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In South Africa, the field of scale development and utilization in social work is referred to as “ecometrics,” that is, the measurement of ecological constructs. There is, however, a lack of ecometric tools for social workers, particularly regarding strengths or resilience. Given the high vulnerability of South African youth, this article d...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... light of this, the YERS constructs were selected to fall into three concentric circles, corresponding to the P, I and E of the person-in-environment (PIE) framework, as illustrated in Figure 1. All of the resilience factors included in YERS have theoretically justified and/or empirically demonstrated ability to differentiate between individuals with more positive and less positive adaptational outcomes in the face of adversity, and in particular in relation to the challenges of youth transitions and care-leaving. ...
Context 2
... was selected as the most appropriate theoretical framework, with a strong emphasis on an ecological perspective. This framework was outlined in the previous section on resilience theory and illustrated in Figure 1. ...
Context 3
... relation to Figure 1, significant resilience factors appear in all three circles, including both subsections of the environmental factors. This suggests that a comprehensive, ecological perspective on resilience is an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding, measuring and facilitating youth resilience. ...
Context 4
... light of this, the YERS constructs were selected to fall into three concentric circles, corresponding to the P, I and E of the person-in-environment (PIE) framework, as illustrated in Figure 1. All of the resilience factors included in YERS have theoretically justified and/or empirically demonstrated ability to differentiate between individuals with more positive and less positive adaptational outcomes in the face of adversity, and in particular in relation to the challenges of youth transitions and care-leaving. A presentation of this evidence is, however, beyond the scope of this ...
Context 5
... Breda (2010) argues that ecometric tools should be located within a clearly articulated theoretical framework, leading to the identification of relevant constructs or operational assessment areas. Resilience was selected as the most appropriate theoretical framework, with a strong emphasis on an ecological perspective. This framework was outlined in the previous section on resilience theory and illustrated in Figure ...
Context 6
... relation to Figure 1, significant resilience factors appear in all three circles, including both subsections of the environmental factors. This suggests that a comprehensive, ecological perspective on resilience is an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding, measuring and facilitating youth resilience. These are useful findings, as they point first to the importance of relationships, which confirms almost all resilience research - that a significant relationship is an important protector against adversity. The finding that a role model (someone other than parent, teacher or employer) is the most salient relationship is particularly interesting. This relationship is one that can be cultivated in the lives of young people and lends support to the growing interest in mentoring for young people leaving care (e.g. Mendes, 2009;Pinkerton, 2011). Similarly, team work speaks to interpersonal relations and the capacity to cooperate, which is an important life skill. Self-esteem, optimism and spirituality are all personal resilience factors that are best nurtured in the relationship between a care-giver and a ...
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Citations
... It was felt that using these items without careful adjustments to ensure their contextual and cultural relevance could compromise the reliability and validity of the new digital resilience scale (Oladipo & Idemudia, 2015). The researchers therefore retained a small number of items that were considered to have content validity and contextual relevance to this study (Van Breda, 2017). ...
... Therefore, new items for these dimensions were designed according to how they were conceptualised in this study. All measurement items for the digital resilience dimensions were designed to be concise and straightforward to ensure that respondents understood the statements and provided relevant answers for the study (Van Breda, 2017). Additionally, the measurement items for each dimension were scored on a 5point Likert scale to minimise response bias and give respondents the opportunity to express neutrality in their responses, thereby promoting the validity of the survey results (Van Breda, 2017). ...
The study aims to develop and validate a psychometric scale to measure digital resilience, which is the ability to maintain a positive outlook and cope with negative emotions experienced due to digital adversities like cyberbullying, harassment, digital burnout, and cyberfraud. These digital risks can significantly impact individuals' psychological and social functioning and their continued reliance on digital technologies. However, as far as could be established, no measurement scale has so far been specifically developed to investigate individual digital resilience to digital adversities. By developing and empirically validating a measurement scale to measure users' digital resilience, this study provides a unique operationalisation of digital resilience with measurement items that can reliably capture the factors that promotes users' digital resilience to digital adversities. Furthermore, the measurement scale may be adapted by future studies to examine individual digital resilience to various technological stressors in both developed and developing economies.
