Research Articles

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Shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference: A collaborative reflective perspective on conceptual disruption
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Pather, Subethra; Govender, Rosaline; Scholtz, Desiree
The move from the traditional academic conference format to a loosely defined format of unconference can be contentious and spark a robust debate on the conceptual disruption of conferencing. As part of HELTASA’s strategic plan of re-structuring and re-imagining its vision and purpose, it initiated a new way of conferencing; participant-driven and participant-focused. Through self-reflective written narratives, this paper explores three academic development practitioners' experiences in planning and reflecting on the HELTASA’s (un)conference. We share our accounts of (un)conference as a conceptual disruption to the traditional conference format, concepts, and ways of doing and being. Qualitative data were collected from the three written narratives through a collective descriptive autoethnography research design and methodology. The insights collected are applied to the Conceptual Disruption Framework which proposes a tripartite framework for conceptual disruption, which distinguishes conceptual disruptions occurring at three levels (individual concepts, clusters of concepts, conceptual schemes), taking on two forms (conceptual gaps, conceptual conflicts), and leading to three distinct levels of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Using this framework, we describe our personal thoughts and perspectives in engaging with the novel approach of (un)conferencing. We probe into the potential of collaborative reflection to gain deeper insights and understanding of our shift from a traditional academic conference to a HELTASA (un)conference. We explore the discomfort, displacement, and learnings of the intentional disruption of our conceptual understanding of (un)conference practices. This paper highlights our shifting mindsets as we reflect and interrogate our thoughts and perspectives on the conceptual framing of (un)conferencing.
Acid attacks and epistemic (in)justice: violence, everyday resistance and hermeneutical responsibilities in the Indian Hindi film Chhapaak
(Wiley, 2024) Pal, Payel; Karmakar, Goutam
By taking into consideration films as a method of dissemination of knowledge, the article examines the relationship between epistemic change, an understanding of epistemic injustice, and the prior epistemic convictions of characters, as well as everyday resistance, in the film Chhapaak, translated as Splash, an Indian Hindi-language biographical drama film that portrays the life of Laxmi Agarwal, a survivor of an acid attack. The first section of the article contextualizes the story of the film through the trajectories of acid attacks in India. This is followed by discussions on epistemic injustice and collective wrongdoing through the lived realities of acid attack victims and survivors as depicted in the film. The article also highlights how these individuals exhibit everyday resistance and strive to bring about transformation in society. The article concludes with discussions on the epistemic, socio-cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities of people that can make society a safe place for all, especially girls and women in India. The article concludes by examining the epistemic, socio-cultural, and hermeneutical responsibilities that individuals must undertake in order to create a secure environment for all members of society, with a particular focus on girls and women in India.
Preferred problem-solving methods employed by grade 4 learners for measurement word problems
(AOSIS Publishing, 2024) Govender, Rajendran; Adendorff, Stanley A.; Rawoot, Shabbeer
Background: Problem-solving as a vehicle to develop independent thinking skills is mostly underestimated and is often either overlooked or not given adequate attention within the existing South African mathematics curriculum. Consequently, numerous learners often display limited skills or lack skills to adequately crack Mathematics problems by applying methods put forward in class. This generally results in under-achievement. Aim: This study aims to explore and emphasise the problem-solving methods applied by Grade 4 learners involved in solving measurement word problems, and to reveal what transpires when the selected learners apply these methods to arrive at meaningful solutions. Setting: Data were collected from a class of 42 Grade 4 learners at a primary school in Cape Town South Africa. Learners were conveniently selected. Methods: A qualitative case study research design was adopted.
Exodontia curriculum evaluation: fit for purpose teaching and learning strategies
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2024) Behardien, Nashreen; Titus, Simone; Roman, Nicolette V.
Introduction: Curriculum review is crucial for ensuring health professions education programs remain responsive and relevant. Teaching and learning (T&L) strategies facilitate knowledge acquisition, with traditional methods being supplemented by innovative techniques in a blended curriculum. This study evaluated an Exodontia Block Course (EBC) focused on tooth extraction skills, utilizing a blended-learning approach across three learning environments: classroom, preclinical skills laboratory, and clinical training platform. Methods: A qualitative study employed appreciative inquiry for data collection and analysis. Focus group discussions were conducted with 30 participants: 13 undergraduate students, 10 clinical teachers, and 7 dental practitioners. Data underwent coding and thematic analysis. Results: Two main themes relevant to this paper emerged: “Block course structure” and “Recommendations for improvement.” Participants affirmed the blended-learning approach, highlighting strengths like demonstrations, videos, activity workbooks, and assessments that supported learning. Recommendations included integrating more visual technologies, simulated patients, peer-learning, debriefing, case reviews, community-based learning, and dedicated skills laboratories. Discussion: While the traditional course adequately achieved its objectives, opportunities for enhancement were identified. Incorporating advanced educational technologies, simulation-based activities, and structured feedback mechanisms could optimize skills development. Real-world clinical experiences and peer-assisted learning may reinforce knowledge and foster competencies like clinical reasoning. Continued curriculum refinement through stakeholder feedback is essential for delivering effective, student-centered dental education, and by inference, improved patient care.
