Search

The need to improve students' academic performance is paramount to distance learning educators. This study investigated the effect of face-to-face tutoring on academic performance of distance learners in the University of Cape Coast. Descriptive survey design with a quantitative approach was employed, using a sample of 1,491 out 44,134 students. A questionnaire developed by Gow and Kember was adapted and used for data collection. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyse the data. The findings revealed that, all the eight elements used to measure students' perception on tutoring scored above the statistical mean threshold of 3.0. The findings further revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the performance of students with negative or positive perceptions towards face-to-face tutoring. Though the predictive effect of tutoring on academic performance was positive, the findings further established that only three elements of tutoring (tutorial sessions, assessment and collaboration) positively affect respondents' academic performance, the rest do not. Implications for educational practice with reference to course-tutors were discussed. The study recommends that tutors should provide effective tutorial sessions that promote opportunity for collaboration. The study also recommends to management to include course-tutors in students' assessment procedures.

More than 61,000 persons below the age of 18 are living on the streets in the Greater Accra region in Ghana. Street children is a hidden vulnerable population and a global public health issue in the world, but little is known about their mental health and health needs, and mechanisms that contribute to their poor health. With a lack of mental health research to guide intervention or psychoeducation programme and policy planning, this study aimed to address these research gaps by examining prevalence of mental health problems and a set of associated risk factors (i.e. Perceived quality of life, and social connection). In addition, we examined whether the associations between risk factors and mental health problems were moderated by demographic and contextual factors (i.e., gender, age, work status, reason for living on street, number of years in street). Two hundred and seven children between age 12 and 18 who lived on the street in three cities (Accra, Sekondi Takoradi, and Kumasi) were recruited. Data were gathered through adolescent survey/interviews. Multiple regression was utilized to examine risk factors and moderation effects. Results support high mental health needs among street children. Approximately 73% street children experienced moderate to severe mental health problems, and 90% experienced poor quality of life. Perceived quality/happiness of life was the strongest predictor for street children’s mental health. Social connection was associated with children’s mental health only in certain subgroups and contexts. This study adds new epidemiological evidence for street children, an extremely vulnerable population, in Ghana and global child and adolescent mental health.

The determinants of staff retention and productivity in higher education institutions are of enduring importance to both researchers and policymakers. The purpose of the study was to investigate the incremental effects of psychosocial factors and job satisfaction on academic staff commitment to the University of Cape Coast (UCC). A quantitative descriptive survey design was used and 268 academics were recruited via stratified random sampling technique. The response rate was 97.4% with an instrument reliability coefficient of 0.857. Data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The study found that academics generally perceived psychosocial factors positively, although to varying degrees. The order of importance of the predictors of the commitment of academics was work-family conflict > work environment > promotion. Job satisfaction on its own, contributed 50.6% to the commitment levels of academics. However, when job satisfaction was combined with psychosocial factors, the level of commitment of academics increased by almost thirty-five percent, suggesting that psychosocial factors and job satisfaction of academics had positive and incremental effect on the commitment of academic staff to the University. Management of the University should put in place measures that will help enhance staff job satisfaction and commitment through guidance and counselling interventions.

Conducting research with young migrants offers an important opportunity to understand better their own perspectives on their migration experiences. Yet, engaging migrant youth in research can be fraught with ethical and methodological challenges. Institutional ethics processes have a tendency to prioritise standard principles – many of which depart from the ethical sensitivities that emerge during research practice. In this chapter, the authors explore some of the procedural and situated ethical issues involved in conducting research with child and youth migrants in Ghana. In particular, the authors highlight how the diversity of young migrants prompts definitional issues about what constitutes childhood and youth, and in different socio-cultural spatial settings. Differing categorisations of child and youth generate issues of representation and guide adult-led decisions about children’s assumed competencies and vulnerabilities to participate in research. The precarious living circumstances of many migrant children, including the absence of parental figures or legal guardians, coupled with language and cultural barriers, present particular difficulties for securing informed consent. Challenges of this kind can deny young migrants the opportunity to participate in research about their own lives and serve to reproduce dominant power asymmetries and assumptions about these children’s vulnerabilities. The authors conclude by offering some suggestions for how researchers might develop critical ethical reflexivity to support the meaningful and ethical engagement of young migrants in research.

We investigated into combining motherhood with academic life concentrating on the struggles of student-mothers. The study adopted the mixed method design affirming the qualitative data with quantitative data. The purposive and convenient sampling procedures were used to select the sample from the University of Cape Coast Distance Education, Oyoko Study Center. The study found that majority of respondents go through academic struggles such as inability to attend face-to-face lectures regularly because of tiredness, sickness of child, taking baby to child welfare clinic and lack of lactating rooms for breastfeeding of babies. To cope with the struggles respondents relied on paid house helps, keeping children at day care centers, raising loans and relying on husbands and friends for support. The study recommended for the provision of lactating rooms, day care centers and counselling services for student-mothers on all centers of the College of Distance Education.

This study explored stigma experiences of mothers of children with ASD and forgiveness as their coping response. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 mothers of children with ASD. Results of this study found several noteworthy themes including, feelings of mother, family/societal reactions, forgiveness factors, and impact of forgiveness. Mothers reported significant stigmatization from families and society. Some expressed their feelings towards themselves, others and God, and finally recounted the use of forgiveness as a coping resource which contributed significantly to their well-being. Findings from this study contribute to the emerging literature on forgiveness as a coping resource for persons who are offended. Implications for clinical practice, intervention and policy are discussed.