... Figure 12.1 summarizes these findings by showing the main protective resilience processes on the left that contribute to main transitional or resilient outcomes on the right over the first 7 years out of care. The protective processes were measured with the Youth Ecological-Resilience Scale, which was designed and validated for this study (Van Breda, 2017). They were structured according to the person-in-environment framework, which is one of the foundational frameworks in social work theory (Van Breda, 2022b). ...
This chapter focuses on youth transitions, in particular young people aging out of care into young adulthood. It emphasizes resilience as a set of interactions between people and other people and systems, located within the person-in-environment framework common to social work. Several studies by academics and students on care-leaving in South Africa are used to illustrate how resilience can helpfully be thought of as interactional, rather than only personal or only environmental. Drawing on this body of research, this chapter presents a model of interactional resilience for fostering a resilience-enabling interactive social environment for care-leavers that can be applied at micro, meso and macro levels and that is of relevance to all youth in transition from childhood to adulthood.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
As entrepreneurship educators, we typically bring together students in entrepreneurial teams and let them develop and work on their own ideas. Most of the time, their ideas are innovative, interesting, and inspiring. They also increasingly take sustainability into account, still this needs to be fostered systematically. So how could we support these students to tackle global challenges and develop sustainable ideas? To develop more sustainable ideas, entrepreneurship education concepts need to bridge the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. Developing innovation communities within a framework of an open innovation process presents a suitable approach with a possible long-term impact in this regard. The “Sandbox Innovation Process” combines a structured open innovation process while fostering an innovation community enabled to solve regional challenges. Using this workshop concept, participants can experience the “Sandbox Approach” at firsthand and develop comprehensive concepts for their common challenges. This workshop is a starting point to reflect on how researchers and educators in entrepreneurship can become key drivers for developing sustainable solutions. This is supported by a framework that takes contextual constraints into account and reflects on the Sustainable Development Goals.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Entrepreneurial Education needs to be transformed. Our seminar called Transformational Sustainability Entrepreneurship aims at meeting this need by guiding students to become change agents for tackling the grand societal challenges of our time. In this chapter, we explain the five fundamental aspects in which this seminar is designed for students’ transformational learning experience. The seminar itself is divided into three phases: Understanding, Creative Thinking, and Pitching with an overarching reflection process. We introduce the concept, which we have been using for four years at two different universities, for others to apply and use in their own teaching activities.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Computer literacy courses provide opportunities for students to develop skills that are essential for lifelong learning. Many educational institutions in developing countries offer compulsory Information and Communication Technology (ICT) courses to help their first-year students develop these skills. Due to factors such as lockdowns imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some first-year students may not be able to attend these courses in person. This chapter investigates the suitability of an online environment for teaching a Computer Literacy course to first year students with varied demographics. It takes as a case study the delivery of the Computer Literacy course on the University of Namibia (UNAM) Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) over one semester. The course caters to a diverse student population, some of whom come from marginalized backgrounds and have never used a computer before. Using a questionnaire based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the study used a survey to determine the satisfaction of students and lecturers involved with the course. We also conducted semi-structured interviews to get an in-depth understanding of the actual use and level of satisfaction with Moodle. Results indicate that most students do not have access to ICT devices or the software required for the course. Although all students completed the course without any dropouts, the study also found that the students consistently accessed only two features supported by Moodle. The study recommends that all first-time users take an informal Introduction to Online Learning course before starting the Computer Literacy course. It also recommends that the current course be adapted to fit the context of use and to enhance online teaching of Computer Literacy to first-time computer users at UNAM.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
