12 research outputs found

    Ethnic Student Organization Leaders\u27 Perceptions of Institutional Diversity Efforts at a Predominantly White Faith-Based University

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    Although student organizations have the potential to significantly contribute to the diversity efforts of predominantly White institutions (PWI), colleges continue to undermine the value of these organizations (Kuk & Banning, 2010). Ethnic student organizations, specifically the students who lead them, can play a crucial role in promoting diversity and inclusion on college campuses yet few studies examine their role in institutional diversity efforts. This study explores the perceptions of student leaders of ethnic or minority student organizations enrolled in a four year predominantly White, Christian university to better understand how they perceive their university’s diversity efforts and their own role within these efforts. The study asks the following research questions: (1) How do student leaders of ethnic student organizations perceive institutional diversity efforts at a faith-based, predominantly White university? (2) How do student leaders of ethnic student organizations perceive their role in institutional diversity efforts at a faith-based, predominantly White university? Using a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine ethnic student organization leaders at a faith-based PWI. Findings reveal that ethnic student organization leaders hold mixed perceptions of institutional diversity efforts. Some participants are optimistic about the university’s efforts while others are either unaware of the university’s diversity efforts or believe the university is not doing enough to create a more diverse and inclusive campus. Student leaders’ perceptions are frequently impacted by a challenging campus climate, which often includes experiences of marginality or “otherness.” Furthermore, ethnic student organization leaders perceive their role as helpful and salient to promoting diversity and inclusion on their campus

    The infant-feeding practices of mothers enrolled in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme at a primary health care clinic in the Mpumalanga province, South Africa

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    Purpose: To determine whether mothers attending a primary health care (PHC) clinic in the Mpumalanga province, South Africa for post-deliveryprevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) follow-up care were adhering to the recommendationof exclusive infant-feeding practices, and to identify possible areas for improvement of the PMTCT of HIV services at the clinic.Setting: A municipal PHC clinic in White River, a semi-urban town in Mpumalanga, South Africa.Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study using a structured infant-feeding questionnaire.Subjects: All mothers attending the clinic for post-delivery PMTCT of HIV follow-up care during a four-month period from 1 November 2007 to29 February 2008.Results: A total of 33 mothers with infants attended the clinic during the period. All 33 mothers took part in the questionnaire study. Thirtyquestionnaires were subsequently found suitable for analysis. The mothers were predominantly rural, with low levels of education and no formalemployment. Their ages ranged from 22 to 42 years, with a mean of 30.7 years. Fifteen (50%) of the 30 mothers practised exclusive replacementfeeding (ERF), 8 (27%) practised exclusive breast-feeding (EBF), and 7 (23%) practised mixed feeding.Conclusion: More than three-quarters of the mothers practised the recommended exclusive infant-feeding methods for PMTCT of HIV, with ERF asthe most popular choice. However, the infant-feeding practices could not be generalised as the attendance of mothers for post-delivery follow-upcare at the clinic was very poor during the study period. This poor attendance was attributed to frequent non-availability of free formula milk for theprogramme. Better quality counselling is needed to further increase the adherence to exclusive infant-feeding practices, and to improve the uptakeof post-delivery follow-up care

    Association between pre-service science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their confidence in physics content

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    This exploratory study examined the relationship between the knowledge of selected physics concepts from the South African National Senior Certificate curriculum and the self-efficacy beliefs of preservice science teachers. Forty-one preservice physical science teachers between the ages of 16 and 30 enrolled in a higher education institution to earn a Bachelor of Education degree made up the participants. Of these, 56.1% were female and 43.9% were male. Every respondent was a recent high school graduate from South Africa enrolled in a second-year university course on basic physical science. The preservice teachers completed the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) and a teaching confidence ranking scale. A confidence ranking for teaching topics from a typical high school science curriculum was determined by analyzing the data. According to the data analysis, preservice teachers are confident and self-sufficient enough to teach science concepts

