Thesis (Ph.D. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / This thesis is an evaluation of a study that focused on the health promotion of learners
in schools. The study evaluated the process of health promotion in the schools
focusing on the school’s compliance as health-promoting schools in line with the WHO
principles, the intervention process that includes training of students in health
promotion and assessing the impact of such intervention. The intervention was
delivered by Life Orientation (LO) Educators over nine months. The thesis aimed to
evaluate if learners who have been exposed to the health-promoting school
programmes will exhibit more confidence in avoiding and refusing to indulge in mental
health-related risky behaviours than those who were not exposed; and whether the
WHO health-promoting school approach compliance can be modified to establish site specific agenda regarding mental health.
Twenty schools in two circuits within Capricorn district in Limpopo province participated
in the evaluation process using eighteen schools that took part in the whole school
intervention project of LASH project. Data was collected for process evaluation and
impact analysis of the intervention. Process evaluation used data collected from the
interview reports of LO Educators who implemented the project at schools and thus
evaluated the process of their experience with the project. The impact analysis was
done using data collected from the participants at baseline and a follow-up after nine
months using a self-administered questionnaire. The process evaluation findings
showed that the degree of understanding of the expected implementation objectives
was not standardised and was not done according to the initial plan as well as following
the contextual needs. Factors that came out explicitly as hindering the desired effect
included neglect of key methodological aspects meant to enhance and validate the
experiential report by the Educators namely classroom observation and logbook
reports; specialisation of the topics for the intervention and lack of training manuals
specific for the task; lack of adequate capacity building for staff, the schools to take
charge of the process and neglect of the needs to avoid challenges for
contextualrelevance. However, it is worth noting that the introduction of the process
was done under the systematic recommendation by WHO with the schools adhering
to the basic principles for health promotion outlined by WHO. The impact analysis
evaluation highlighted some negative and positive results ofthe study. Positive results on the impact of the intervention elicited factors such as the development of learners’
assertiveness, learners’ utilisation of available policies in the school for their daily
activities and change in risky behaviour. The gaps noted above were in the region of
methodological aspects, capacity building, context-related challenges and
recommendations were made in the areas of (i) enhancement of methodological gaps
that were neglected in the main study; this included the utilisation of logbooks and
classroom observation that were planned and did not materialise as well as more
succinct validation of some items in the questionnaires that seemed to have created
ambiguity in some responses ii) development of specific training manual for health
promotion and not use of ad-hoc topics separately developed with limited capacity for
comparability between schools iii) capacity building of staff to take full charge and act
as role models for the learners and not feel compromised; iv) capacitation of the school
management to assist with the daily logistics and enhancement for implementation
especially at school level v) planning process that contextualise the needs of the
schools involved. The project was ground-breaking work of whole school health
promotion with promise in the behaviour changes of learners and their empowerment
and aggressive outlook on the difficult school based challenges around substance
abuse, violence and sexual behaviour. Such work could in future benefit from studies
that are both theory and evidence-based which will use validated and contextualised
realistic methods guided by the findings of pilot studies which was missing in this
project.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/3459 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Langa, Raisibe Cynthia |
| Contributors | Mashego, T. A., Setwaba, M. B. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | x,127 leaves |
| Relation |
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