Browsing by Subject "quantitative"

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    Open Access
    Code-Switching among Bilingual Speakers of Cape Muslim Afrikaans and South African English in the Bo-Kaap, Cape Town
    (2020) Cozien, Christine; Mesthrie, Rajend
    The Bo-Kaap is traditionally a Cape Muslim Afrikaans-speaking community, and sociohistorically it is particularly relevant to the development of Afrikaans at the Cape (Davids 2011, Mahida 1993). The Cape Muslim Afrikaans spoken in the Bo-Kaap is a sub-variety of Standard Afrikaans (Kotzé 1989, Davids 2011) and is distinguishable by its retained lexis (Mesthrie and Bhatt 2008) from languages historically spoken by slaves at the Cape, such as Malay, Arabic, Gujarati, and Konkani. Over time a number of socio-cultural, geographic, and historical factors have introduced the use of South African English alongside Cape Muslim Afrikaans in this speech community. The goal of this study was to provide insight into the nature of bilingual talk in the Bo-Kaap community, and to make a useful contribution to the growing body of codeswitching1 (hereafter CS) research generally. Based on natural language data collected during group interviews with members of the community, the study explored the language contact situation in the Bo-Kaap today, taking the viewpoint that what is occurring presently may be considered CS Three aspects of the CS documented were analysed and quantified. Specifically, the study investigated language interaction phenomena (Myers-Scotton 1995, Deuchar et al 2007) triggers (Clyne 1987) and directionality (Muysken 1997, Deuchar et al 2017, Çetinoglu 2017). A quantitative approach was taken to the data analysis. The interview audio files were downloaded and transcribed in ELAN. (Max Planck Institute). The annotations2 produced in ELAN were organised in a spreadsheet for analysis, resulting in a data set comprised of 356 annotations. The full data set was divided into subsets and tagged for language interaction phenomena, triggers, and directionality. These data sets were then sorted and quantified to identify trends in these three areas of interest. The study found Intra-sentential switches to be the most common type of language interaction phenomenon in the CS of this speech community, being present in 79% of the sampled annotations. Results from other CS studies echo this finding in other speech communities (Al Heeti et al 2016, Koban 2012, Falk 2013). The most common trigger for Intra-word switching in this corpus was in the head of the past tense Verb Phrase. Out of 27 occurrences of Intra-word switching, 16 were of this nature. In all of those an English verb head was housed within an Afrikaans past tense structure. No exceptions were observed in the data set, a strong indicator of the relationship status of the two languages involved. Cape Muslim Afrikaans almost certainly playing the role of the Matrix language, with South African English embedded. In terms of directionality, switching from Cape Muslim Afrikaans into South African English was by far the most common, at 85%. This further supports what the findings on triggers suggest about the hierarchy between these two languages.
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    Coping and psychological well-being: Investigating the relations between specific coping strategies, anxiety, and depression among adolescents from Etwatwa, Daveyton
    (2025) Hlatshwayo, Busisiwe Sophie; Wild, Lauren
    Coping strategies are significant in the prevention and development of mental problems in children and adolescents. Specific coping strategies within broad coping categories may be associated with symptoms of psychopathology differently. Yet, we lack comprehensive data on these associations in South Africa. The present cross-sectional study investigates specific coping strategies and their association with symptoms of anxiety and depression among 415 Etwatwa adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 years. A quantitative, correlational research design was adopted, and data was collected in the form of self-report questionnaires. Female adolescents reported significantly more symptoms of anxiety and depression than male adolescents (p < .001). The only statistically significant gender difference in coping was that female adolescents used more behavioural disengagement (p = .001) than male adolescents. Using substances, behavioural disengagement and self-blame predicted more symptoms of both anxiety and depression among adolescents. Denial was associated with more symptoms of anxiety while venting was associated with more symptoms of depression. When the data set was split by gender, behavioural disengagement predicted anxiety in both female and male adolescents. Self-blame predicted both anxiety and depression in female adolescents and only anxiety in male adolescents. Venting predicted depression in female adolescents but not in male adolescents. While further research is recommended to determine the direction of effects, the findings of this study suggest that targeting the use of these strategies may help to prevent emotional distress among adolescents.
