Browsing by Author "Mlangeni, Mbali Charity."
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Item Assessment in design programmes : an investigation into the approaches and values of assesors at the Durban University of Technology.(2007) Kethro, Philippa.; Mlangeni, Mbali Charity.; Harrison, Janet Elizabeth.This study explores assessor approaches and values in Design programmes atItem Introducing portfolio assessment as an alternative assessment method in the Department of Biomedical Technology at Mangosuthu Technikon : the perceptions of staff and students.(2008) Ndimande, Thembi Alice.; Mlangeni, Mbali Charity.The assessment procedures utilized in the Department of Biomedical Technology at Mangosuthu Technikon were critically reviewed. This revealed a rather narrow approach with an emphasis on traditional assessment methods such as tests and examinations that provide limited feedback that does not necessarily determine whether learning has taken place. This study was prompted by the realization that the existing traditional methods of assessment promote or encourage a surface approach to learning which makes it difficult for the students to transfer the theoretical knowledge that they have attained into the practical performance that is required in the workplace. The study was conducted over a period of four years using an action research approach, which revolved mainly around the use of the existing assessment methods and an evaluation of the participants’ perceptions regarding the introduction of portfolio assessment in the Department of Biomedical Technology at Mangosuthu Technikon. During the study a group of students in the Department of Chemical Pathology was exposed to an in-course portfolio assessment as well as an experiential training portfolio assessment. A number of variables in the in-course portfolio assessment was tested. These variables were related to the concerns raised in the workplace. The introduction of the in-course portfolio showed some improvement in the way students performed their basic duties in 2005. The 2006 group of students was not exposed to the in-course portfolio assessment therefore this provided a better comparison of students by the employers. The study also involved the lecturers in the department who had different opinions regarding portfolio assessment. It was found that some of them supported the idea whereas others felt that the time allocated for lecturers’ duties did not permit them to introduce such a time-consuming assessment format. Employers involved in the study clearly indicated which areas or skills students needed to develop before they could come to the workplace for experiential training. However, the researcher concluded that some of those skills could be accumulated with further years of work experience. The study revealed that a significant portion of the students realized that, by integrating assessment in the learning process, they are able to be more critical of their own work, thereby putting more effort into understanding what they learn through the use of formative assessment. This in turn should pave the way for students to understand that learning is no longer teacher-centred, but learner-centred. This approach means that they are expected to work in more reflective and independent ways in the future. The study highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed in assessment strategies. The lecturers were accustomed to assessment system that was time-efficient and yielded the scores required by the system. However, the way this assessment system related to learning was not so clear to either lecturers or students. Particularly, students felt that a mark did not necessarily reflect what they knew about the subject matter. They argued that if the same subject content had been assessed in other ways, a different performance outcome might have been achieved. This means that the actual awarding of marks is an intimidating process for some students and that ways should be found to render assessment less intimidating or threatening. A critical finding of the study is that assessment requires not only a high level of critical reflection, but also active engagement and discipline-specific knowledge by the lecturers to make the necessary changes for an assessment method where students’ learning is the centre of focus.Item An investigation of prescribed managerial accounting and finance textbooks used by B.Com accounting students at some universities in South Africa.(2008) O'Reilly-Bargate, Karen.; Mlangeni, Mbali Charity.The selection of textbooks used at tertiary institutions in South Africa, in the discipline of Accounting, is an area where there is a lack of published studies. Factors citied by academics for selecting prescribed textbooks are the cost of the textbooks, comprehensive coverage of relevant topics and applicability to the South African context. Other criteria, such as readability, are often not taken into consideration. Students feel that the prescribed textbooks are prescribed for the wrong reasons and find them difficult to read and learn from. The research reviews the Managerial Accounting and Finance (MAF) textbooks used at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and other universities. Observations about the textbooks, from staff and students are considered from interviews.Item Modelling a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the impact of a cash incentivised prevention intervention to reduce teenage pregnancy among high school learners in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.(2013) Mlangeni, Mbali Charity.; Mwambi, Henry Godwell.A third of adolescent girls fall pregnant before the age of 20 in South Africa, and this happens despite contraceptives and condoms being free and mostly accessi- ble. This thesis aims to evaluate the impact of a cash conditional incentivised preven- tion intervention on teenage pregnancy through the use of appropriate statistical methods that take into account the clustering effect as well as the binary nature of the response variable. This thesis will focus on the analysis of interim data of the study which was collected at baseline and first follow up. Fourteen schools were allocated to two study arms (intervention and control arm), totalling to 1412 teenage girls who were followed up annually for 3 years. Partic- ipants in the intervention arm received the conditional cash transfers while those in the control arm did not. The intervention arm comprised of 704 girls while the control arm had 708 girls at baseline. The null hypothesis for this study states that there is no difference in the rate of pregnancy across the study arms. Urine specimen were collected to test for pregnancy. Baseline data analysis revealed an overall pregnancy proportion of 3.47% with that of 2.84% and 4.10% respectively for the intervention and control arm. These findings together with all the other findings from the applied statistical methods yielded insignificant results thus, favoring the null hypothesis. Amongst the covariates used, age and grade were multi-collinear. In all the fitted models, the age variable was statistically signif- icant (p<0.01) which is indicative that this variable plays an important role in pregnancy. From this study, a total of 280 (approximately 21%) girls missed a follow up visit. No statistical analysis was done to account for the missing data as the study was analysed at an interim thus, there is a possibility that participants might miss a particular visit but return for another scheduled visit. Based on the outcome obtained from the interim data analysis, it is evident that teenage pregnancy oc- curs regardless of treatment arm thus, we conclude that cash conditional transfers does not exclusively prevent teenage girls from falling pregnant.