Forgotten women in education: A narrative inquiry into the marginalisation of ECD practitioners
(AOSIS (Pty) Ltd, 2024) Aploon-Zokufa, Kaylianne
Background: South African narratives of and by early childhood development (ECD) practitioners often focus on policies, practices and perspectives in research. While these are important for the development of the field, the voices of ECD practitioners, in this marginalised space, are silent. Aim: This article aims to understand: Who are the ECD practitioners? What are the conditions of their lives and livelihoods? How do they negotiate opportunities for employment, socio-economic growth and further education and training? Setting: The study describes the marginality of ECD practitioners by narrating the lived experience of work and post-school education and training of one mature woman in the Western Cape. By narrating a single story, the stories of others unfold; working in similar circumstances and negotiating the same opportunities in the harsh reality of poverty and oppression. Employing a narrative methodology is a commitment to decolonising the practice of research, where voices of the ‘Other’ are centralised and amplified. Methods: An intersectional lens forms the theoretical grounding for this article with life history interviews as its primary form of data collection. Results: Adult women ECD practitioners are mainly poor, black and female. They pursue access into higher education to improve their lives and livelihoods. Conclusion: The intersections that shape their lives limit their opportunities for access and success. Contribution: The power of narrative research, displayed in this article, ensures that voice is used to move the lived experiences of black women ECD practitioners from the margins to the centre.
Towards a critical ecological ontology: literacy, sustainability, and fostering environmental education through the Indian green informational picturebook
(Routledge, 2024) Karmakar, Goutam
It is widely acknowledged through various studies that comprehending the environment and sustainability can help children cultivate curiosity, insights, and ethical ideals, facilitating ways of enhancing public environmental literacy and leading to a more sustainable future. Environmental education in early childhood has substantial positive effects on social, economic, wellness, and educational elements, aiding in the growth of children’s abilities to become responsible young citizens. The present article examines how green informational picturebooks in India can cultivate eco-consciousness in young readers and support environmental children’s literature, motivating them to protect the earth and recognise their responsibility in environmental issues as adults. Taking Jeyanthi Manokaran’s Chipko Takes Root (2015) as a point of exploration and intervention, the article illustrates how a picturebook like this can be implemented as a means of communication for environmental protection. For this, the article emphasises how the book indulges in a streamlined recounting of the Chipko movement, incorporates regional stories, and uses effective visual representations as tools to elevate awareness about environment and sustainability among children.
Theorising student activism in and beyond twentieth century Europe: the contribution of Philip G Altbach
Luescher-Mamashela, Thierry
For most of the second half of the twentieth century, Philip Altbach has followed, analysed and theorised student activism in Europe, North America, India and beyond, and become the foremost scholar on the topic. This chapter critically reviews Altbach’s work on student activism (1964 – 2006) and his efforts at developing a comparative theoretical understanding of student activism in terms of its causes, organisation, ideological orientation and outcomes, along with the backgrounds and identity of student activists, the importance of national and institutional contexts and historical conjunctures in the emergence of student activism and in the response of national and university governments to student protest. The chapter takes Altbach’s thinking on student politics and activism and most recent theoretical contributions on changes in European higher education governance and student representation at system and institutional level to consider four questions: Under what conditions does student activism emerge? What are the typical characteristics of student organisations/movements? What are the typical characteristics of student activists? What are the effects of student activism? In so doing, testable propositions for theorising student activism in, and beyond, twentieth century Europe are developed. The paper thereby challenges Altbach’s own assertion that “student activism lacks any overarching theoretical explanation” (1991: 247).
‘I can easily switch to the kazakh language, also to the Russian language’: reimagining kazakhstani CLIL implementation as a third space
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2024) Simons, Marius; Bedeker, Michelle; Ospanbek, Assylzhan
There is extensive CLIL research on stakeholders’ practices, integration of content and language, and pedagogies. However, limited studies report on teachers’ pre-existing knowledge before CLIL implementation and how it influences their classroom pedagogy. Using a third space frame, this study examined CLIL implementation in Kazakhstan. It included 15 science teachers who teach science through the English medium of instruction (EMI). A hybrid coding strategy was followed to analyze questionnaires, teachers’ science lessons, multimodal teaching-based scenarios, and semi-structured interviews. Our findings revealed that teachers’ CLIL implementation was guided by their (1) hybrid beliefs about scientific knowledge and learning, (2) humanising pedagogy, (3) shift to constructivist science pedagogy, and (4) hybrid linguistic stance. We conclude that a third-space perspective diverts the gaze from CLIL teachers’ challenges to illuminate the entanglement of teachers’ epistemic stance, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and linguistic stance as emergent discursive practices when policy borrowings connect global and local epistemologies.
