"September 2008" A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy. Typescript Project Advisor : Elysa Roberts Occupational justice recognizes that all people have the right to occupational engagement because it is through occupational engagement that people experience well-being. Occupational injustice occurs when outside forces prevent people from engaging in occupation, require participation in activities that they find meaningless, or prevent people from making choices about their occupations. People with developmental disabilities in a day program are at risk for occupational injustice because they require environmental support in order to engage in occupation. This phenomenological study explored occupational engagement of adults with moderate to severe disabilities in a day program by examining what the staff members and consumers found meaningful within the program activities and capturing how the consumers exhibited occupational engagement. This study understood occupational engagement in terms of meaning, self-choice, and motivation leading to involvement in occupation. The methods involved phenomenological interviews with 10 staff members regarding satisfying and dissatisfying experiences working with the consumers, interviews with 10 consumers with moderate to severe developmental disabilities regarding the activity groups using visual supports to enable participation, and four observations of consumers in preferred and less preferred activity groups using the Volitional Questionnaire. Strategies were employed to ensure trustworthiness of the data and analysis including dense description, data triangulation, member checks, peer review, reflexive journaling, and the use of a structured observation tool with demonstrated reliability and validity. Thematic analysis demonstrated that staff members found meaning in the day program activities through Consumer Engagement in Program Activities and Reciprocal Interaction, and the consumers found meaning in the day program activities through Doing/Active Engagement and Respectful Interaction. The consumers demonstrated occupational engagement through the following themes: Doing Activity/Initiating Action, Positive Affect, and Focused Attention. The findings demonstrated the influence of a supportive environment, choice, and relationships between consumers and staff members that may be reflective of co-occupation on occupational engagement. This information is important in order to build the body of knowledge regarding occupational engagement in an infrequently studied population, understand the implications related to such persons' occupational justice, and include the perspectives of people with moderate to severe cognitive disabilities in the study of occupation.

The contextual factors that affect effective Mathematics learner engagement patterns are due to lack of self-regulated learning and enthusiastic volitional use. An active role for Mathematics learners incorporates use of volitional strategies towards knowledge construction. Self-regulated learning is an important factor for effective learning. However the PISA (2004) survey noted the problem of deficits in cross-curricular academic competencies, which included general self-regulatory strategies. The continued poor performance of learners in mathematics in South Africa at different school levels, especially grade 9 calls for different approach to learning. This research argues that enhanced application of volitional strategies is possible and, in fact desirable if learning situations have to promote mathematics achievement in areas with a presence of traditional teaching style. The purpose of this study is to construct volition enhancing self-regulation model to improve grade 9 mathematics learner performance in rural community schools. The model suggests combining precepts from activity theory and constructivist views as basis. The cyclic learning states of pre-action, action or volition control, and pro-action phases emanating from self-regulation sequence of self-monitoring, self-evaluation and self-reflections form the key concept of the volition model. However the sustained view maintains the education system model as proposed by Howe (2004:153) that includes input, processes and output contributing towards mathematics achievement. Hence the volition model considers the characteristics of teacher, implemented curriculum, teaching and instruction among its components to advance an understanding of their influence in mathematics performance. A mixed method research design, in which quantitative and qualitative are combined to achieve the outcomes of the research problem, is chosen for this research study project to provide a purposeful research framework. The finding revealed that the overall Volition Component Inventory (VCI) in pre - / post - and retention tests displayed good reliability, acceptable communality and acceptable construct validity for the VCI questionnaire. The post-test findings using the Univariate Tests of Significance, Effect Sizes, and Powers with partial eta2 values comparing experimental and control groups indicate the intervention effect of high statistical significance suggesting that the educational intervention enhanced mathematics performance. Another findings on how the experimental and control groups compared on learner VCI fields for in pre - / post - and retention tests using Least Square means crossover design model indicate that the enhanced intervention for volition self-efficacy, emotion control, failure control and self-control pressure, energy usage, planning and initiating ability and attention control was of significant main effect. Also the findings between control and experimental group using a three way and nested ANOVA on both learner use of volition strategy use in pre - / post – and retention test indicate pre-test to post-test, a sharp increasing effect of intervention. Hence the results revealed that it is possible to support volition mode of self-regulation competencies and mathematical achievement by self-regulation intervention within regular mathematics lessons of grade 9 learners. Furthermore the findings from the quantitative and qualitative data-analysis and interpretations, and literature review, guided the researcher in proposing a construct for volition enhancement self-regulation model to improve mathematics