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Research Interests:
In responding to a potential tension between the need to increase doctoral throughput while simultaneously not compromising quality (Waghid, in this issue), we identify very briefly some of the complex conditions at the institutional and... more
In responding to a potential tension between the need to increase doctoral throughput while simultaneously not compromising quality (Waghid, in this issue), we identify very briefly some of the complex conditions at the institutional and system's level that cultivate doctoral capabilities. Through isolating certain elements in the doctoral process at the institutional level, we observe some tensions between traditional/collegial and - what is becoming - an increasing commodification of doctoral practices 'on the ground'. In foregrounding this tension, we wish to open up further avenues for thinking about doctoral processes, mindful of the cultivation of high-level technical and intellectual skills. This tension might be structured into the national system level, in light of the differentiation policy. We seek to open up a conversation that could pose an opportunity for thinking through the requisite high-level skills, and appropriate levels of research support, in order ...
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It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons)... more
It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons) programme have diverse professional backgrounds and personal motivations for pursuing the programme. Moreover, the majority of the students have fairly substantial experience in schools, one of the primary empirical sites for educational research. This diverse student profile yields several challenges in relation to the teaching of a Research Methods course. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of offering a BEd Hons course to induct students into research against the traditional, literature-renditioned components which comprise the practice of research in the Social Sciences. Working with the notions of critical aspects and encounters, the authors found that students experience a tension between their desire to solve their identifie...
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ABSTRACT South Africa’s new and revised National Curriculum Statement implicitly suggests the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into the science curriculum so that learners can, inter alia, learn within the context of their... more
ABSTRACT South Africa’s new and revised National Curriculum Statement implicitly suggests the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into the science curriculum so that learners can, inter alia, learn within the context of their cultural knowledge. Unfortunately teachers do not necessarily know about the various indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) within South Africa. We therefore decided to identify the ideas of traditional health practitioners (THPs) concerning what children need to know, and then to obtain science teachers’ responses to these ideas. In this pilot study Western Cape we used a qualitative approach and conducted in-depth interviews with a small group of THPs, with a follow-up questionnaire and discussion with a larger group. We then shared the THPs’ ideas with both experienced science educators and high school science teachers. Our results show that THPs think that South African learners need to know about and respect their heritages, especially the majority African IKS. They emphasized the importance of learning about health and freedom from disease, particularly HIV/AIDS. The THPs believe that both science and IK are important in the education of learners, and that they could co-teach their IK in conjunction with science topics. They suggested how they could do this. They believe that science teachers need to learn about IK, and suggested that THPs could learn some science. Both groups of science teachers were interested in, and strongly supportive of the THP suggestions. They also emphasized that IK needs to be standardized and validated by an indigenous organization.
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Abstract This paper describes undergraduate students' understanding of cell division. Specifically, the study explored students' understanding of mitosis and meiosis before and after laboratory instruction using a phenomenological... more
Abstract This paper describes undergraduate students' understanding of cell division. Specifically, the study explored students' understanding of mitosis and meiosis before and after laboratory instruction using a phenomenological analytical approach. The sample comprised 41 first-year university students enrolled in a biology course. A Cell Biology Test (CBT) was administered at the pre—and post-test stages and the students' activities during laboratory sessions on cell division were observed and recorded. Overall, the findings of this study suggested that, the cell biology laboratory work substantially improved the students' level of understanding of mitosis and meiosis. Despite this, similar to other studies carried out in this field, the students consistently demonstrated a poor knowledge of the basic concepts (e.g. chromosome structure, chromosome number, specific events in prophase I of meiosis and DNA replication) that are important to understanding the whole process of mitosis and meiosis even after the laboratory instruction. Furthermore, practical difficulties experienced by most of the students in the use of the light microscope during the laboratory sessions seemed to have a negative influence on the envisaged aims of laboratory work in cell division. The findings of the study are highlighted and discussed in the paper.
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The contexts that learners deal with in contextually-based mathematical activities are mostly decided upon by designers and developers of mathematics curricula and learning resources and test developers. The voices of learners on the... more
The contexts that learners deal with in contextually-based mathematical activities are mostly decided upon by designers and developers of mathematics curricula and learning resources and test developers. The voices of learners on the contexts they would prefer to deal with in mathematical activities are virtually absent in research. This chapter deals with the voices of learners and reports on a project which ascertained the contexts learners would prefer to deal with in mathematical education. The viability of a questionnaire to ascertain the interests of learners is discussed. Furthermore, the chapter reflects on the rankings assigned by learners from six different countries relative to the five highest and five lowest preferred items of the overall ranking of items.