Implementation of an intervention program to enhance student teachers’ active learning in transformation geometry
(SAGE Publications Inc, 2023) Mbusi, Nokwanda; Luneta, Kakoma
Active learning strategies are purported to be effective in enhancing students’ understanding of concepts that would otherwise be difficult to master through other strategies of mediating learning. This study forms part of a bigger study where pre-service teachers’ errors and misconceptions in transformation geometry were identified, analyzed and then addressed. The focus of this current study is on exploring the implementation of a van Hiele phase-based instruction to address the students’ misconceptions through the facilitation of active learning. The instructional program was implemented with 82 pre-service teachers (student teachers) and field notes, observations and informal conversations with students were used to collect data during the implementation. A test was then given at the end of the intervention to determine the effect of the intervention on student performance. Findings suggest active learning can be promoted, through the use of van Hiele phase-based intervention program, to address effectively students’ misconceptions.
Mapping higher education policymaking in Ghana with aquadruple helix framework
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Ansah, Francis; Swanzy, Patrick; Langa, Patrício
Whilst research works have identified many actors involved inhigher education public policymaking in the Ghanaian context,there is a paucity of empirical studies on how the application of aquadruple helix network of policy actors considered essentialconstituents of higher education provision could create addedvalue to strengthen the policymaking ecosystem in Ghana. Usingmultiple data collection techniques including, document analysis,in-depth interviews and analytic memoing, this paper examinesdeeper insights into higher education public policymaking inGhana from the perspective of a quadruple helix framework ofpolicymaking and argues for an added value in the use ofquadruple helix framework in higher education policymaking.
The affective effect: exploring undergraduate students’ emotions in giving and receiving peer feedback
(Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 2023) Bharuthram, S; van Heerden, M
While the peer feedback process has an important role to play in student learning and has many benefits, it is not without its challenges. One of these is the effect that emotions may have on the way that students engage with the feedback. Yet, the specific emotions experienced during peer feedback is relatively under-explored. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative study unpacks the range of emotions experienced by students during peer feedback. Using Plutchnik’s Wheel of Emotions to analyze students’ questionnaire responses, the study found that students largely exhibited positive emotions, which may be due to their perceptions of themselves in relation to the process, as well as the various scaffolds put in place. Knowing which emotions students experienced during peer feedback may enable a greater understanding of the role of emotions in peer feedback, as well as enabling student feedback literacy development.
Keeping sites in sight: Conversations with teachers about the design of toolkits peculiar to a continuous professional development initiative
(AOSIS, 2019) Gierdien, Faaiz; Smith, Charles; Julie, Cyril
The aim of this article is to shift the notion of ‘sites’ as places of work peculiar to continuous professional development (CPD) to a theoretical level, independent of, yet intimately connected to, their physical meanings, for example universities and schools. Most CPD initiatives have to contend with at least one of these two sites, in which university-based mathematics educators and school teachers can have different and at times overlapping ways of talking about the same mathematics. Using research on number and operations, non-visually salient rules in algebra and algebraic fractions, and analytic tools and notions peculiar to conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, the authors identify and analyse site-related issues in the design of particular problem sets in Grade 8 and Grade 9 toolkits and related conversations between a mathematics educator and participating teachers. The article concludes with the implications of ‘keeping in sight’ ways in which universities and schools talk and work when it comes to designing and discussing toolkits.
Internationalisation of the curriculum in higher education: A case from a Mozambican university
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Ndaipa, Charnaldo Jaime; Edström, Kristina; Langa, Patrício
Internationalisation of the curriculum has been the subject of various debates in recent years in higher education institutions. In particular, the need to incorporate local knowledge systems when internationalising the curriculum con-tinues to be a major challenge in African universities. This study explores faculty members’ experiences inherent in the internationalisation of the curriculum at one Mozambican university. On the basis of semi-structured interviews with eleven faculty members, two research questions were investigated: (1) How do faculty members understand the internationalisation of the curriculum in their university? (2) How are local knowledge systems embedded in the internationalisation of the university curriculum?
Choreographic cartographies with-in learning: towards response-ability in higher education pedagogy
(Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, 2023) Jonker, Francois
In this article, I seek to engage the liberatory impetus of critical pedagogies through an attentiveness to body-space-time so as to enrich the former with the notion of response-ability. Several learning activities are engaged within the context of a foundation year classroom of an Art School, to open up conceptions of the experiential nature of learning events and the ethico-onto-epistemological questions that emerge when foregrounding response-ability as a condition for learning-becoming. I have particular interest in notions of subjectivity, agency and affect, questioning how a new materialist reading of these concepts might serve to challenge representationalist conceptions of higher learning. I commence with a proposition: engage learning as an experience — through the processual potentialities of its in-act and prompt myself by drawing attention to the performativity of body-space-time cartographies and choreographies.
