Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and also highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months

The training and development of lecturers within the framework of the relevant Acts on higher education

The education dispensation in South Africa underwent tremendous changes during the last decade of the twentieth-century and in the early years of the new millennium. Many lecturers are not necessarily equipped to face all the challenges that are a result of the changes. Since it is the vision of the new government to have a `rational, seamless Higher Education system that will embrace the intellectual and professional challenges facing South Africans in the 21st century' (Department of Education 2003, iii), the researcher became involved and conducted this study in a higher education institution. The relevant Acts in the higher education environment served as framework to table a training model for newly appointed lecturers. Development research was used as method, and a heuristic statement formulated and tested. The instructional design components based on an Input ? Process ? Output matrix was applied, and a step-by-step approach followed to design the training model and simultaneously test the implementation of the programme. The proposed training programme for the holistic development of lecturers in a higher education institution is based on past experience, relevant in the current situation, but also future-orientated. It is practical, effective and applicable in the higher education sector, and the validity lies in the fact that it is goal-orientated, based on state of the art knowledge, relevant and meaningful. It reflects the reality in which the lecturers are expected to perform and considers their emotional and instinctive feelings. It is therefore tabled as a well-researched and properly instituted model. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 20(1) 2006: 70-8

A perspective on methodological issues in research on adult student attrition rates in distance learning

The important role of analytical thinking is demonstrated in this article by means of examples of research on student attrition rates. The article shows how various points of departure regarding the aims of a study influence (sometimes unqualified) assumptions of causation. Researchers should distinguish between necessary and sufficient causes because only the confirmation of a sufficient cause will rule out dangers to the internal validity of a scientific study. An example of survey research is used to show that unfounded assumptions (such as causality whilst using a survey design) could lead to incorrect conclusions, particularly if the analytical thinking of the researcher is not correct. Similarly, the choice of an adequate methodology in alignment with the aim of a study must be addressed. For a methodology to be adequate, it needs to be compatible with a model or theory. The use of proper models or theoretical frameworks, such as Kember's model, in the study of the student attrition phenomenon is recommended. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.16(3) 2002: 95-10

Synchronization of oestrus in sheep of low-normal mass under range conditions: The use of different progestagens and PMSG

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