Family Therapy training programmes have recently come to appreciate the importance of addressing the personal growth of the trainee-therapist, in addition to the traditional focus on skill development. Suggestions in the available literature on how this "person-of-the-therapist" issue could best be addressed, represent almost exclusively the ideas of authorities (authors, clinicians and trainers) in the field of systemic therapy. Constructivist thought endorsed by the UNISA training programme, encourages and values different viewpoints. According to this view, students and faculty co-construct the training process. The aim of this study is therefore to present the voice of the trainee. Several training contexts, the essential qualities of the different supervisory relationships and difficulties encountered, are explored from the trainee's perspective. It is hoped that this "inside story" about the author's experiences on her journey toward becoming a psychotherapist, will engender sensitivity for and a deeper understanding of the complexity involved in training the person of the therapist. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

As stated before, it appears that the sixth grade students at San Jose Catholic School would benefit from reading skills practice that would give them the opportunity to become more involved in the learning process. This project is designed to implement cross-age tutoring at San Jose Catholic School with an entire sixth grade class tutoring a second grade class in reading. The goal of the project is to improve the attitude toward reading of the sixth graders. Attitudes before and after tutoring will be rated on a slightly modified version of the Estes Attitude Scale. It is expected, though it will not be formally measured, that both groups of students will also improve their reading skills. The second graders' skills should improve because of receiving individual help and attention, the sixth graders' skills should improve because they will be applying their reading skills in a real-life and useful situation.

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of training for college work study students who participated in an America Reads program, which was designed to help at-risk children struggling with reading. Two groups participated in this research study. One group of college tutors had minimal training in reading strategies at the beginning of the study and the other group of college tutors had continuous training and feedback throughout the study. The research study sought to answer the following questions: 1) Will training for college student tutors in the area of reading, more specifically in the strategies and skills, help improve their comprehension and vocabulary? And 2) Will training for college student tutors in the area of reading, more specifically in strategies and skills, significantly improve the comprehension and vocabulary scores of the children being tutored? This was a quasi-experimental research design, used to examine the effectiveness of training college students participating in the America Reads program. The tutors were pre-and post-tested, measuring both their vocabulary and comprehension knowledge at the beginning and the end of the study. The children being tutored were also pre- and post-tested, measuring both their vocabulary and comprehension knowledge at the beginning and the end of the study. The statistical analysis for this design was the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The ANCOVA was used to handle the main threat to the internal validity of this research design, due to the fact that the tutors for the control and experimental group were not selected randomly. The tutors and the children were randomly assigned to two groups. The control group of tutors received minimal training (11 hours) and the experimental group received the same minimal training with extra (21 hours) weekly training added. The study began in October 1999 and ended in December 1999. The tutoring sessions were 1 ½ hours long, three days a week. The training for the experimental group was for 1 ½ to 2 hours weekly. The results from this study found no significant difference between the control and experimental groups on comprehension, as measured by the assessment instruments. The results from this study did find, however, a significant difference between the control and the experimental groups on vocabulary, as measured by the assessment instruments.

Literature for and about successful volunteer literacy programs highlight and advocate for practices that inform administrators and trainers of the needs and expectations of volunteer tutors. Applications of this knowledge can affect the type of policies that administrators implement in their programs and the type of support that they provide for their tutors. This project was an opportunity for the researcher to reflect on his experiences as a consultant and trainer with community-based programs and to increase his understanding of the volunteers in order to assist in future administration and training work.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Managerial and Financial Management (MAF) has traditionally been perceived by students as a difficult subject. Students do not fully grasp the underlying disciplinary concepts and struggle to transfer knowledge from one context to another. There is a dearth of research, particularly in South Africa, into how students learn in accounting programmes. This study sought to explore MAF students’ experiences of learning in a Writing Intensive Tutorial (WIT) programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The WIT programme is based on the principle of using informal exploratory writing, writing-to-learn, to support students’ learning of MAF. Informal writing is low stakes, ungraded, and encourages critical thinking and the learning of concepts, rather than focusing on grammatical correctness. The study was informed by the tenets of social constructivism and was conducted within a qualitative interpretative framework. Principles of case study research were applied in the data generation process. Purposive sampling was applied that reflected the MAF population in regard to race and gender demographics and academic ability. The participants were 15 MAF students who voluntarily participated in an 18-week WIT programme. Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) (Northcutt & McCoy, 2004) was used for the research design and as a data analysis tool. Following IQA protocol, focus groups were used to generate affinities (themes) of students’ experiences of learning in the WIT programme. From the affinities generated a system diagram was constructed. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews were conducted at the end of the programme to further probe participants’ learning experiences. The primary affinity driving the system was the programme structure. which drove the other affinities – understanding of concepts, challenging the participants, the written tasks undertaken (secondary drivers), making learning fun, improved study techniques and test preparation, criticism of the programme (secondary outcomes), increased personal confidence and the interactive nature of the programme (primary outcomes). The thesis concludes with a proposal of an inductively theorised model. The model derives from the major findings in the study regarding students’ experiences of learning in the WIT programme. The model offers insights for higher education programme designs that utilise writing-to-learn pedagogies and can provide opportunities for students’ to develop deep, conceptual learning in higher education. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Volunteer literacy tutors are key actors in one-on-one adult learner-tutor relationships, although few studies have examined tutors' role in literacy provision. This study had two objectives: to describe and analyse how McGill Students for Literacy tutors understand literacy and how they behave toward their learners and toward their organization, and to understand why many tutors distance themselves and their match from the organization. 18 McGill Students for Literacy tutors participated in semi-structured interviews with the researcher in this organizational case study. The hypothesis states that tutors choose autonomy from the literacy organization because of certain beliefs related to their attitudes as volunteers and to the organization's focus on individualized learning. These beliefs are: one-on-one instruction succeeds where classroom-based instruction has not, individual attention compensates for lack of training, good-will is better than good training, and volunteer activities can be justified on the basis of perceived need rather than demonstrable progress.

This auto-ethnographic study (i.e. an autobiographical genre of writing and research, written in the first-person voice, where the workings of self are expressed both cognitively and emotionally) qualitatively explores the changing assumptions of a training therapist. It shows how various therapies were negotiated during the training period, and explores how meaning was constructed according to basic, underlying epistemological assumptions. Significant experiences and therapies are presented, showing how the therapist's most basic, linear assumptions, were directly challenged by eco-systemic training. The study produces an in-depth, thick description of both the emotional and the cognitive journey of a training therapist, and traces the therapist's movement away from the stability and certainty of a linear epistemological 'way of knowing' to the instability and uncertainty characteristic of an eco-systemic 'way of knowing'. Conclusions are idiosyncratic and are not intended for generalization. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Tutors are key supporters within semi-distance education and as such comprehensive support of tutoring is necessary to provide the best possible support to learners. This case study investigates how tutoring can be better supported within a semi-distance part-time professional development course in environmental education. The course, aimed at adults working in environmental education fields, is seen as an important strategy for helping participants become critical, reflexive and active environmental education practitioners who can start working on solutions to environmental issues. This study found that most challenges to successful tutoring lay in the availability and competence of human resources within Namibia. Additionally improvement in the management of tutor and learner support systems, information, guidance and enrolment and finally of learning resources is seen as essential to better support a successful tutoring process. An alternative model of tutoring is offered as a way of overcoming the major tutoring challenges outlined in this study. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.