2024

CHIMBODZA, Iris Jane Mary, MEd (Zimbabwe), in Education, in the Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The emergence of Education for Sustainable Development teacher competences amongst pre-service teachers in a Geography Teacher Education Programme in Zimbabwe. Supervisor: Professor I Schudel.

In a changing curriculum context in Zimbabwe, this study explored the application of a competence framework for Education for Sustainable Development within a Geography Education programme at Belvedere Technical Teachers’ College. The study sought insights into the processes and factors that contribute to the emergence of the intended holistic and transformative competencies among student teachers, within a broad and integrated perspective on learning. On the basis of these insights, the thesis produced recommendations for teacher education programmes and policies in Zimbabwe and beyond.

 

DWAYI, Valindawo Medicine, BA (Transkei), BAHons (RAU), MCom (Natal), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A social realist account of the way academic managers exercise agency in monitoring students’ academic success in South African higher education. Supervisor: Professor CM Boughey.

Concerns about black working-class students bearing the brunt of poor performance in South African higher education have led to the introduction of various strategies intended to promote their success. This study considered the implementation of one such strategy. It showed not only how conditions inherited from Apartheid constrained the strategy’s effectiveness from the onset but, also, how the ways in which those responsible for its implementation understood students, their learning experiences, and actions to address those experiences, prevented it from achieving its goal of enabling academic success. The insights from this study are critical to the hopes and desires of black working class students for whom a higher education qualification is often the only route out of poverty. 

 

HAIMENE, Johanna Shetulimba, DipEd (UNAM), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring and expanding teachers’ gender and culturally responsive practices when mediating learning of Chemistry in rural schools in Namibia. Supervisor: Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisors: Dr C Chikunda (AWARD), Dr Z Nhase (UFS). 

The Namibian school curriculum advocates for gender equity in every aspect of the curriculum and for addressing the educational needs of both boys and girls. Gender and cultural stereotypes abound at schools including in the teaching and learning of science.  This study surfaced the challenges faced by Physical Science teachers, such as a lack of pedagogical strategy examples that are not gender or culturally biased.  Using a Cultural Historical Activity Theory lens and a series Change Laboratories, a mediational tool was Co-developed, to guide teachers in being gender and culturally responsive.

 

KUSE, Mzukisi, BSc (Rhodes), MSc (Pretoria), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring expansive learning and co-management in the uMzimvumbu catchment. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

South Africa is a water stressed country with strategic water resource areas becoming ever more important.  Located in the uMzimvubu catchment in the Eastern Cape, this study investigated how learning can contribute to co-management in South Africa’s “Living Catchments”.  Through engaged research with communities, government partners and other stakeholders, the thesis offers grounded approaches to expanding and evaluating social learning in South Africa’s water catchments.  It concludes that expansive learning can substantively advance both the scope and the impact of co-management.

 
MUHANGI, Sidney, BBA (Makerere), BComHons (Rhodes), MSc (Nottingham Trent), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Investigating oOccupation as frame for planning and developing aAgricultural eExtension VET skills for cClimate rResilience: Cross-case analysis of Alice, South Africa, and Gulu, Uganda. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Dr P Ramsarup (Wits).

In Africa today, agricultural extension officers need to support farmers to deal with climate change challenges. Yet the skills system instruments that structure their training are inflexible.  To address this problem, Sidney conducted a cross case analysis of the extension occupation in South Africa and Uganda. Using a cultural historical approach to social skills ecosystem development, several contradictions in the skills systems are revealed.  The study offers a more flexible, responsive approach to skills planning and development for extension officers in Africa. 

 
MWATUNGA, Carina Brigitte, BDip (LMU), BAHons (NMMU), MA (NMU), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis:  A capabilities analysis: Degree mobility and the impact of returning South African alumni on their home country’s sustainable development. Supervisor: Dr A Hlengwa.

Research on the impact of degree mobility on sustainable development remains limited despite its growing prevalence.  This study delves into the relationship between higher education, scholarships abroad, and Sustainable Development Goals in South Africa.  Through the Responsible Agent framework, it evaluates alumni capabilities, highlighting structural disparities in scholarships and negative effects of degree mobility.  The study shifts focus from individual benefits to societal contributions, emphasizing the need for scholarships to align with broader Sustainable Development Goals.