This paper explores the use of an interlinked framework of teaching with integrity, reflective teaching and teacher efficacy which acted as lens to describe the changes a novice University lecturer underwent as he reflected on his... more
This paper explores the use of an interlinked framework of teaching with integrity, reflective teaching and teacher efficacy which acted as lens to describe the changes a novice University lecturer underwent as he reflected on his teaching. Data sources included his emails to his curriculum specialists colleagues and disciplinary lecturers, notes made during and after his course and feedback from informal (unsolicited emails form students) and formal evaluations of the course. His self efficacy and hence confidence in his teaching improved greatly over the year long course and two major source of this were mastery of his pedagogical practices and pedagogical content knowledge as well as social persuasion (positive feedback from students). The active learning strategies he employed encouraged students to interact and engage with each other, and with their lecturer and this impacted on their learning.
This chapter presents a brief overview of the literature on the importance of educational assessment, the limitations of standard assessments, and the assessment approaches used in Swaziland to justify the need to include performance... more
This chapter presents a brief overview of the literature on the importance of educational assessment, the limitations of standard assessments, and the assessment approaches used in Swaziland to justify the need to include performance assessment in the regular assessment of science students in Swaziland. The construction of the performance tasks and scoring rubrics by following guidelines given in literature is outlined. The experiences of teachers and students using the performance assessments in secondary school science are described in their voices. These experiences highlight the strengths and limitations of performance assessments; particularly for Swaziland where classes are large and resources limited. The experiences of students indicate that students would benefit significantly from performance assessment – not just for assessment purposes, but for improving their understanding of science and developing their thinking skills. This would be possible because students became mo...
Curriculum and assessment in many African countries have most often been shaped by international influences. In many countries where curricula are generally imported, the alignment between curriculum instruction and assessment has been... more
Curriculum and assessment in many African countries have most often been shaped by international influences. In many countries where curricula are generally imported, the alignment between curriculum instruction and assessment has been difficult to achieve. As a result, changes in curricula have not been able to meet these goals. Owing to the Lesotho government’s aspiration to provide all Basotho with basic education and the need for Lesotho to depart from its educational colonial past, Lesotho attempted to localise its curriculum. This resulted in a science curriculum which has incorporated technology. This chapter describes how the science curriculum with a technology emphasis was developed in Lesotho. It includes a brief outline of the reasons which led to the development of such a syllabus. The chapter also deals with the literature on science and technology in the school curriculum. It further highlights the process of the Lesotho science technology syllabus development with ex...
It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons)... more
It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons) programme have diverse professional backgrounds and personal motivations for pursuing the programme. Moreover, the majority of the students have fairly substantial experience in schools, one of the primary empirical sites for educational research. This diverse student profile yields several challenges in relation to the teaching of a Research Methods course. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of offering a BEd Hons course to induct students into research against the traditional, literature-renditioned components which comprise the practice of research in the Social Sciences. Working with the notions of critical aspects and encounters, the authors found that students experience a tension between their desire to solve their identifie...
This article reports on a comparison of real-life situations which learners in three Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries would prefer to be used in school mathematics. The paper is based on data collected in these... more
This article reports on a comparison of real-life situations which learners in three Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries would prefer to be used in school mathematics. The paper is based on data collected in these countries and uses an analytical tool, Rasch analysis, to review the results of these studies. The results of this analysis reveal that the young people in these countries share similar affective orientations with respect to certain real-life situations. The real-life situations that the learners in these countries prefer most are related to electronic gadgets and personal finance, whilst the items they are least interested in are issues relating to gambling and cultural practices. These results open the possibility of inter-country development and sharing of instructional resources based on real-life situations for use in mathematics. Furthermore, the results can usefully inform the designers of cross-country assessments on school mathematics, such as ...
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ABSTRACT This chapter starts with a brief overview of underlying theortical frameworks followed by a look at the influence of factors impacting on learning, such as social and psyhcological factors, barries to first-generation students.... more
ABSTRACT This chapter starts with a brief overview of underlying theortical frameworks followed by a look at the influence of factors impacting on learning, such as social and psyhcological factors, barries to first-generation students. The chpater continues with an explanation of the students' knowledge base which includes the conceptual knowledge base, their understanding of the nature of science and the impact of the quality of schooling on their learning. This is followed by a consideration of learning approaches, learning styles and metacognition. The final section of the chapter examines the scholarship of teaching and looks at findings on various methods of instruction for access students.
