thematic analysis drawing meaning from the data. Findings indicate that doctors who have chosen to become a GP tend to not consider their role as business leaders, and opt to learn these skills while on-the-job, although since the implementation of the recent NHS reforms, newly qualified doctors are undertaking business skills training to support their applications for partnership posts. Findings also indicate that GPs see the need to hold business skills as partners within their own organisations as a necessary evil, but see the need to hold these same skills for their membership of the CCG as unnecessarily imposed. A qualities framework has been developed to support GPs with their need to obtain business management and leadership skills, from a general practice perspective. This maps six key qualities across nine domains, measured through a number of competencies for each mapping. It is recommended that the qualities framework developed as part of this research study is applied in general practice in relation to both organisational development and educational strategy. It is anticipated that this will contribute to both general practice performance and improvements in primary healthcare service delivery, from a general practice perspective.

Higher education institutions are always directed through policy reforms to promote graduates employability by developing skills in students that contribute to human capital. This interest in employability through education system in the development of skills reflects is part of human capital theory. Considering this, underlying research investigates the expectation-performance gap in the development of generic skills for the purpose of employability offered by the accounting institutes of Pakistan. For the purpose of answering the research question, this research, adopted the theoretical framework of ‘expectation-performance gap’ by Bui and Porter and analysed it within the context of Pakistan. Adoption of this theoretical framework implies the evaluation of three constituent factors as research objectives; the ‘expectation gap’ (reflecting the differences in the expectations of accounting educators and employers), the ‘constraints gap’ (limiting factors to develop generic skills into the student learning process) and the ‘performance gap’ (reflecting the ineffectiveness of teaching activities). However, there is also a fourth objective, that is, to evaluate an outline of the ‘skills acquisition framework’ considering the context of Pakistan’s accounting job-market. Principally this research adopts the survey strategy of a questionnaire with closed-ended questions in order to collect the data. But for the purpose of refining the content of the questionnaire for relevance to the context of Pakistan there are also cognitive interviews. Thus, this research entails a mixed-method approach. The qualitative data from the interviews was analysed using content analysis, thematic analysis and textual analysis. Whereas the quantitative data from the questionnaires was analysed using numerous statistical techniques such as Mann-Whitney U-test, Independent sample t-test, Statistical mean and Principal Component Analysis. The findings related to the ‘expectation gap’ were that there are 19 skills where the accounting educators have dissimilar expectation from employers in terms of skill base education, such skills include decision making, economics, ability to analyse and reason logically, teamwork etc. The findings related to the ‘constraints gap’ were that there are 6 constraining elements which are prevailing within the context of professional accounting education, such constraints include ‘training organisations are not following standard procedures to develop skills in students’, ‘people (potential students) have misperception about accounting education’, 'enrolling students have weak academic background', ‘inadequate stipend offered by training organisations to trainees’, ‘accounting institutes are not appreciating teaching activities, and lack of training opportunities for academics’. The findings related to the ‘performance gap’ were that there are 24 skills where the accounting educators found to be ineffective in the development of skills in students as expected by employers for employment purpose, such skills include inter or multidisciplinary perspective, financial risk analysis, think and behave ethically, independent thinking etc. From the perspective of the ‘skills acquisition framework’, overall 6 skills components were identified from the perspective of Pakistan's accounting job-market, such skills components include appreciative skills, interpersonal skills, technical and functional skills, organisational and business management skills, personal skills and professional skills. Considering the novelty of the adopted theoretical framework (expectation-performance gap by Bui and Porter, 2010) there was a related paucity of literature employing it for empirical investigation using the questionnaire based approach. Therefore, this research provides such theoretical underpinning to this framework that now enables it to be used within the questionnaire based approach. Further this research has described all the generic skills used in this study from the accounting disciplinary perspective and highlights the constraining elements that are assumed to limit the ability of professional accounting institutes. This research also provides a skill acquisition framework which could be used as a reference point for new entrants to the accounting job-market.

This thesis is a critical examination of the „new vision‟ strategies that the Libyan government undertook in order to promote the deeper integration of the Libyan economy into the global economy of the Modern Orientalist World-System (MOWS). This process has been taking place since the lifting of the trade embargo on Libya by President Bush in April 2004. A crucial part of this new vision strategy was the promotion of human capital development amongst the Libyan population and with a particular emphasis upon English Language Acquisition (ELA). The argument, derived from neo-liberal thought, is that for Libya to transform itself it must embrace neo-liberal ideas that will see the government adopt the role of the enabling state, preparing Libyans for employment in a newly established private sector. ELA, the learning of what is called „global English‟, is the central part of the new vision human capital development goals. The assumption here is that by developing the English language skills of Libyans it will enhance their job prospects with foreign firms arriving in Libya. This strategy is being pursued in the aftermath of a state directed ban on the learning of English that was first decreed in 1986 and the consequences of which placed a significant obstacle in the way of the immediate employment prospects of a generation of young Libyan graduates. If the state developmental strategy now embraced by the Libyan government is to be successful then it must promote the rapid improvement in the second language skills of its young people (specifically „global English‟) if they are to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a newly opened economy. However, this strategy is fraught with dangers for the government as liberalising the Libyan economy weakens the control of the state over society. Thus the thesis addresses a number of key questions regarding the relationship between human capital (language skills) and the sociology of development; of human capital as a concept in the „modern Orientalist world-system‟; and the changing nature of state-society relations in Libya as the government attempts to integrate it more firmly into the MOWS. To what extent can the Libyan government transform its economy and society in a way that enhances its position in the MOWS rather than simply rendering it more dependent upon the power of the core?

Children show large individual differences in numerical skills, even before they begin formal education. These early differences have significant and long-lasting effects, with numerical knowledge before school predicting mathematical achievement throughout the primary and secondary school years. Currently, little is known about the dispositional factors influencing children's numerical development. Why do some children engage with and succeed in mathematics from an early age, whilst others avoid mathematics and struggle to acquire even basic symbolic number skills? This thesis examines the role of two dispositional factors: First, spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON), a recently developed construct which refers to an individual's tendency to focus on the numerical aspects of their environment; and second, mathematics anxiety (MA), a phenomenon long recognised by educators and researchers but one which is relatively unexplored in young children. These factors are found to have independent effects on children's numerical skills, thus the empirical work is presented in two separate parts. The SFON studies start by addressing methodological issues. It is shown that the current measures used to assess children's SFON vary in their psychometric properties and subsequently a new and reliable picture-based task is introduced. Next, the studies turn to theoretical questions, investigating the causes, consequences and mechanisms of SFON. The findings give rise to three main conclusions. First, children's SFON shows little influence from parental SFON and home numeracy factors. Second, high SFON children show a symbolic number advantage. Third, the relationship between SFON and arithmetic can be explained, in part, by individual differences in children's ability to map between nonsymbolic and symbolic representations of number. The MA studies focus primarily on gender issues. The results reveal no significant differences between boys' and girls' overall levels of MA; however, there are gender differences in the correlates of MA. Specifically, boys' (but not girls') MA is related to parents' MA. Moreover, the relationship between MA and mathematical outcomes is stronger for boys than it is for girls. Possible causal explanations for these gender differences are explored in two ways: First, by examining the reliability of the scales used to assess MA in boys and girls. Second, by investigating the relationship between girls' (and boys') mathematics anxiety and their societal math-gender stereotypes. The findings from both sets of studies draw a link between children's emerging dispositions towards mathematics and their early numerical skills. Future research needs to examine how these dispositional factors interact with other (cognitive and non-cognitive) predictors of mathematics achievement.