 

2023

ANDREWS, Ruth, BA (Stell), MBA (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The morphogenesis of higher education leadership - A social realist exploratory journey. Supervisor: Professor CM Boughey

University leaders have to balance power, politics, and the needs of the academic project with their own concerns for a troubled world, as they lead complex institutions in ever-changing contexts. In this Higher Education study, Ruth Andrews investigated the ways in which a group of leaders at one South African university were both enabled, and constrained, as they pursued what they regarded as important. In doing so, she explores the concept of higher education leadership itself, in a world shaped by globalization and neoliberalism.

 

CHANYAU, Ludwig, BScHons (Zimbabwe), MSocSci (UCT), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post-School Education.  Degree by thesis. Thesis: Learning to make a difference: Small-scale women farmers in social learning spaces for climate action. Supervisor: Professor E Rosenberg.

How do women farmers learn about climate change? What does good climate change education look like? Chanyau conducted case studies in the drought-stricken Raymond Mhlaba and Buffalo City regions.  He spent time in the field, observing and interviewing farmers and trainers. He found that farmers learn in communities of practice, and that the agro-ecology movement has the power to bring hope, food security, and social cohesion, to communities characterized by resource constraints, historical inequalities in accessing land, water and markets, but also by strong women-led agency. These findings can guide extension services to better support transformative learning and cushion small-scale farming from collapse during unprecedented change.

 

JUNIUS, Daniel Franscius, BEd (Namibia), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post-School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The use of dynamic software to potentially enhance conceptual understanding and a productive disposition in the visual learning of algebra: an interventionist case study. Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

At the heart of this doctoral work was an intervention programme in a secondary schools in Namibia. The aim was to interrogate how the visualisation characteristics of computer technology (in this case, GeoGebra) can be harnessed to teach Algebra for conceptual understanding, and in the process, impact on the learners’ dispositions towards the subject. Following an extended case study, the findings were very encouraging regarding the use of Dynamic Graphics software, to address some key challenges in teaching Mathematics. As such it represents a significant contribution to the quest for new and impactful pedagogies in the post-COVID era. The study also created a basis for several follow-up research interventions.

 

KALIMA, Robert Chagwamtsoka, BEd (Malawi), MSc (Kumamoto), in Education, in the Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Field facilitation in open and distance learning in resource-constrained environments: a case of Mzuzu University, Malawi. Supervisor: Professor C Grant. Co-supervisors: Dr S Clarence and Professor S McKenna.

Across much of Africa, the only means of accessing higher education is by studying at a distance. Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory, this case study looked at field facilitation in Malawi, where rural facilitators support students far away from the university campus. Using surveys, interviews, documents and a modified Change Laboratory, Robert Kalima found that field facilitation was fairly ineffective - because of limited institutional support, and the almost non-existent communication between the rural facilitators and university-based lecturers. The study highlighted the impact of globalisation and the digital divide on open and distance learning, particularly in the resource-constrained and under-researched Global South.

 

KIGUNDU, Stephen, DipEd (Makerere), BEdHons (Transkei), MA (UKZN), in Education, in the Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Design of an LMS-mediated tutorial to support deep and effective engagement in the process of learning mathematics. Supervisor: Professor B Brown.

Designing e-learning tutorials for active and creative engagement in Mathematics is a complex matter that became particularly  important during and following the Covid pandemic. Stephen Kigundu undertook a mixed-method ‘design research’ project to study the iterative design, implementation, evaluation and review of a Tutorial on Trigonometry for first-year Engineering students. An approach of “doing first, reading when necessary”, using multi-level, demand-driven resources on individual computers, and carrying out work on paper first before capturing it on the computer, was identified as an effective approach to learning. The study proposes clear methodological advances in an under-researched field.

 

KNOWLES, Corinne Ruth, BA (UPE), HDE (UCT), MA, PGDip(HE) (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post-School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: With dreams in our hands: towards transgressive knowledge-making cultures. Supervisor: Dr D McGarry.
Co-supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

For 14 years, Corinne Knowles has been part of the Extended Studies Program, witnessing each year the arrival of new students, each one of them with dreams in their hands. Her thesis uncovers how the university system responds to these dreams, and how it can do so better. Drawing from African Feminist perspectives, Corinne champions collaborative knowledge-making, co-created with 24 past and present student volunteers, whose names adorn her gown today. This transgressive schema challenges the colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist foundations of mainstream knowledge-making in South Africa. It advocates inclusivity, multilingualism, and empowering marginalized students to engage critically and produce relevant knowledge. The thesis calls for a broader transformation in university culture, fostering more kindness and respect, and the voices of black students.