learner performance in grade 9 rural community schools. In this context, our study adds to research as it realizes that mathematics learning can be directly influenced by combining mathematics related strategies with cross-curricular self-regulation strategies in order to improve learner performance. / PhD (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The contextual factors that affect effective Mathematics learner engagement patterns are due to lack of self-regulated learning and enthusiastic volitional use. An active role for Mathematics learners incorporates use of volitional strategies towards knowledge construction. Self-regulated learning is an important factor for effective learning. However the PISA (2004) survey noted the problem of deficits in cross-curricular academic competencies, which included general self-regulatory strategies. The continued poor performance of learners in mathematics in South Africa at different school levels, especially grade 9 calls for different approach to learning. This research argues that enhanced application of volitional strategies is possible and, in fact desirable if learning situations have to promote mathematics achievement in areas with a presence of traditional teaching style. The purpose of this study is to construct volition enhancing self-regulation model to improve grade 9 mathematics learner performance in rural community schools. The model suggests combining precepts from activity theory and constructivist views as basis. The cyclic learning states of pre-action, action or volition control, and pro-action phases emanating from self-regulation sequence of self-monitoring, self-evaluation and self-reflections form the key concept of the volition model. However the sustained view maintains the education system model as proposed by Howe (2004:153) that includes input, processes and output contributing towards mathematics achievement. Hence the volition model considers the characteristics of teacher, implemented curriculum, teaching and instruction among its components to advance an understanding of their influence in mathematics performance. A mixed method research design, in which quantitative and qualitative are combined to achieve the outcomes of the research problem, is chosen for this research study project to provide a purposeful research framework. The finding revealed that the overall Volition Component Inventory (VCI) in pre - / post - and retention tests displayed good reliability, acceptable communality and acceptable construct validity for the VCI questionnaire. The post-test findings using the Univariate Tests of Significance, Effect Sizes, and Powers with partial eta2 values comparing experimental and control groups indicate the intervention effect of high statistical significance suggesting that the educational intervention enhanced mathematics performance. Another findings on how the experimental and control groups compared on learner VCI fields for in pre - / post - and retention tests using Least Square means crossover design model indicate that the enhanced intervention for volition self-efficacy, emotion control, failure control and self-control pressure, energy usage, planning and initiating ability and attention control was of significant main effect. Also the findings between control and experimental group using a three way and nested ANOVA on both learner use of volition strategy use in pre - / post – and retention test indicate pre-test to post-test, a sharp increasing effect of intervention. Hence the results revealed that it is possible to support volition mode of self-regulation competencies and mathematical achievement by self-regulation intervention within regular mathematics lessons of grade 9 learners. Furthermore the findings from the quantitative and qualitative data-analysis and interpretations, and literature review, guided the researcher in proposing a construct for volition enhancement self-regulation model to improve mathematics learner performance in grade 9 rural community schools. In this context, our study adds to research as it realizes that mathematics learning can be directly influenced by combining mathematics related strategies with cross-curricular self-regulation strategies in order to improve learner performance. / PhD (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The following work presents an exploration of human search behaviour both from biological and computational perspectives. Search behaviour is defined as the movements made by an organism while attempting to find a resource. This work describes some of the principal procedures used to record movement, methods for analysing the data and possible ways of interpreting the data. In order to obtain a database of searching behaviour, an experimental setup was built and tested to generate the search paths of human participants. The test arena occupied part of a football field and the targets consisted of an array of 20 golf balls. In the first set of experiments, a random and regular distribution of targets were tested. For each distribution, three distinct conspicuity levels were constructed: a cryptic level, in which targets were painted the same colour as the grass, a semi-conspicuous level in which targets were left white and a conspicuous condition in which the position of each target was marked by a red flag, protruding one metre from the ground. The subjects tested were 9-11 year old children and their search paths were collected using a GPS device. Subjects did not recognise the spatial cues regarding the way targets were spatially distributed. A minimal decision model, the bouncing search model, was built based on the characteristics of the childrens search paths. The model produced an outstanding fit of the children's behavioural data. In the second set of experiments, a new group of children were tested for two new distributions obtained by arranging the targets in patches. Again, children appeared unable to recognise spatial information during the collection processes. The children's behaviour once again produced a good match with that of the bouncing search model. This work introduces several new methodological aspects to be explored to further understand the decision processes involved when humans search. Also, it illustrates that integrating biology and computational science can result in innovative research.

