An exploratory field study into schoolgirl pregnancies, with emphasis on the role the school can play in their prevention
- Authors: Kooverjee, Ishwar
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Teenage pregnancy -- South Africa Sex instruction -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003419
- Description: This piece of research explores the problem of schoolgirl pregnancies and suggests a role which the school might play in their prevention. Concern over the growing number of unplanned pregnancies under the age of eighteen years at the author's school, culminated in the .present study. Experts on the subject often perceive the problem to be self-defeating to the young girls, medically contra-indicated and socially disruptive. The purpose of this investigation was to determine attitudes towards the description of the problem, to identify causative factors predisposing to pregnancy, and to obtain views on how the school can reconcile efforts to address the problem. The relevant research data was obtained through a comprehensive 64 item attitudinal and knowledge-base questionnaire which was administered to a sample of 187 subjects. The sample comprised seven different occupational groups namely, senior schoolgirls, parents of senior schoolgirls, ex-schoolgirl primigravidae, parents of ex-schoolgirl primigravidae, school teachers, members of the clergy and various health care professionals. The appendices contain full statistical tables as well as full responses to the open-ended essay based on the research questionnaire so that the reader is free to check the reasonableness of the conclusions drawn. In the final chapter the author provides a brief summary of findings, offers justification why the teaching of sex education should be a priority in public schools, and makes recommendations, in the main, for the inclusion of school-based sex education as a component of Guidance in terms of rationale and implementation. In addition, suggestions are made with regard to school policy formulation and networking with parents and other community resources. Finally, a choice of four current model programmes for sex education are proposed in an effort to improve and build upon existing programmes in the present South African curriculum. It is the author's belief that this investigation may contribute to course design and perhaps provide hypotheses for more specific studies in the future.
- Full Text:
The relationship of general retention ability to new South African group test non-verbal/verbal IQ discrepancies and their academic correlates
- Authors: Watson, Peter James
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Intellect Intelligence tests -- South Africa Academic achievement -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1725 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003608
- Description: Both experimental research (Robbertse,1952)and clinical observation (Kruger, 1972; van der Merwe,1978) have indicated that pupils with a Verbal IQ score 10 or more points lower than their non-Verbal IQ (termed a 'Type 1' discrepancy in the present research) on the New South African Group Test (NSAGT) show poorer academic achievement than their peers of similar ability. The present research investigates the relationship of general retention ability, as defined by Hakstian and Cattell (1978), to Type 1 discrepancies as well as to their academic correlates. One hundred and thirty-nine standard seven English-speaking boys were tested on the NSAGT and the Junior Aptitude Test (JAT) (of which tests 8 and 9 give an indication of general retention ability) and divided into a group with Type 1 discrepancies and two control groups. All three groups were matched on full-scale IQ. Comparison of these three groups, using the analysis of variance technique, showed that there was no significant difference between them in level of general retention ability or in academic performance (measured by average percentage in the final standard seven examination). While no significant difference was found between the three groups regarding the relationship of general retention ability to academic performance, in the Type 1 discrepancy group the relationship of rote memory (JAT test 8) to academic performance differed markedly from that of associative memory (JAT test 9) to academic performance. In the Type 1 discrepancy group rote memory was highly associated with academic performance, possibly indicating a compensatory strategy for the lower Verbal ability in this group, enabling it to achieve academically on par with the control groups, contrary to what would be expected on the basis of Robbertse's (1962) findings. In terms of Jensen's (1982) Level 1/Level 11 theory of intelligence, it appears from the present research that rote memory ability (JAT test 8) varies between being a Level 11 ability (in the Type 1 discrepancy group) to acting as a Level 1 ability in the two control groups. The present research questions Verwey and Wolmarans's (1980) description of both JAT tests 8 and 9 as simple measures of retention Test 9, in particular, appears to function consistently as a Level 11 ability.
- Full Text: