Doctoral Degrees (Psychology)
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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Psychology) by Author "Beukes, R. B."
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Item Open Access The development and evaluation of a life skills programme for young adult prisoners(University of the Free State, 2014-12) Jordaan, Jacques; Beukes, R. B.; Esterhuyse, K. G. F.English: The purpose of this research project was to develop, implement and evaluate a Life Skills programme for young adult male long-term offenders with the aim of improving their life skills that, in turn, could enable them to adjust more effectively in the correctional environment. This programme is developed based on the principles of psycho-education, the cybernetic cycle, and cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT is chosen, as studies had shown that it successfully improved the life skills, psychological well-being, and institutional behaviour of offenders. The game of chess is used as a vehicle of change to enable the offenders to learn new life skills or to improve their existing life skills. Chess, like CBT, trains individuals to think before making a move (acting), generate alternative moves (solutions), evaluate possible risks (consequences), and make decisions about appropriate moves (behaviour). Experimental research is used to investigate the effectiveness of the programme. In this study, 96 literate young male adult offenders between the ages of 21 and 25 years, with long sentences, were selected randomly. The participants were assigned randomly into an experimental and a control group. The Solomon four-group design (Braver & Braver, 1988; Huysamen, 1998; Lusk et al., 1999) is utilized to control for the effect of pretest sensitisation. The experimental groups attended the structured Life Skills programme for a period of six months, while the control groups participated in the normal daily activities of the correctional centre. The effectiveness of the programme was tested by obtaining measurements on the four domains (problem solving, decision-making, anger management, and coping with emotions). These measures were conducted before the programme commenced, directly (short term) after, three months (medium term) after and six months (long term) after. The effectiveness of the programme was thus investigated over various terms. A semantic differential scale was also used to identify the offenders’ perceptions of the programme. The offenders indicated that the programme and its contents were meaningful and beneficial, while the findings indicate that the programme had limited success in equipping them with the necessary skills crucial to their survival in a correctional centre. The programme did have significant effects, especially on problem solving and anger management in the short and medium term. These improvements were not long lived. The results of this study thus show that the programme had limited success and it did not positively influence their life skills in the long term that would have enabled them to deal with the challenges of a correctional environment. It is necessary to refine and adjust or even redevelop this programme. However, the fact remains that programmes must be developed for offenders to improve their adjustment in correctional centres as well as for their release into communities.