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    Critical success factors influencing agile software development projects: a theoretical and empirical investigation
    (2025) Hanslo, Ridewaan; Tanner, Maureen
    Context: Information systems are the infrastructure and service backbone for many of today's organisations. The Agile mindset to software development and project delivery has substantially improved project outcomes compared to traditional software development methodologies. However, while Agile projects are more successful than traditional approaches, the success rate is considered low, and the percentage of Agile projects deemed challenged and failed is still too high. This low project success rate is attributed to projects not being rigorously evaluated against critical success factors of Agile projects and contemporary project success criteria. Furthermore, criticisms of the status quo include the lack of rigorous research into the factors that improve Agile project success. Therefore, this study examines the critical factors influencing Agile software development project success against project success criteria through a theoretical and empirical investigation. Objective: To identify the critical success factors that contribute to Agile software development project success as perceived by Agile practitioners and explain how they contribute to project success. Method: This study used a positivist approach to investigate the critical success factors of agile software development projects. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify and synthesise previous research, providing input to the quantitative survey questionnaire to identify Agile practitioners' perceived critical factors contributing to project success criteria. Partial least squares structural equation modelling with SmartPLS was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses to identify significant relationships between the constructs and project success criteria. Results: This research found that a few critical factors significantly contribute to Agile project success. The Agile team's skilled individuals and appropriate group dynamics significantly impact stakeholder satisfaction. How well project activities, processes, and phases are managed has a positive relationship with stakeholder satisfaction and the project schedule. In addition, having an organised system and control mechanisms contributes to adhering to project schedules and cost estimates. Contribution: The study developed a novel model that can be used to evaluate and measure project success. Furthermore, the critical success factor, socio-technical systems, and the complex adaptive systems theories were used to identify, describe, and explain how the few significant critical success factors contribute to Agile software development project success, providing novel insights. Conclusion: This research contributes to a parsimonious model of critical success factors for Agile software development projects. Furthermore, this study provides practical guidance for organisations seeking to improve project success. By focusing on team effectiveness, project governance, and project management, organisations can enhance stakeholder satisfaction and achieve better adherence to project cost and schedule constraints. This study's findings offer a nuanced understanding of the interplay between these critical success factors and project success criteria, providing insight from multiple theoretical lenses. Future research could explore the dynamic relationships between these factors and investigate their applicability across diverse project contexts
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    Outcome evaluation of the family affairs parenting programme
    (2025) Siwundla, Lundi; Goodman, Suki
    This study is an outcome evaluation of the Family Affairs programme, a parenting programme offered by Life Choices, a non-profit organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa. Life Choices focuses on parenting skills development through workshops, psychosocial counselling, and job-search counselling services for parents and caregivers. The main aim of the Family Affairs parenting programme is to improve the capacity of parents and caregivers to provide children with competent, quality parenting despite adverse circumstances. Family Affairs offers a four-part multi-component intervention that includes a compulsory one job-search counselling, and establishing or participating in support groups. The evaluation of the outcomes of the Family Affairs parenting programme was aimed at responding to three research questions. The first was whether the programme facilitates parental development, which comprises significant improvements in parents' belief systems, family organisational patterns, communication, and parents' problem-solving skills. The second was whether the programme improves parents' relationships with their children. The third was whether parents' parenting styles improve as a result of participating in the programme. The three constructs of interest in the study were thus parental development, parent–child relationship, and parenting style. A quantitative approach and outcome evaluation design were followed in analysing secondary pre-test–post-test data gathered simultaneously by the Family Affairs programme. For the present study, a total of 306 programme participants in the period 2018 to 2020 were sampled, from which the self-reported data were gathered. Wilcoxon's signed rank test and the Kruskal- Wallis tests were used for the before-and-after comparison and the comparison across cohorts, respectively. A comparison of the scores for self-reported parental self-development, specifically family organisational patterns and problem-solving skills, before and after attending the programme showed significant improvements. There were also self-reported improvements in how parent communicated with their children and their parenting styles. The results of the evaluation show that the Family Affairs programme does produce significantly positive short-term self- perceived improvements in parental self-development, parent–child relationships, and parenting style.
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    ROER4D First Workshop Evaluation
    (2014-09-08) Walji, Sukaina
    This report is an evaluation of the success of the ROER4D project's first workshop, held between 9-13 December 2013 in Cape Town. The workshop focused on research skills capacity development, and an evaluation via questionnaire was conducted after the conclusion of workshop activity to determine the success of the workshop. This report contains a summary of the evaluation activity and suggestions on how to improve capacity development in the future.