The paper focused on the human capital development capacity of complex interactive institutional networks. Network principles were adopted to seek the underlying conditions that determine the human capital development of institutions as well as its capacity to sustain personnel development within competitively dense networks. The research focused on existing management structures hinged on the assumption that it influenced policy development, implementation, and worker engagements intending to increase institutional performance within the competitive space. Using some core attributes, a network was developed to capture the interaction between employees within an institution as well as their comparative impact on the general banking system of a developing economy. Using specific network measures, we deduced the institutional network was efficient in human capital development, and also efficiency in competitive networks is inversely proportional to density. Multi-national Banks have higher potentials of human capital development in a highly competitive industry compared to indigenous banks. Again connectivity dynamics affect human capital development in financial networks in developing countries.

Patient satisfaction is considered one of the preferred outcomes in health care as it is directly related to the re-use of health services as well as the success and sustainability of the health care facility. The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze the effect of the quality of services rendered by medical personnel on patient loyalty via the mediating influence of patient satisfaction. The study was designed using a cross-sectional questionnaire to collect data. 2372 outpatients were selected by simple random sampling. The data analysis method employed to test the hypotheses was the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results showed that the quality of service rendered by the medical personnel has a positive association with patient satisfaction. Again, the higher the level of patient satisfaction, the higher the level of patient loyalty to medical services. Finally, the results of the indirect test supported the hypothesis that the quality of service of medical personnel has a positive effect on patient loyalty via the mediating influence of patient satisfaction.

Ghana has ratified almost all international legislative instruments aimed at enhancing the welfare of the elderly. At the domestic level, the country has formulated and implemented policies that seek to improve the lives of elderly. Using mainly secondary data and also analysis of research conducted at Ga Mashie in the Greater Accra Region, the paper provides a narrative review of the existing legal framework and the role of state institutions in advancing the interest and welfare of the aged. Two flagship programs, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), both of which have components intended for the vulnerable including the aged, were evaluated. The most striking similarity in both the LEAP and NHIS interventions (and also the newly introduced EBAN project) is the exclusion of the elderly between the ages of 60 and 64 from qualified beneficiaries. While people within that age bracket are constitutionally classified as elderly, interventions meant for the elderly do not cover them. Also, insufficient funds, poor targeting, and inaccurate implementation and evaluation of data make otherwise well-designed programs intended for the elderly lose their focus and merit. We make three recommendations. First, there is a need for a downward review of the age criteria for beneficiaries of social intervention programs meant for the aged. Second, a mechanism should be developed, going forward, to enable the elderly that have worked in the informal sector throughout their lives, to contribute to and also benefit from the SSNIT pension scheme. Finally, an adequate and reliable database on the elderly should be developed to help improve targeting, implementation, and monitoring of existing social protection programs aimed at the aged.

In this article, we investigate the daily work entailed in maintaining informal transnational childcare relationships between migrant parents and the children's kin or non-kin caregivers in the country of origin. By applying the concept of 'kin work', we seek to understand how work is performed within transnational care relationships. Using a simultaneous matched sample methodology that gives equal weight to data on both sides of the transnational relationship, a team of researchers collected ethnographic data from Ghanaian migrant parents in the Netherlands and from their children's caregivers in Ghana. This approach allowed us to investigate the day-to-day care work from two perspectives - namely the visible and the invisible actions of the people involved in creating the kinship relationships of care work. Discrepancies in perceptions were uncovered because we compared data obtained on both sides of the relationship. These findings contribute to our understanding of the ways in which long-distance practices facilitate the maintenance of kin relationships and how the inability to perform these can lead to tensions.

This study looked at the study habits of University of Cape Coast Distance Education learners in the Cape Coast Study Centre in the Central Region of Ghana. Descriptive survey design was used to conduct the study. Stratified and simple random sampling procedures were used to select 338 Business and Education distance learners. A self-designed questionnaire, which consisted of 40 items, was used to collect data from the respondents. Data collected was analysed by the use of descriptive (frequencies and percentages). The results of the study revealed that Distance Education students exhibit study habits such as reading while lying in bed, not being able to study for a minimum of three hours in a day, do not look for additional materials from the internet as well as reading over their notes before their next face-to-face meetings. It was found in the study that distance education students need guidance and counselling on time management, prioritizing their daily activities, as well as how to develop effective reading skills. It is therefore recommended that distance education students be provided with guidance and counselling on effective study habits as a support service. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n6p273

Increases in migration from developing countries to industrialized nations results in family members living in different countries, having to arrange care for young and elderly at a distance. A common form that these transnational families take is when a parent migrates, leaving his or her children in the care of someone in the home country. This results in transnational child raising arrangements (tcras) composed of migrant parents and their children and caregivers in the countries of origin. Transnational migration studies have begun to study this phenomenon, yet they tend to give prevalence to relationships between migrant parents, especially mothers, and children. Caregivers are not a focus. This is a consequence of researchers being guided by western conceptualizations of the family where prevalence is given to the nuclear family living in geographical proximity. This paper focuses on a recent study in which all members in a transnational child raising arrangement are the focus: the migrant overseas, the caregiver or multiple caregivers at home and the child him or herself. The study uses a mixed methods approach, which incorporates surveys of children and parents, the mapping of child raising networks with the different actors of a tcra (parents, caregivers and children), and an in-depth, multi-sited ethnographic study of a select number of child raising networks, giving equal attention to all members of a tcra. This paper focuses on the second method and highlights three contributions that such a method makes to our understanding of tcras. First, the mapping of child raising networks helps to identify the perceptions of care held by different members of a tcra. Secondly, discrepancies and similarities between different actors’ perspectives help to understand how tcras function. Finally, mapping child raising networks with all actors involved, gives children a voice which is an element often missing in research about children.