AA 2006 Volume 38 Issue 1

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http://hdl.handle.net/11660/6697

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Open Access
Using multiple-choice questions,short questions and exercises to assess student performance
(University of the Free State, 2006) Jovanovic, Nabo; Latief, Abduraghiem
English: Multiple-choice questions, short questions and exercises were used to assess the performance of students in environmental and water sciences at the University of the Western Cape (Bellville, South Africa). The objectives were to evaluate and compare these three assessment methods, and to indicate which were particularly appropriate for the various modules and academic years. Altogether 136 test and examination papers were marked. Students generally performed better in multiple-choice questions compared to short questions, while their performance on short exercises was the poorest. No significant difference in performance was found between the academic years. Multiple-choice questions are suitable for large classes, but short questions and exercises are recommended as they facilitate the assessment of conceptual knowledge and practical problem-solving skills.
Open Access
Forgery, fiction and pseudonym in the collection of medical letters prefacing Marcellus’s De medicamentis
(University of the Free State, 2006) Cilliers, Louise
English: In this article the corpus of eight letters serving as a preface to the pharmaceutical recipe collection which constitutes Marcellus’s De medicamentis is examined from a literary point of view. The classification of the various letters in the epistolographic genre is discussed; the identities of the writers and the addressees are investigated, and in cases where the names are fictitious or incorrect, an attempt is made to determine the reason. Finally, the question is posed: why do all these apparently unrelated letters form part of this collection?
Open Access
In defence of history as a school subject
(University of the Free State, 2006) Schoeman, Sonja
English: In view of the fact that the majority of learners terminate their study of history at the end of the General Education and Training phase (Grade 9), active steps should be taken by history practitioners and important role-players to prevent the subject from becoming extinct in government schools. It is no longer sufficient justification to say, for example, that some learners enjoy history or that educators are now using an unparalleled variety of methods. There is a need for an adequate and effective promotional strategy to “sell” history in government schools. It must not only convince adult sceptics, whether inside or outside the staff room, but also give learners at the end of the General Education and Training phase reasons to consider choosing to study history in the Further Education and Training phase (Grades 10 to 12).
Open Access
The daily experience of farm dwellers on a commercial farm inthe North-West Province
(University of the Free State, 2006) Ryke, Elma
English: Farm dwellers’ daily experiences on a commercial farm in the North-West Province are qualitatively explored and described with the aim of arriving at an understanding of their specific experience. It is concluded that they experience their environment as entrapping. Numerous forces structure this experience, such as a lack of tangible and social resources, their geographical and social isolation, the uneven transformation of traditional employment relations and a sense of powerlessness (an inability to influence their circumstances). However, they also experience it as including some enabling elements.
Open Access
New meanings of “home” in South Africa
(University of the Free State, 2006) Marchetti-Mercer, Maria
English: The search for a place we can call “home” and where we feel we can truly belong is a common human experience. This article explores the different meanings attached to the concept of home and how these influence our experience of belonging. These will be discussed in the context of individual as well as family and cultural experiences, with special emphasis on the contributions of family therapy towards this understanding. The article will also explore how finding a “home” is particularly relevant in present-day post-apartheid South African society. In conclusion it will be argued that “home” may be a fluid concept which requires mobility and flexibility in order to accommodate the complexities of a postmodern world.
Open Access
New security thinking: defence and societal transformation in South Africa
(University of the Free State, 2006) Ferreira, Rialize
English: New security thinking, with its specific focus on human security, is different from earlier perspectives, which focused primarily on state security. In South Africa, state security is no longer threatened by conventional threats. With new challenges such as global poverty, unemployment and economic decline, the needs of people are addressed as much as those of the state or military strategy. An expansive approach to the concept of human security has been infused in all domestic policies. Human security includes the satisfaction of the basic needs of life, and encompasses the creation of the social, political, economic, military, environmental and cultural conditions necessary for survival, human rights and good governance.
Open Access
Community-based education: a case study of the MED 113 expo at the University of the Free State
(University of the Free State, 2006) Prinsloo, Adri; Joubert, Gina; Du Toit, Gawie
English: Complaints that health professionals do not address the needs of society have necessitated new methods of teaching and learning. The community-based education (CBE) approach could address these concerns. The aim of this study was to determine if community-based activities could help students to integrate theory and practice, or influence their attitudes and behaviour towards the community. It was a quantitative study including a literature review and questionnaires. The results yielded a 75.7% positive response with regard to the integration of theory and practice and a 77.9% positive response in terms of changed attitudes towards the community. Recommendations are made on changes to the CBE activities of MED 113 in order for it to serve as a model for other CBE modules at the University of the Free State.