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A la fin du XIXe siècle, dans le contexte de la mise en place de la société salariale en Europe, émerge un projet positiviste d’étude du travail humain que l’on n’a pas hésité à appeler « ergologie ». Ce projet, qui traversera différentes sciences humaines, cherchait à définir et à encadrer normativement le travail humain en partant de l’étude des potentialités et des limites psycho-physiologiques de l’activité corporelle (fatigue, aptitudes psychomotrices, monotonie, attention..). En ce sens, l’étude psycho-physiologique s’inscrivait dans un projet plus large d’« optimisation » de l’activité humaine (hygiénisme, paix sociale, eugénisme...), en ce sens la connaissance du corps au travail apparaissait comme une partie de la rationalisation de son « usage ». C’est dans cette perspective que certains historiens ont interprété le programme ergologique comme une tentative de « chosification » du corps dont le but serait de le transformer en instrument au service du profit capitaliste et/ou en support du contrôle disciplinaire de l’Etat (Rabinbach, 1992). Or, en observant le développement épistémologique et politique de ce projet « ergologique », on peut s’apercevoir que les tentatives de mesurer et de gérer le corps entendu comme instrument de la production montrent en continuation la nécessité de prendre en compte le choix volontaire par laquelle l’homme définit le but pour de son activité corporelle. En effet, si le travail humain ne peut être défini que comme une activité instrumentale pour atteindre un but « voulu », l’homme serait donc celui qui fait usage de son propre corps pour réaliser un « projet ». Ainsi, mesurer et gouverner les hommes par le travail du corps, tel que cherche à le faire « l’ergologie », n’équivaut pas simplement à réduire celui-ci à un objet malléable, mais également à penser l’activité corporelle instrumentale comme le moment où l’homme définit les objectif de son action en fonctions des différentes contraintes qui déterminent son action vitale. / At the end of the nineteenth century, in the context of the implementation of the “wage society” in Europe, appears a positivist project for studying human labor, which does not hesitate to define "ergology." This project, that cross different human sciences, sought to define and guide the normatively human work on the basis of the study of the psycho-physiological potentiality and limits of body’s activity (fatigue, attitudes, monotony, attention ...). In this sense, the study of psycho-physiological motions is part of a project about the "optimization" of human activities (hygienism, social peace, eugenics ...). From this perspective, some historians have interpreted the “ergology” as a form of "mechanization" of the body that would transform it into an instrument at the service of the capitalist profit and/or into a support of the disciplinary control of the State (Rabinbach, 1992) . However, observing the epistemological and political development of the "ergological project ", we can see that to measure and to management the man as an instrument of the production it need to take into account the voluntary action by which man defines the goal that his bodily activity. If human labor can be defined as an activity instrumental to achieve a goal "desired", so the man appears as the “master” of his body for the accomplishment of a “project”. So, measure and govern men through the work of the body does not just mean reducing the latter to object malleable, but also think the work as the action through the organic activity can be the support for a “human” realization.