 

MABOTE, Ntele Emily, BTech, MTech (TUT), PGDip(HE) (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Mechanisms conditioning the implementation of an integrated quality assurance and enhancement approach at a South African University of Technology. Supervisor: Professor LE Quinn.

Quality assurance has been introduced to higher education systems around the world. In most national contexts, including South Africa, these systems are regarded as steering mechanisms, but they have not yielded the envisaged improvements in the quality of teaching and learning. The dominant discourses and structures put the emphasis on quality assurance, rather than quality enhancement. Emily Mabote undertook this study at the Tshwane University of Technology. Based on her findings, she recommends the implementation of an integrated approach. She argues that educational institutions should move from compliance-driven Monitoring to Enhancement, establishing a culture that is transformative and developmental, emphasising agility, improvement, and accountability.

 

MAGXALA, Xoliswa Patience, MEd (WSU), in Education, in the Institute for the Study of the Englishes of Africa. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring the interplay between Foundation Phase learners' home and school literacy practices. Supervisor: Professor M Hendricks.
Co-supervisor: Professor M Mbelani.

This ethnographic study involving four foundation phase learners in Libode, Eastern Cape, explored the interplay between home and school literacy practices. Using observations, video and audio recordings, field notes and unstructured interviews, Xoliswa found that when learners start school, they already have rich and well-developed home literacy practices. However, these practices are not usually taken up by Foundation Phase teachers when they aim to develop school literacy. As a result, learners get lost in their first years of schooling. The researcher recommends that the interplay between home and school literacies be carefully harnessed in order to achieve both a smooth transition and literacy advancement.

 

THEODORIO, Adedayo Olayinka, BSc (Olabisi Onabanjo), MEd (Ibadan), MSc (Ibadan), in Education, in the Department of Secondary and Post-School Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: TPACK Development: Technology integration with teacher educators in foundation phase teacher training programme. Supervisor: Dr C Simuja.

This study focussed on the ability of teacher educators to incorporate technology in their teaching methods. By engaging with teacher educators through seminars, interviews and observations, Theodorio developed a new practical and theoretical framework to support the blending of technology, teaching and learning. The study highlights the importance of collaboration among various roleplayers, continuous learning and support in integrating technology in teacher education, casting light on a crucial but as yet under-researched field. The model developed is abstract enough to be applied to other contexts as well. Thus it has significant potential to improve the preparation of all educators for the digital age.

 

BHUREKENI, John, Med (Great Zimbabwe), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring aspects of community of inquiry (COI) in Afrophilia learning processes for transformative education using an Afrophilic “Philosophy for Children” approach. 
Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor RB O’Donoghue.

John’s PhD focused on investigating and developing a socio-cultural Afrophilic orientation to philosophy for children. Using a community of inquiry approach in Sebakwe resettlement primary schools, John worked with children, teachers, parents and education officials to foster a critical and generative approach to mobilising heritage-based curriculum foundations in Zimbabwean primary schools. The study developed a decolonial approach to philosophy for children that significantly expanded children’s critical reflexive thinking skills and teachers’ capability for creatively engaging heritage-based curriculum foundations in Zimbabwe.

 

FERGUSON, Robin Anne, MPhil (Stell), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A Pedagogy of Love: Reflections on 25 years of informal vocational education and training practices in the commercial fishing industry in South Africa.
Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Robin’s PhD reflexively reviews informal vocational education and training practices in a commercial fishing industry company that took place between 1995-2021. These vocational education and training practices involved several hundred sea-going employees who are disadvantaged by low levels of literacies and low/no ICT connectivity. Using practice theory and sustainability education insights for the extensive review, the study offers new relational pedagogical guidance for developing informal vocational education and training in complex workplace learning contexts such as on seagoing fishing vessels.

 

HODGSKISS, Jennifer Adele, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An in-depth investigation of an early literacy intervention in Grade R.
Supervisor: Dr C van der Mescht.

This study investigated in-service teacher training for emergent literacy in multilingual Grade R classrooms in the Eastern Cape Province. Drawing on theories of emergent literacy and social constructivism, the study used a mixed method approach focusing on teacher training. The findings suggest that even reputable early literacy interventions may fail when the assumptions of the designers, the trainers and the teachers do not align. In particular it highlights the dangers of the cascade model of teacher training.