The Namibian inclusive education policy’s responseto gender nonconforming learners
(Wiley, 2023) Haitembu, Rauna Keshemunhu; Maarman, Rouaan
The provision of education to children is a human right that most countries including Namibia are trying to achieve. Hence, through educational inclusion, educators strive for removal of barriers within education systems for all children to learn. The purpose of this study was to explore how the Namibian inclusive education (IE) policy responds to gender non-conforming learners. Drawing upon the Social Identity Perspective (SIP) and interviews with four education officers and employing a transformative case study, this study revealed that the Namibian IE policy does not clearly pronounce itself on inclusion of gender non-conforming learners.
Multilingual tasks as a springboard for transversal practice: Teachers’ decisions and dilemmas in a functional multilingual learning approach
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Foster, Nell; Auger, Nathalie; Van Avermaet, Piet
Functional Multilingual Learning (FML) aims to leverage pupils’ full language repertoire in a strategic and transversal way across the curriculum in order to enhance access to conceptual understanding and improve skills in the language of schooling. This linguistic-ethnographic study explores the pedagogical decisions of four teachers in a French–speaking primary school in Brussels, Belgium as they create ‘meaningful multilingual tasks’ for their linguistically diverse classrooms. Findings indicate that tasks serving symbolic and linguistic functions were the easiest for teachers to conceptualise, and that class-level learning objectives often took precedence over individual objectives. Multilingual scaffolding only occurred in classrooms already functioning extensively within a socio-constructivist paradigm and needed to be supported by a free classroom language policy to be the most effective.
Welfare and education in British colonial Africa, 1918–1945
(Springer, 2020) Kallaway, Peter
The relevance of historical research for an explanation of the roots of contemporary educational policy and its relationship to notions of equity, democracy and development has been sadly neglected in recent years. This means that policy makers have forfeited the advantages of reflecting on the traditions and experience of past endeavors and examining them critically for potential understandings of present and future policy making. The aim of this paper was to direct the attention of researchers to the complexities and multifaceted nature of educational policy development in inter-war era (1918–1945), with specific reference to British colonial Africa and South Africa. It will also hopefully provide a set of elementary tools for all of those interested in educational policy-making strategies that seek to promote meaningful social, economic and political change in an age of uncertainty.
Interprofessional learning through 3D printing of assistive devices
(Wiley, 2023) Filies, Gérard C; Ingram, Chinno; Mthembu, Thuli M.
Emerging technologies in the rehabilitative component of patient care in community settings continue to grow. One of the emerging technological fields in the health sciences arena is 3D printing. It is particularly useful in rehabilitation services in the production of assistive devices. Degerli et al.1 define assistive devices, as any commercially developed, modified or customised system, component or product used to improve or preserve the functional capabilities of a person not able to engage in all their daily living activities. Currently, assistive devices are not easily customizable. Off-the-shelf devices do not meet the individual needs of the customer; they are costly, lack individual compatibility and not always in stock. In minimising these challenges, technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) such as 3D printing have been offered as a practical solution at a local university in South Africa.
Internationalisation of the curriculum in higher education: A case from a Mozambican university
(Cogent Education, 2023) Langa, Patrício; Ndaipa, Charnaldo Jaime; Edström, Kristina; Geschwind, Lars
Internationalisation of the curriculum has been the subject of various debates in recent years in higher education institutions. In particular, the need to incorporate local knowledge systems when internationalising the curriculum continues to be a major challenge in African universities. This study explores faculty members’ experiences inherent in the internationalisation of the curriculum at one Mozambican university. On the basis of semi-structured interviews with eleven faculty members, two research questions were investigated: (1) How do faculty members understand the internationalisation of the curriculum in their university? (2) How are local knowledge systems embedded in the internationalisation of the university curriculum? The findings revealed that the internationalisation of the curriculum is mainly understood in terms of developing intercultural knowledge, skills and values; mobility of students, teachers and academic programmes; and teaching international students and languages. Some practices suggest opportunities for a more decolonised approach in the internationalisation of the university curriculum, such as the integration of local languages and the practice of ethnoscience, with the main focus on ethnomathematics.
Taking risks: Exploring ecofeminist, climate-just popular education
(Linköpings University Electronic Press, 2023) von Kotze, Astrid; Walters, Shirley
The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popular educators respond to this call? We ‘join the dots’ using climate justice, ecofeminism and our own insights from our engaged activist scholarship as theoretical positions to explore this question. Dominant Western worldviews which separate humans from other life forms contribute to ecological degradation. For climate justice, this hard-wired worldview needs to be disrupted.

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