Faculty of Education

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/10566/23

Research conducted in the Faculty of Education reflects the following areas of interest: education policy research, curriculum research, professional teacher education, adult education, science teaching, maths education, and the history of education in South Africa.

Electronic theses and dissertations are available in the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Repository.

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South African institutions top THE Africa rankings pilot

Times Higher Education creates a top 15 table for Africa’s academies ahead of the inaugural THE Africa Universities Summit on 30-31 July

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Addressing the needs of underachieving students in an extended curriculum programme
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Hans, Garelda Nicolette; Moolla, Nadeen
The purpose of this study is to determine the nature of support services offered to Extended Curriculum Programme students in a South African university. The primary goals of support services in higher education are to support students holistically and reduce barriers to learning in the teaching and learning environment. One of the faculties in a South African university established a support unit to assist with the low throughput level. The academic support unit is housed in the Academic Development Department (ADD) in a faculty. The unit attempts to address the needs of underachieving students in the Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP). The thesis first identifies the challenges the ECP students are experiencing. Then, support services in the university and in the support unit are described. Thereafter, the challenges experienced by the centre of support services in the university and the support unit are illuminated. Qualitative data was gathered through individual interviews with senior management. Then, a focus group discussion with tutors who volunteer in a support unit was facilitated and lastly the staff members employed in the support unit were also interviewed individually. The thesis was able to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to learning the ECP students are experiencing. It became evident that the support services available in the university and the support unit are not sufficient to address the needs of the students. The challenges the support service centre of the university and the support unit are experiencing are twofold. The first is a lack of organisational resources that hinders service delivery, the second is a lack of skills and expertise in attain structures that limits the provision of support services.
Being and becoming a university teacher
(Taylor & Francis group, 2017) McMillan, Wendy; Gordon, Natalie
This study examined how one academic framed the enablements and constraints to her project of being and becoming an academic. Complexity facilitated reflection in that it provided a visual representation of data, which was used to generate a concept map, which represented as equal all the component parts of her landscape. Five spaces with emancipatory potential to assist the academic in her professional development emerged, namely: communities of practice, academic freedom, position statements, development opportunities and a supportive environment. Rather than suggesting any generalisability in the findings, the authors argue that the significance of this study is theoretical and methodological.
The changing nature of academic development: exploring student perceptions and experiences of a learning skills programme in higher education
(2011) Petrenko, Karen; Omar, Rahmat
In this paper, I focus on the issue of student perceptions and experiences of a 3rd generation academic development programme in higher education. I set out to explore the issue from two perspectives: firstly from the perspective of the higher education institution’s approach to academic development, namely, a learning skills programme and a first year sociology course, and secondly from the perspective of students’ intentions, expectations and experiences of such a programme. The research questions focused on the learning priorities embedded in the curriculum of a learning skills programme at Monash University, South Africa and the learning experiences of students in this programme.The methodology used in this study includes a case study which focused on the responses of six participants from a number of African countries completing their BA degrees. Semistructured interviews held and the content analysis method was used to analyse the data. The study concludes: that the main priority of the learning skills programme is to prepare students for their university learning rather than to prepare students for the world of work i.e. it falls within Street’s (2004) academic socialization model and that the Learning Skills programme can be seen as an example of Boughey’s (2007) 3rd generation academic development programmes.The study also suggests that there is a need to explore Volbrecht’s (2003) argument on the limitations of discipline-based models of academic development, the need to examine how academic literacy is constructed and how identity and power relations intersect in this construction. It further highlights the importance of the idea of multi-literacies as put forward by Street (2004) and suggests that as practitioners we should include a consideration of these literacies in academic development programmes to improve the quality of students’ learning and meaning making.
Facilitating educational change: academic development in a university setting
(University of the Western Cape, 1997) Baijnath, Narend; Meerkotter, Dirk; van den Berg, Owen
ln this thesis my project is to examine the academic development programme (ADP) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as a project of possibility mirrored against its basic premises and the practices which flowed from its implementation. The central proposition I develop is that the ADP at UWC was predisposed to have a limited impact on the development project at UWC for several reasons. The first of these is that the ADP's initial conceptualisation was driven primarily by the political considerations of equity and access. This political impetus behind it set it in tension with the avenues for improving higher education which are used at universities elsewhere in the world, which have been driven primarily by a concern to improve quality. The effect was to shift the critical gaze away from the quality of educational provision and the institutional conditions at UWC which affect quality. The main evidence I provide in developing the thesis is a narrative account of my own practice as an AD practitioner within the economic and management sciences faculty at UWC. I offer accounts in the areas of student development, curriculum reform and staff development as case studies which I make the objects of my extended analysis. I also argue that the access imperative failed to give adequate attention to the possible consequences of changing the access policy without anticipating the impact it would have, and how it would be influenced by, the material conditions prevailing at the University. I argue in the light of this that planned change in curriculum, staff development, and staff development, as well as the service sectors of the University are the sine qua non of changed access policy. From the analytical thrust of my thesis, I develop the proposition that for the AD enterprize at universities to become institutionalised and sustainable on the long term, it is best undergirded by a wider discourse of quality improvement, which makes legitimate demands on academic staff to pursue development objectives and programmes which are consonant with those of the ADP. ln this way the resistance which accompanies an ADP driven primarily by the access imperative is obviated. ! maintain that the higher education policy terrain nationally, and the policy environment institutionally have not been conducive to a coherent approach to the challenge of facilitating access. In particular, I explore how this lack of an enabling policy environment at an institutional and national level impacts on the AD programme within the University. The methodological position from which I develop my thesis is that a study of the nature I have undertaken must take account of historical and contextual factors with an overall cohering influence provided by the narrative. I begin with a historical perspective on change within universities in South Africa and locate the advent of AD within this broad canvas of educational change. My proposition in this regard is that it is in the genesis of the higher education system in South Africa over several decades that the roots of the current problems and challenges are to be found. I provide an account of how racially based schooling has impacted on the education of blacks and produced the AD challenge. Thereafter I episodically construct a narrative of the change process which I experienced focusing on the individual, departmental and institutional levels. !n doing so, I try to illuminate the inherent complexity of the change process by critically analysing the multiple factors which influenced its texture. ln addition to this, t gave attention to my positaonality in the change process, accounting for my assumptions about AD, addressing the vexing issue of representation, and developing a methodologically justifiable position for using the narrative as PhD genre. I propose ways of reconceptualising AD so that more focused attention is given to student, staff and curriculum development. I suggest how the role of agency in curriculum development may be enhanced. ln addition, I argue that curriculum development can only be systematised through the establishment of an appraisal system which provides incentives or pressures for improvement. ln the area of staff development, I advance an argument for a reflective practitioner model. This should be supported adequately by policy, incentives and rewards which elevate and emphasise the value of good teaching. ln short, I develop my thesis along a trajectory which enables me to answer the question: What can be learned about educational change in the university setting from this experience of facilitating AD?

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