Roelf Beukes

An Evaluation of the Training of Psychologists at the University of the Free State

Research on the training of psychologists in South Africa has remained in abeyance for a long time. In view of the diversity of demands made on them by the South African practice, psychologists are concerned that training for the profession may no longer be adequate or relevant. Questionnaires were sent to 61 psychologists who had completed their professional training at the University of the Free State during the period 1990 to 1996 in order to determine how successfully such training had prepared them for practice. Other aspects such as training methods and training in research are also discussed. Although several aspects of the professional training of psychologists at the University of the Free State were rated as very good, there were some aspects of training participants felt that should receive more attention. The article concludes with recommendations on how to improve the professional training of psychologists.

Factor Analysis of the Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire Using a Sample of South African Adolescents

AbstractIn 2003 Gomez and Fisher developed the Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire (SWBQ) based on a theoretical model of spiritual well-being proposed by Fisher. According to Fisher, spiritual well-being comprises the personal, communal, environmental and transcendental domains, which are interrelated and cohere to create a global spiritual well-being dimension. Their study showed that the SWBQ was reliable and valid. A further study in 2005 using item response theory analysis of the SWBQ suggested general support for the psychometric properties of the SWBQ. However, there were indications that certain items in the questionnaire needed to be improved. The present study was undertaken to do a factor analysis of the SWBQ using a sample of South African adolescents to gauge its suitability. Gomez and Fisher’s recommendation was considered and certain items were added to the SWBQ for factor analysis with the aim of replacing some of the original items. The factor structure that was found in this study corresponds with that in Gomez and Fisher’s study. Acceptable coefficients of internal consistency for the different subscales (factors) and for the global score of the SWBQ were found. Moreover, in line with Gomez and Fisher’s recommendation, this revised SWBQ scale seems to have been improved in terms of its psychometric properties and appears to be a reliable instrument in measuring the spiritual well-being of adolescents.

The Ways in Which Adolescents Cope and their Relationship to Age, Gender and Specific Religious Variables

This study investigated the roles of age, gender, the importance of religion/spirituality, attending church activities and frequency of prayer on the types of adolescents’ coping strategies. Participants were drawn from ten public high schools. Data on coping strategies, personal variables and religiosity and spirituality were collected using the Adolescent Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences (A-COPE) coping inventory. Scheffé posthoc tests were used to evaluate associations between the coping strategies used by adolescents and the identified personal and faith-oriented variables. Gender and age explained some differences in types of coping strategies preferred. Specifically, females used the developing social support coping strategy more than males; older adolescents used the avoiding problems coping strategy more than younger adolescents. Adolescents for whom religion/spirituality is of lesser importance, obtained a significantly higher mean score for the avoiding problems subscale. Both personal variables (age and gender) as well as one of the faith-oriented variables (importance of religion) were identified as important role players in using developing social support and avoiding problems as coping strategies by adolescents.

The Development and Evaluation of a Life Skills Programme for Young Adult Offenders

The purpose of this research project was to develop, implement, and evaluate a Life Skills programme for young adult male long-term offenders with the aim of improving their life skills that, in turn, could enable them to adjust more effectively in the correctional environment. Experimental research was used to investigate the effectiveness of the programme. In this study, 96 literate young adult male offenders between the ages of 21 and 25 years, with long sentences, were selected randomly. The participants were assigned randomly into an experimental and a control group. The Solomon four-group design was utilized to control for the effect of pretest sensitization. The measurements of the effectiveness of the programme were conducted before the programme commenced, directly (short term) after, 3 months (medium term) after, and 6 months (long term) after. The findings indicated that the programme had limited success in equipping the offenders with the necessary skills crucial to their survival in a correctional centre. The programme did, however, have significant effects, especially on problem solving and anger management in the short and medium term. These improvements were not long lived.