ENHANCING THE APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE!

But Does Our Intervention Programme Work? (Introduction to Programme Evaluation)

The Short Course was presented by Kruger JD (mnr) (Johan) from the 18th to the 20th of July 2001 at Unisa main campus. It aimed at professionals involved in evaluating or managing psycho-social interventions: psychologists, social workers, researchers, health workers, educationists, community workers. It was presented in a form of workshop.

• The purpose of the 3-days workshop was to introduce participants to the necessary conceptual understanding to conduct programme evaluations in a variety of settings.



• Emphasis was put on the need for a clear prior conceptualisation of the intervention theory and model, and then linking these to documenting, evaluation, reporting and monitoring.



• Various approaches to evaluation, such as the measurement-quantitative, interpretive-qualitative and empowerment/action-research approaches, were discussed within the context of the "Utilization-focused evaluation" approach designed by Michael Quinn Patton.



• Following Patton considerable attention was given to the ability to "diagnose" the pragmatic and socio-political context within which each evaluation is conducted, and how this relates to the broader organisational and social context.



• The ethical implications of the evaluation were also explored.



• At the end of the workshop Participants had to submit a comprehensive evaluation strategy and were awarded certificates

Diversity Training Programme: (Train-the-Trainer)

This Short Course was facilitated by Hanli van der Westhuizen and Kevin Joubert, from the 18th to the 20th of July 2001 at Unisa main campus. It was aimed at anyone with a background in training, human resources, psychology and social sciences, with an interest in presenting Diversity workshops.

The three main objectives of the 3-day Diversity Training programme (experiential workshop) were:

• To facilitate institutional change by creating diversity awareness



• To increase the interpersonal effectiveness of people from diverse cultures through the development of a "diversity mind set" and a positive attitude regarding the "other".



• To empower participants to intervene effectively in stereotypical actions and attitudes. The workshop was designed with South African realities in mind and was grounded in the theoretical principles of stereotype reduction.

As attenpts to fulfill the aims of this endeavour, a multimedia approach was employed, a meta-exploration of the rationale for the methodologies used, and participants were provided with a comprehensive training manual containing the various exercises included in the workshop. At the end of the workshop participants were awarded certificates.

Spss V11.5 Introductory Course

The Sort Course was presented by Mr Hennie Gerber, Ms Helene Muller and Ms Diane Blades, who are all part of Research Support Group of Unisa Department of Computer Services.

An introductory part of the course focussed on Research process and issues. Topics dealt with include:

• Planning and design
• Data collection, capturing and editing
• Data analysis
• Inference and report back  

Important broad topics dealt with in depth include:

• Data input into SPSS
• Value labels and variable lables
• Recording and transformation of variables
• Tables in SPSS