    Factors relating to low birth mass

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    M.Cur.This dissertation studies the cause of the high incidence of low birth-mass and how it can be prevented at this specific hospital in Pretoria. A qualitative exploratory and descriptive design was used and a case study used in the context of the specific hospital. The population consisted of mothers of low birth-mass babies and a sample of only 10 mothers was selected. Data was gathered by means of semi-scheduled interviews which were conducted in the language of the subject. There were, however, no opposition from other subjects to be interviewed in English since they understood English. A pilot study was done on only one subject and no major changes were made in the actual study. Permission was obtained from the subjects and they were informed of the objectives of the study, which were: * to detect the reason for low birth-mass babies * * * to prevent the causes to assess the health needs of the patient to be able to improve the health needs by doing strategic planning. The subjects were told that they had the right to refrain from participating - most of them, however, did participate

    The Impact of the Presence of Prosodic Features (Tone Markings) on Comprehending Setswana Words in Reading

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    The paper is about the impact of prosodic features, more especially tone marking, in extracting the meaning in Setswana readings, because of its contribution to meaning in Setswana. The research was conducted in response to the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which found that more than 80% of Grade 4 students tested in an African Language were unable to read for comprehension. The semiotic theoretical framework, which is concerned with how signs are used for interpretation, served as the foundation for this study. The focus of the study was on the Intermediate Phase learners from eight schools where Setswana is taught as a First Additional Language and/or as a Home Language. Qualitative and quantitative method approaches were used to collect data. Participants were chosen through random sampling. The study discovered that when words are not marked, learners are unable to determine which meaning is intended. It was discovered that in reading the most difficult aspect is comprehending what has been read. The study proposes that new means of emphasizing prosodic markers (such as tones, accent, stress, and rhythm) be given special focus in the South African education system so that learners may be able to extract meaning and comprehend what they read

    Plurilingual practices in Higher Education: An analysis of student perceptions from a South African University

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    This study describes student perspectives on the teaching and learning of a newly introduced University language acquisition course. It identifies three basic components of teaching and learning, namely teaching approaches, teaching and learning resources, and assessment of learning. The study focuses on how students perceive these basic components of teaching and learning by investigating how 1st-year students at a university in South Africa perceive the teaching and learning of the Sesotho First Additional Language (FAL) course (a newly introduced course in the university). Hence the objectives of this study are to establish the views of 1st-year Sesotho FAL students regarding the teaching approaches used by the lecturers presenting the course; the teaching and learning resources used in the course; and the quality of assessments applied in the course. Guided by complex dynamic systems theory, the study employs a survey methodology. A questionnaire comprising both close-ended belief statements as well as open-ended statements for students to respond to was administered to 51 study participants purposefully selected. Quantitative data were analysed using IBM SPSS, while qualitative data were analysed by the researchers themselves. Results emerging from the data reveal that 1st-year students generally find their lecturers’ teaching approaches and assessment methods satisfactory; however, they perceive the teaching and learning resources used by their lecturers in teaching Sesotho as inadequate. This finding points to the need for further dialogue broadly on the quality of teaching and learning, quality of assessment criteria and the availability of teaching and learning resources provided for presenting newly introduced courses in higher education institutions (HEIs); and specifically on the level of preparation of lecturers in these courses tasked with the teaching and learning

    Verbs of putting in Setswana

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    Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Stellenbosch, 1998.Full text to be digitised and attached to bibliographic record