 

LOVEMORE, Tarryn Shirley, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Integrating music and mathematics for connecting across multiple constructs of fractional understanding: An RME task design journey.
Supervisor: Dr S-A Robertson. Co-supervisor: Professor M Graven.

This participatory dual-design experiment in task design involved integrating music into the teaching of primary school mathematics through designing and trialling tasks aimed at supporting learners’ flexible movement across different constructs of fractions. The research sought to make both a methodological and a pedagogical contribution to our knowledge of how an integrated approach to education can generate positive learning experiences for both learners and teachers. Teachers participating in the task-trialling aspect of the research reported a strengthening of their learners’ fractional problem-solving abilities.

 

SIMASIKU, Fredrick Simataa, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Leveraging a peer-learning community and expert community members in the integration of indigenous knowledge into the learning and teaching of Grade 10 Chemistry on the rate of reactions:
Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisor: Dr Z Nhase (UFS).

Contradictions in science curriculum transformation in Namibia are exacerbated by the disjuncture between the intended and the enacted curriculum. To address this, this qualitative case study used a bottom-up approach and mobilised the indigenous technologies of preserving and pounding Mahangu and making Oshikundu to mediate learning of rate of reactions. The main finding revealed that leveraging a peer-learning community and expert community members empowered the Grade 10 Chemistry teacher participants to become cultural knowledge brokers and both their content and pedagogical content knowledge improved. This study makes a significant contribution to the current debates on revitalisation and bottom-up decontextualisation of the science curriculum.

 

2022

AUSIKU, Charity Makwiliro, HEDip (Education) (Namibia), BEdHons, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The role of visualisation in redefining the pedagogy of fractions in mathematics classrooms among senior primary school teachers. Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

At the heart of this doctoral work was the Rundu Campus Fraction Project in Namibia. This project aimed to redefine and transform the way in which Fractions is taught. Conventional pedagogy in the region uses a very procedural and technical approach to understanding and manipulating fractions. Over a period of one year, the participating educators explored various fraction manipulatives and mediums and their visual properties, to develop new teaching methods. Charity found that the participants all, to a varied extent, incorporated visualisation processes, and that the Rundu Campus Fraction Project therefore had a positive impact on their teaching strategies.

CONDE ALLER, Laura, HNDip (Greenwhich), BA (Brighton), MSc (Brighton), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Human Development, the Capability Approach and the Mediating of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A case study of women’s empowerment through expansive learning in the Mzimvubu Catchment of the Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Women play a key role in household food production and ecosystems management in South Africa. Through an expansive learning process, Laura worked with women in the Lutengele Villages in the uMzimvubu Catchment in South Africa, to expand their livelihood and well-being aspirations. This process, lasting several years, transformed power relations, cognitive gains, and practical gains. It offers new approaches to engaged research that enable women to exercise their freedoms and agency to aspire and to be, do and live the life that they have reason to value.

HIESTERMANN, Michelle, NDip (Nature Conservation) (NMMU), BTech (NMMU), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Mentoring as social learning value creation in two South African environmental organisations: a social realist analysis. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor L Olvitt.

South Africa needs strong environmental leaders, and meaningful work for its youth. In this thesis Michelle set out to understand and evaluate mentoring of young professionals in ‘Groen Sebenza’, a national programme for creating youth employment in the environmental sector. The study offers a robust theoretical foundation for mentoring, and insight into the factors that either enable or constrain value creation through mentoring.  Importantly, Michelle shows how mentoring, when well constituted, can create valuable social learning trajectories for unemployed youth in South Africa.

KANGWA, Lemmy, MEd (Zambia), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The incorporation of GeoGebra as a visualisation tool to teach calculus in teacher education institutions: the Zambian case. Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

This doctoral work centred on an intervention in three teacher education institutions in Zambia. The aim of the study was to interrogate how the inherent visualisation characteristics of computer technology (in this case GeoGebra) can be harnessed to teach Calculus. Lemmy found that the visualisation characteristics of GeoGebra enhanced conceptual understanding of calculus; it also enabled a rich and versatile pedagogy amongst the participating lecturers. However, the study also revealed the urgent need for appropriate teacher education, in the complex processes of interweaving ICT technology into a teaching environment that is often poorly resourced.