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Faculty workload is an important higher education issue because of its increasing demands on faculty time, mandates by institutional and external factors, and its relationship to job satisfaction. Specifically, how faculty perceive their... more
Faculty workload is an important higher education issue because of its increasing demands on faculty time, mandates by institutional and external factors, and its relationship to job satisfaction. Specifically, how faculty perceive their workload can positively or negatively influence their job satisfaction. Current literature regarding faculty and workload has focused largely on workload models. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the workload of Black faculty members by citizenship status (U.S. citizens; citizens, foreign born; and non-citizens) based on satisfaction, opinion, and scholarly activity variables. Overall, the findings revealed that foreign born and non-citizens were similar in many of the variables studied and U.S. born citizens were very different than the other two citizenship groups. In spite of the belief of many researchers, the findings revealed that in many variables studied, the U.S. born Black faculty were less productive and their opinions and satisfa...
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The downturn of the global economy requires universities worldwide to do more with fewer resources. These conditions have presented an opportunity for two universities, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Missouri-St.... more
The downturn of the global economy requires universities worldwide to do more with fewer resources. These conditions have presented an opportunity for two universities, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, to collaborate on a research course offered to postgraduate students. The purpose of this article is to outline the overall administration, management and structure of an innovative research programme between two countries. The aim is also to share the experiences and challenges of this research partnership, to explain how the parties involved navigated policies, to demonstrate what expertise the two educational institutions gained from the collaboration and to recount the benefits received by students and faculty from working internationally.
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The National Senior Certificate examination is the most important school examination in South Africa. Analysis of learners’ performance in Mathematics in this examination is normally carried out and presented in terms of the percentage of... more
The National Senior Certificate examination is the most important school examination in South Africa. Analysis of learners’ performance in Mathematics in this examination is normally carried out and presented in terms of the percentage of learners who succeeded in the different bands of achievement. In some cases item difficulties are presented – item refers to the subsection of each examination question. Very little attention is paid to other diagnostic statistics, such as the discrimination indices and item difficulties taking into consideration partial scores examinees achieve on items. In this article we report on a study that, in addition to the usual item difficulties, includes a discrimination index of item difficulties taking into account partial scores examinees achieved. The items, considered individually, are analysed in relation to the other items on the test. The focus is on the topic sequences and series and the data were obtained from a stratified sample of the marked...
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In order to ascertain the real-life situations that teachers, as stakeholders, would find suitable and appropriate to deal with in Mathematical Literacy (a compulsory subject for students who are not doing Mathematics at the Further... more
In order to ascertain the real-life situations that teachers, as stakeholders, would find suitable and appropriate to deal with in Mathematical Literacy (a compulsory subject for students who are not doing Mathematics at the Further Education and Training level of the South African education system), we embarked on a study known as the Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME). The principle underpinning this article is that there are times when it is necessary to assess the functionality and quality of questionnaires used to ascertain affective domain issues. The study provides an analysis technique which is not affected by the sample of individuals completing a questionnaire, provided that the instrument meets particular requirements. It thus improves the rigour of measurement. Various statistics obtained in this study showed that the instrument used to determine the real-life situations which teachers prefer for Mathematical Literacy reasonably identifies this variable. H...
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This study investigates the proximal and distal images of the nature of science (NOS) that A‐level students develop from their participation in chemistry laboratory work. We also explored the nature of the interactions among the... more
This study investigates the proximal and distal images of the nature of science (NOS) that A‐level students develop from their participation in chemistry laboratory work. We also explored the nature of the interactions among the students' proximal and distal images of the NOS and students' participation in laboratory work. Students' views of the NOS and the nature of their chemistry laboratory work were elicited through students' responses to an open‐ended questionnaire and semistructured interviews. The results suggest that students build some understandings of the NOS from their participation in laboratory work. Students' proximal NOS understandings appear to build into and interact with their understandings of the nature and practice of professional science. This interaction appears to be mediated by the nature of instruction. It is posited that each student's conceptual ecological system is replete with interactions, which govern attenuation of proximal u...
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This article debates the rationales for science education and curriculum change and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Zimbabwe is used as a case to illustrate and exemplify the issues raised in the debate. It is argued that investment in... more
This article debates the rationales for science education and curriculum change and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Zimbabwe is used as a case to illustrate and exemplify the issues raised in the debate. It is argued that investment in science education, increasing access to science education, and science education curriculum change and reform can only contribute to a country’s socio-economic development if the political and economic environment is conducive. The article first presents a brief overview of secondary school science curriculum change and reform in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. It then tackles the issue of science education for socio-economic development as a rationale for science education. In that effort questions are raised about what constitutes relevant science education curricula for Sub-Saharan countries. It is suggested that for Sub-Saharan countries, the development of human resource needs should not only be the major reason for offering secondary school s...