    Descriptive nominal modifiers in Setswana

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    Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2002.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study focused on three descriptive nominal modifiers which specify the attributes of nouns, i.e. the morphological adjective, the relative clause and the descriptive possessive. The morphological adjective appears in an adjectival phrase, which has to consist of a determiner and an adjective. The adjective must have agreement with the head noun in an NP. The adjective root may appear with nominal suffixes such as -ana and -gadi, it can be reduplicated, it may be transposed to other categories and it may even be compounded. The AP may also occur in predicative position as well as in comparative clauses. The relative clause may have the same semantic properties as the adjective. The relative clause in Setswana consists of a determiner in the position of the complementizer followed by an lP. Such an lP may have a copulative or non-copulative verb. Attention in this study has focused on the nominal relative, which appears as a complement of a copulative verb. These nominal relative stems have been divided into two sections, i.e. a section in which the nominal relative stems may not appear in a descriptive possessive construction and a second section where these stems may also appear as a complement of the possessive [a]. The semantic features of these nominal relative stems have been isolated and it is clear that they show a wide variety of semantic features. This type of relative clause represents the most prolific category, which specifies the attributes of nouns. The third category, which displays the semantic feature of an attribute of a noun, is the descriptive possessive construction. The syntactic and semantic structure of this type of phrase has been investigated. A wide variety of complements of the possessive [a] have been isolated in Setswana and some semantic features have received specific attention, i.e. group nouns and partitives.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie fokus op drie deskriptiewe nominale bepalers wat die attribute van naamwoorde spesifiseer nl. die morfologiese adjektief, die relatief en die deskriptiewe possessief. Die morfologiese adjektief kom voor in 'n adjektieffrase wat bestaan uit 'n bepaler en 'n adjektief. Die adjektief moet klasooreenstemming hê met die kernnaamwoord in 'n naamwoordfrase. Die adjektiefstam kan voorkom met nominale suffikse soos ana en gadi, dit kan geredupliseer word, oorgeplaas word na ander kategorieë en selfs samestellings vorm. Die adjektieffrase kan ook voorkom in 'n predikatiewe posisie sowel as in vergelykings. Die relatief kan dieselfde semantiese eienskappe hê as die adjektief. Die relatief in Setswana bestaan uit 'n bepaler in die posisie van die komplementeerder gevolg deur 'n infleksiefrase. So 'n infleksiefrase kan 'n kopulatiewe of nie-kopulatiewe werkwoord bevat. Die aandag in hierdie studie het gekonsentreer op die nominale relatief wat voorkom as 'n komplement van 'n kopulatiewe werkwoord. Hierdie nominale relatiewe stamme is verdeel in twee afdelings nl. 'n afdeling waarin die nominale relatiewe stamme nie kan voorkom in 'n deskriptiewe possessiewe konstruksie en 'n tweede afdeling waar hierdie stamme ook kan voorkom as 'n komplement van die possessiewe [a]. Die semantiese kenmerke van hierdie nominale relatiewe stamme is geïsoleer en dit is duidelik dat hulle 'n wye verskeidenheid van semantiese kenmerke het. Hierdie tipe relatief verteenwoordig In baie wye keuse t.o.v. die attribute van naamwoorde. Die derde kategorie wat die semantiese kenmerk van 'n attribuut van 'n naamwoord vertoon, is die deskriptiewe possessiewe konstruksie. Die sintaktiese en semantiese struktuur van hierdie tipe frase is nagegaan. 'n Groot verskeidenheid komplemente van die possessiewe [a] is geïsoleer in Setswana en sommige semantiese kenmerke het spesifieke aandag gekry nl. groepnaamwoorde en partitiiewe

    The plain language requirement in terms of section 22 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 as applied to consumer contracts

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    The Consumer Protection aims to protect the rights of the consumers. Through the protection of the rights of the consumer, there is a balance being created between the supplier and consumer. The introduction of the plain language requirement by the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 has brought about a new dimension in the relationship between consumers and suppliers when concluding consumer contracts. The plain language requirement places a duty on suppliers to ensure that the consumers understand the contents of the consumer contract clearly. Therefore, the plain language requirement requires the suppliers to ensure that the provisions of section 22 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 are fulfilled. The purpose of this study is to investigate the provisions section 22 of the Consumer Protection 68 of 2008. The investigation involves the assessment of benefits and challenges of the plain language requirement to consumers and suppliers in consumer contracts. The investigation reveals that the satisfaction of the plain language requirement as applied to consumer contracts poses a burden on suppliers. The outcomes of this study reveal there is need to have guidelines in place for suppliers. These guidelines will enable the suppliers to determine whether they have satisfied the plain language requirement when concluding consumer contracts with consumers.Mini Dissertation (LLM)--Universiity of Pretoria, 2019.Mercantile LawLLMUnrestricte
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