Faculty of Education
School of Educational Studies
Department of Educational Psychology
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The aim of this research project was to assist teachers in their pastoral role by providing them with psychosocial care and facilitating support skills training. The project ran over a three-year period in schools in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. Psychosocial support addresses the ongoing psychological and social problems of HIV-infected individuals, their children and the community at large. Psychosocial skills interventions remained community-based to provide teachers with capacity to support children in the school (as a familiar, social, cultural and ethnic environment that reduces distress). Preliminary findings indicate that teachers use the asset-based approach in psychosocial support in the realm of HIV and AIDS as a cost-effective way to identify and mobilise existing strengths and resources, to encourage synergy among similar projects by developing strategies to expand on existing care and support initiatives, and to transfer their skills to other schools through a ‘buddy school’ intervention to establish care and support initiatives
Contact person: Prof L Ebersöhn.
This action research project annually targets 120 Grade 9 learners and one group of MEd (Educational Psychology) students. The motivation for the partnership is based on sharing capacity. The staff and students of the University of Pretoria strive to provide much needed educational psychology support to the school and the children. The school provides a forum in which students can become aware of their social responsibility and the broad scope of practice synonymous with educational psychology on the one hand, while putting into practice their theoretical knowledge in a meaningful arena. Preliminary findings indicate that students applied asset-based career facilitation during career guidance by identifying strengths and barriers in children, utilising identified strengths to address identified barriers by mobilising these identified strengths, identifying established networks for learning support and career planning, and facilitating the acquisition of asset-based competencies (addressing problem-solving difficulties by focusing on internal resources, external capacities and extending their social networks). Findings also indicate that curricular community engagement means that recipient partners benefit (children benefited from current thinking and research on child development, coping styles, academic achievement and career planning). Students in the project benefited because they experienced (and are subsequently better prepared for) the life-world characteristic of their future world-of-work. They had the opportunity to integrate their theoretical knowledge in a meaningful practical environment and reported increased confidence in their ability to contribute meaningfully as educational psychologists in the diverse South African population
Contact person: Prof L Ebersöhn.
Against a burgeoning worldwide discourse on the psychological and emotional impact of HIV and AIDS on children’s development, the researcher conducted an empirical study to explore how a group of orphaned and vulnerable children who were living in a children’s home negotiated pathways to wellbeing while affected by HIV and AIDS. The project aimed to explore, understand and describe the phenomenon of wellbeing in the specific context of the child participants’ perspectives of their life worlds. The study was informed by a qualitative and intrinsic case study design in an interpretivist paradigm. The researcher utilised task-based participatory activities to guide the informal and conversational interviews with the child participants as the main data-generation strategy. By means of the constructivist-grounded theory analysis of the children’s expressions, the researcher gained insights that informed his understanding of the children’s perceptions and experiences of wellbeing, risks, challenges and stressors in their lives. Findings indicated that the children in the study experienced risks, challenges and stressors arising from personal illness, stigma, discrimination, orphanhood, residential care, death and bereavement. The study also revealed that those children who portrayed characteristics of wellbeing and resilient adaptation utilised psychosocial coping mechanisms. In addition, they were supported by their positive intrapersonal characteristics and affirmative relationships that offered emotional and psychosocial support in their environments. The findings of the study suggested that feelings of wellbeing, hope and optimism might have co-existed with feelings of despair and hopelessness in the daily lives of the children. The researcher recommended that the wellbeing experiences of the children in this study may exist on a continuum and may depend on specific events, occasions or incidents on a day-to-day basis
Contact person: Dr K Mohangi.
This research project focused on nine women at the Sizanani shelter for abused women. The participants were victims of domestic violence. Multiple case studies were conducted on victims of domestic violence and participants shared their experiences during interviews. The research found that the participants were abused by people who were close and known to them. The main causes of violence were the fact that the participants refused to have sex without using a condom, they refused to allow the abusers to have extra-marital affairs, they refused to give the perpetrators money to buy drugs, the perpetrators demanded sex anytime they wanted it because they had paid ‘lobola’, and the participant refused to be isolated from their families and relatives. All the participants experienced verbal, emotional/psychological, physical, sexual, as well as financial abuse. According to the participants, before they came to the shelters, they thought they were worthless. They had developed low self-esteem and most of them had suicidal thoughts. Two of the participants found out that they were HIV-positive. After intensive counselling sessions, they accepted their status and are currently undergoing antiretroviral therapy. According to the participants, they would like to be counsellors and advise other women to identify the signs of abuse, to report abuse immediately before it paralyses them, to break the silence and talk about it, to seek help, to quit the abusive environment immediately, to refuse to be isolated from their support system, and to accept and love themselves the way they are
Contact person: Dr ME Moletsane.