Open Access
The provision of continuing professional development in the natural sciences at the Universityof Stellenbosch
(University of the Free State, 2006) Frick, Liezel; Kapp, Chris
English: Continuing professional development (CPD) gains relevance and prominence in a global society characterised by constant change and a consumer-driven market economy. Competence, accountability, professionalism and lifelong learning are concepts currently requiring professionals to improve their expertise continuously. This article reports on the providers and the provision of CPD within a particular professional field, namely the natural sciences in higher education. The findings are based on the literature and a qualitative study conducted in the Faculty of Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. This mapping of the provision of CPD will provide an insight into current practice within the field, which could assist in determining future initiatives.
Open Access
Dollarisation as an alternative exchange rate regime for emerging countries
(University of the Free State, 2006) Wessels, Buks
English:Over the past three decades exchange rate volatility has motivated a renewed search for stable and predictable exchange rate regimes. As a fixed exchange rate regime, dollarisation has increasingly been suggested as such an alternative, and is currently receiving renewed attention. This article is aimed at investigating the nature and rationale for such a regime, and also analysing its advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, a critique of dollarisation, together with an analysis of its suitability for various circumstances and types of economies, is offered in order to determine its specific niche on the exchange rate spectrum. The regime is found to have merit, but to be applicable only to a limited number of countries with specific features.
Open Access
Rights of love and the dynamics of social benevolence: interpreting Martin Luther’s thoughts on social rights
(University of the Free State, 2006) Raath, Andries
English: A constructive interpretation of Martin Luther’s teaching on social rights reveals that human rights are not the institutions or instruments of evil that some Christian viewpoints take them to be. On the contrary, natural rights are gifts of God, inscribed on humankind’s heart in the kingdom of creation for serving God and one’s neighbour through love. Human rights are fundamentally rights of love, to be maintained for the glory of God. In the social sphere both private and public social rights are of fundamental importance in steering humanity towards attaining peace and justice in society.
Open Access
Cognitive dimensions of politics: relativism and rationalism
(University of the Free State, 2006) Faure, Murray
English: This article investigates whether there are necessarily links between relativist and rationalist thinking and the nature of the politics that ensues from these epistemologies. Claims that posit such linkages have permeated political theory as well as the philosophy of science for many decades. The arguments in earlier as well as more recent discourses to this end are appraised here, with no necessary causal link being found between the claims of these discourses and the conventional world of politics. Political theory and metatheory are not substitutes for the thought that informs political action, and hence the nature of politics. The analysis suggests that the two epistemologies can co-exist, irrespective of whether politics is democratic or autocratic in nature. To the extent that epistemologies inform political thought, their nature does not predetermine the nature of the politics that they inform; the latter is rather a function of substantive claims contained in the epistemologies themselves, of the complex and dynamic interaction between these claims, and of a multitude of other factors.
Open Access
The relevance of the Bewußtseins-Industrie to the essayistic oeuvre of Hans Magnus Enzensberger
(University of the Free State, 2006) Van den Berg, Cilliers
English: With an interest in issues relating to the role of literature in the socio-political context, Hans Magnus Enzensberger uses the Bewußtseins-Industrie in many of his texts as an analytical construct to describe the way in which society functions. This becomes evident particularly in essays in which he deals directly with social aspects. In both his poetics and his creative work this problematic issue is often present too. The purpose of this essay is to trace succinctly the roots of Enzensberger’s Bewußtseins-Industrie to some aspects of the Kulturindustrie of Theodor W Adorno, and then to describe the key position which this notion occupies in his essayistic oeuvre.
Open Access
Die kennisvraagstuk in wetenskap en geloof
(University of the Free State, 2006) Van Niekerk, Anton
English: This article deals with the question of whether the kind of knowledge claims made in confessions of faith are reconcilable with the knowledge claims of the modern experimental sciences. This issue is addressed first by paying attention to the critique offered by one of the most verbal and vehement critics of religion among the ranks of practising scientists of our day, Richard Dawkins. Next, the differences between knowledge claims in science and religion are discussed (drawing on Kierkegaard, among others, as well as on the less famous work of McClendon and Smith) in order to show where and how the author takes issue with Dawkins. It is argued that science and religion are reconcilable since their questions are not mutually reducible and since the truths which they propound differ in terms of logic and function differently in people’s lives.