With entrepreneurship education receiving growing attention in research and practice the question arises what exactly entrepreneurship education’s impact is and should be. There is a lack of discussion on what (different kinds of) entrepreneurship education should aim to achieve, and how entrepreneurship education’s success can be captured. In this chapter, we raise the question: What is relevant for generating which kind of entrepreneurial activity? We call for a stronger competence orientation, underline the importance of an entrepreneurship education ecosystem, and carve out the need for future research in these fields.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Transdisciplinary research projects offer practical learning environments and great opportunities for students and project partners to collaborate. This chapter presents two examples of practical seminars that provide open spaces for collaboration within the ENaQ Project in the Helleheide Urban Living Lab in Oldenburg, Germany. In these seminars, students worked directly with the project partners finding answers to actual research questions from within the project. Based on the reflections from all stakeholders and the takeaways from the seminars’ format, the authors introduce an iterative collaboration process. Transdisciplinary research projects can use it to develop the theory-practice interactions further and create a win-win collaboration in a long-term profit for all parties.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Recent research has highlighted the ability of entrepreneurs to create sustainable impact and bring about the change required for solving today’s social and environmental challenges. It has also been pointed out that existing entrepreneurship training programs need to be transformed to effectively promote individuals in tackling these challenges and contributing to sustainable development. To address this matter, I developed a training course on sustainable entrepreneurship that builds on an action-oriented entrepreneurship training program (Student Training for Entrepreneurial Promotion (STEP)), which has been shown to increase short- and long-term entrepreneurial actions among students in various contexts. I integrated sustainability as a crosscutting theme into the training program to empower individuals to identify sustainable business opportunities and manage the increasing complexity of sustainable ventures. Pilot studies in Uganda and South Africa show promising results, indicating that STEP Sustainability (STEP S) can increase students’ sustainability-oriented and entrepreneurial mindsets.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Several factors contribute to the alarmingly high youth unemployment rate in South Africa. Barriers such as lack of access to education and practical work experience reflect these statistics and the socio-economic implications of graduate unemployment. This qualitative case study investigated the perceptions of engineering students' academic resilience in the context of higher education by using a youth development approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted online via Zoom with a sample consisting of 10 participants (aged 22–28 years), namely four Civil engineering students, four Electrical engineering students, and two Industrial engineering students. Six students were South African, whilst the remaining four were international students. Seven participants self-identified as male and three as female. Findings are discussed in terms of the three themes which emerged from the thematic analysis: (a) personal character strengths; (b) access to guidance, resources, and information and (c) a sense of belonging and social connection. This study focused on engineering education and developed a new interdisciplinary understanding of how entrepreneurship education may contribute to engineering students' academic resilience as a packaged support system that speaks to their psychosocial, educational and economic needs.
... Whilst resilience has been researched in the context of primary school children and adolescent youth (see, for example Cortina et al., 2016;Dass-Brailsford, 2005;Theron, 2012;Van Rensburg et al., 2018), in youth transition (Van Breda, 2017;Van Breda & Dickens, 2017), and in community and family settings (see, for example Ahmed et al., 2004;Liebenberg et al., 2016;Mosavel et al., 2015), there has not been a strong focus on academic resilience at university level and in higher education contexts. For the purposes of this chapter, resilience is defined as the capacity to do well, despite risk and/or adverse conditions (Theron & Theron, 2013). ...
Service learning describes an increasingly established form of teaching and learning at universities combining academic learning with real-world problem solving. While traditional approaches work within existing social systems and, in the worst case, reproduce and perpetuate social problems, critical and transformative approaches aim at systemic changes in social practice, while showing their potential to address sustainability entrepreneurial competences that are key for (future) agents of transformation. This understanding of service learning challenges students and lecturers, and requires a structured, well-thought-out pathway. Our chapter introduces transformative service learning as a promising approach for entrepreneurship (oriented) education. The argumentation for it is competence-oriented while focusing on the abilities that can promote sustainable development. In addition, the chapter addresses the role of the lecturer, which to date has been rarely and very unsystematically examined. The paper also proposes the specific service learning IOOI tool that aims to support lecturers, especially in the early stages of service learning courses, and help streamline programs.