This ongoing project explores the sustainability of an activist intervention research project that commenced in 2003 in an informal settlement community in the Eastern Cape. During the initial project, ten teachers became involved in community-based coping with HIV and AIDS by facilitating the processes of initiating a vegetable garden at school, providing information on HIV and AIDS to the community and supporting community members psychosocially. Preliminary findings on the sustainability of these initiatives and the outcome of the teachers taking agency and fulfilling a leading role in the manner in which the community is coping with HIV and AIDS indicate that the outcomes of the initial project have been sustained and built upon in various manners. The three initial projects are still running in the community. In addition, the participating teachers, in collaboration with the school principal, have involved 18 volunteer community members (of which one receives a stipend) to assist in psychosocially supporting community members coping with HIV and AIDS. For this purpose, the school obtained funding to establish counselling facilities at the school and introduced a system whereby the volunteer workers meet once a week prior to providing their service in the community. Furthermore, participating teachers relate the fact that the school’s enrolment numbers have been steadily increasing since the start of the initial project to the outcomes of the project, resulting in more parents feeling comfortable about bringing their children to the school and disclosing their HIV status. Based on the enrolment numbers, all staff members could be retained for the past three years. Finally, the participating teachers have continuously been focusing on the establishment of firm networks in society, resulting in them being able to assist community members with food supplies on a regular basis and providing guidance on aspects such as application procedures for governmental grants
Contact person: Dr R Ferreira.
This research project explored the potential effects of sudden loss of a sibling on the personality structures of bereaved individuals. For this purpose, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) profiles of five nuclear family members were compared prior to and following the sudden loss of one of the siblings of the family. In addition, the results of 16 Personality Factors (16PF) profiles of the participants’ post-sudden loss were incorporated. The findings of the study indicated that certain changes in personality structures occurred in terms of the personality structures of the participants. Pertaining to the four polarities of the MBTI®, the participants displayed a greater preference for the introversion attitude, as well as both the sensing and feeling functions, after experiencing sudden loss. All participants displayed an inclination towards personal growth by moving closer to the judging/perceiving axis post-sudden loss. In addition, two general tendencies could be depicted among the participants: a greater dependence on the inferior functions and the tendency to rely on type exaggeration when dealing with sudden loss
Contact person: Dr R Ferreira.
In November 2008, the University of Pretoria’s Unit for Education Research in AIDS and the Department of Educational Psychology hosted a seminar featuring stories of their collaboration: an intervention study chronicling educators’ use of an asset-based approach in psychosocial support. The purpose was to share the partners’ mutual experiences of pastoral support (as educators), to build their capacity to provide psychosocial support (as educators), and to transfer this knowledge to peers in their respective schools. The project has been ongoing since 2003 between researchers and postgraduate students in the Department of Educational Psychology and 50 teachers from five schools with the teachers as primary partners (10 teachers per school): three primary schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropole in the Eastern Cape, one primary school in Gauteng and one rural secondary school in Mpumalanga. Methodologically, researchers framed the intervention from a participatory reflection and action approach and theoretically developed the intervention from an asset-based approach. In this regard, teachers partnered with lay people in communities (unemployed parents), formal school systems, faith-based organisations, health care, governmental agencies and corporate institutions to identify assets available to the schools. The modus operandi of the teachers afterwards was to continuously identify available and relevant assets, initiate partnerships with people related to the identified assets in order to provide psychosocial support, establish school procedures to identify vulnerability, refer vulnerable children and families for support to pertinent partners, and maintain partnerships. Teachers provided support over a range of vulnerabilities, not solely the children’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Teachers’ psychosocial support initiatives included children experiencing extreme poverty as manifested through hunger, ill-health and neglect, children outside of school boundaries, and families of children identified as vulnerable. The asset-based approach that is being followed in the project has enabled teachers to establish and sustain psychosocial networks in the different school communities. These networks release teachers to perform their primary role as facilitators of learning. The participating schools’ status as caring, sensitive and accepting institutions has been confirmed through increased disclosure by parents and children, as well as increased learner enrolments
Contact person: Prof L Ebersöhn.
In November 2008, the University of Pretoria’s Unit for Education Research in AIDS and the Department of Educational Psychology hosted a seminar featuring stories of their collaboration: an intervention study chronicling educators’ use of an asset-based approach in psychosocial support. The purpose was to share the partners’ mutual experiences of pastoral support (as educators), to build their capacity to provide psychosocial support (as educators), and to transfer this knowledge to peers in their respective schools. The project has been ongoing since 2003 between researchers and postgraduate students in the Department of Educational Psychology and 50 teachers from five schools with the teachers as primary partners (10 teachers per school): three primary schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropole in the Eastern Cape, one primary school in Gauteng and one rural secondary school in Mpumalanga. Methodologically, researchers framed the intervention from a participatory reflection and action approach and theoretically developed the intervention from an asset-based approach. In this regard, teachers partnered with lay people in communities (unemployed parents), formal school systems, faith-based organisations, health care, governmental agencies and corporate institutions to identify assets available to the schools. The modus operandi of the teachers afterwards was to continuously identify available and relevant assets, initiate partnerships with people related to the identified assets in order to provide psychosocial support, establish school procedures to identify vulnerability, refer vulnerable children and families for support to pertinent partners, and maintain partnerships. Teachers provided support over a range of vulnerabilities, not solely the children’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Teachers’ psychosocial support initiatives included children experiencing extreme poverty as manifested through hunger, ill-health and neglect, children outside of school boundaries, and families of children identified as vulnerable. The asset-based approach that is being followed in the project has enabled teachers to establish and sustain psychosocial networks in the different school communities. These networks release teachers to perform their primary role as facilitators of learning. The participating schools’ status as caring, sensitive and accepting institutions has been confirmed through increased disclosure by parents and children, as well as increased learner enrolments
Contact person: Dr R Ferreira.
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