Open Access
An ambiguous partnership of word and tone: media “confrontation” in Mozart’s Don Giovanni
(University of the Free State, 2006) Viljoen, Martina
English: Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni is generally recognised as the greatest work dealing with the theme of Don Juan. It is also extremely complex and raises in an unusually challenging way the significance of the figure of Don Giovanni. This article examines the relevance of Nicholas Cook’s theory regarding the analysis of musical multimedia. Focusing also on the works of Wye Jamison Allanbrook and Leonard Ratner that have a bearing on the topic, it explores Mozart’s ingenious deployment of musical expression, style, and syntax in the opera as primary agents in the construction of human character. Cook’s “contest” model postulates that the projection of Don Giovanni’s character owes its complexity to a remarkably ambiguous partnership of word and tone, resulting in what may be called a “contradiction” of musical and verbal meaning.
Open Access
The ethics of managing elephants
(University of the Free State, 2006) Lötter, Hennie
English: If human beings may legitimately intervene in conservation areas to let nature be and to protect the lives of all animals under their care, managing elephants must be legitimate as part of the conservation of natural world diversities. If this is true, are current management options ethically acceptable? This article investigates the ethics of four management options: the simulation of nature, translocation, contraception, and culling. It draws the conclusion that all four options are ethically flawed, since they all require some violation of the important injunctions to let nature be and to treat individual animals with respect.
Open Access
Teaching mentally disabled learners
(University of the Free State, 2006) Olivier, Tilla; Williams, Evelyn
English: This investigation focused on the “special” (different from mainstream education) nature of special education and teachers’ experiences of the challenges of teaching the mentally disabled learner. The aim was to investigate the nature of the experiences of teachers of mentally disabled learners and what guidelines can be provided for them. A qualitative study with a descriptive, explorative, subjective and contextual research design was chosen, using a phenomenological approach to data collection. This report of the findings may serve as a basis for guidelines to teachers.
Open Access
The incorporation of African traditional health practitioners into the South African health care system
(University of the Free State, 2006) Summerton, Joy
English: The need to progress from parallel or merely tolerant health care systems towards integrated systems in countries with both traditional and western health care systems has been acknowledged globally. Underlying this acknowledgement is the need to respond to the expressed health care needs of communities. This article offers a critical reflection on national and international policies as they relate to African traditional medicine and healing in the context of the South African health care system. Key policy documents and laws pertaining to traditional healing are addressed so as to elucidate the current legal and social status of African traditional medicine and health practitioners in South Africa. The Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2004 is a breakthrough in attempts to legitimise and professionalise traditional practitioners, but this article also identifies aspects of the Act that may evoke conflict.
Open Access
Die loopbaandilemmas van akademiese personeel verbonde aan ’n veranderende Suid-Afrikaanse hoëronderwysinstelling
(University of the Free State, 2006) Pienaar, Cobus; Bester, Coen
English: The purpose of this study was to identify the typical career dilemmas of academic staff in various career stages within a changing South African higher education institution. Data were obtained by means of the Delphi technique in order to enable respondents to reveal their experiences fully. The open-ended question was: Identify the most important career dilemmas you are currently experiencing within your work environment. Major career dilemmas identified related to performance management and promotion, role overload and role conflict, remuneration, management issues, lack of job security, discrimination, support for research and teaching, training and development, equipment and working conditions, general support, bureaucracy, change, and transformation.
Open Access
Geskiedsfilosofie as godsdiensfilosofie:’n lesing van Wolfhart Pannenberg se hermeneutiek van die geskiedenis
(University of the Free State, 2006) Wolff, Ernst
English: In this essay, a critical reading of the philosophy of history in the early work of Wolfhart Pannenberg is developed. An attempt will be made to bring the hermeneutic aspect of his philosophy to the fore, with the more dominant perspectives of his theology and philosophy of science being brought into play only where necessary. It will be argued that his historical hermeneutic notion of revelation forms the point of articulation between his philosophy of history and his philosophy of religion. Eventually, he develops a universal approach to interpreting the meaning of history. This philosophy of history has far-reaching consequences for the understanding of religious plurality, world history and hermeneutics, which will be expounded and critically evaluated.
Open Access
Drop-out in township secondary schools: educators’ perspectives
(University of the Free State, 2006) Masitsa, Gilbert
English: The drop-out rate at township secondary schools is increasing with no sign of abating. Elevated drop-out levels cause a high rate of functional illiteracy, limited occupational and economic prospects, and an increase in the already high rate of unemployment in the country. This article examines the determinants of learner drop-out on the basis of a literature study, along with a survey of the perceptions of educators about the reasons why students drop out of school. The data from educators were obtained by means of a questionnaire. The study has uncovered factors that culminate in learners’ decision to drop out of school, a problem which must be addressed.