LIVEVE, Angelius Kanyanga, BTech (TUT), Dip (Namibia), BEdHons (UNISA), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Revitalisation and indigenisation of the science curriculum through drum making, drumming, music, and dance. Supervisor: Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisor: Dr Z Nhase (UFS).

The integration of Indigenous Knowledge into school curricula is now encouraged in many postcolonial states. In Namibia, the national curriculum promotes the integration of IK into Science teaching; but is silent on how to do this. Using socio-cultural theory, indigenous research methodologies and an Ubuntu perspective, the scholar explored revitalising and indigenising aspects of high school science, through drum making, drumming and dance. The scholar found that story-telling made science concepts more accessible and relevant to learners, while tapping into community members’ cultural heritage, also gave them a voice. This study makes a significant contribution to debates on decoloniality, social justice and Science Education.

 

NGCOBO, Nomathemba Faustinah, MEd (UJ), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The uptake of Educational Technology in South African Higher Education: A study of the context that conditioned emergency remote teaching in the pandemic. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna. Co-supervisor: Professor M Harran (NMU).

In 2020 universities had to change to emergency remote online teaching, placing enormous pressure on educational technologists around the country. Noma’s study provides the only in-depth, national level analysis on the use of technology in the South African higher education sector to date. Her findings revealed not only issues of bandwidth and lack of access to hardware, but also the extent to which both students and academics were not technologically literate. Adding to this problem was the observation that many of the edtech staff in universities had little pedagogical expertise, and saw online teaching as a matter of simply putting information online. The study found that collaborations between universities was key to being able to make the rapid pivot online to continue the academic programme during the pandemic.

THONDHLANA, Mazvita Mollin, BAHons (Midlands), MA (UFH), PGCert (Education) (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis:
The Nexus between Community Engagement and Academic Language Development. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna. Co-supervisor: Dr SA Paphitis.

Community engagement is a central part of higher education and an area in which Rhodes University excels. Mazvita’s research focussed on an often-overlooked aspect of community engagement; that of language. She found that whereas English is the dominant language of the classroom and assignments, community engagement activities provide students with a rich site of multilingualism and translanguaging which was for many of them, very empowering. The research demonstrated that this multilingual space challenged the language power dynamics of the classroom, and allowed for the testing out of academic ideas, in the nexus between community engagement and academic language development.

 

JAMES, Anna Katharine, MSc (UCT), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The transformative potential of intersecting with arts-based inquiry and environmental learning in urban South Africa: A focus on socio-ecological water pedagogies. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Water education in South Africa fails children by relaying simplistic messages that lack adequate reality congruence.  In this thesis Anna investigates the transformative power of arts-based water pedagogies.  With the craftmanship of responsive inquiry, she co-develops creative arts-based water pedagogies with children and teachers across the unequal urban landscape of Cape Town.  Her study reveals an embodied, experienced complexity of water politics and practice. It produces enriching eco-pedagogies for water education that are based on creative expression through multiple mediums. 

MOTSHOANE, Puleng Lorraine, MEd (Computer based Education) (UJ), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The mechanisms conditioning doctoral supervision development in public universities across South Africa. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna.

Puleng’s large-scale study across the South African university sector found that many academics are thrown in the deep end when it comes to postgraduate supervision. The survey and interview data was analysed using the lenses of social realism and analytical dualism. Puleng found that where supervision development opportunities exist they are often focused on institutional compliance rather than on building relationships with students or responsibility for the knowledge project. Furthermore, such workshops and courses are often offered by people with very little personal supervision experience. The study calls for ongoing, collegial development opportunities.

VALLABH, Priya, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Towards the Common Good: An Expansive Post-Abyssal (Re)stor(y)ing of the Epistemic Cultures of the Citizen Sciences. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor I Schudel.

Citizen science is vital for public response to environmental risk.  Yet only certain types of knowledge are included in citizen science.  In this thesis Priya investigates how knowledge hegemony is created and perpetuated.  Informed by extensive critical analysis of knowledge cultures, and investigation into absences in citizen science literatures, Priya tests possibilities for broadening knowledge inclusion in citizen science.  The thesis offers a substantive re-framing or re-storying of citizen science knowledge(s), offering inclusive and regenerative possibilities for citizen science collaborations.

 

VILAKAZI, Bella Phetheni, MEd (Computer based Education) (UJ), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by  thesis. Thesis: An epistemic justice account of students' experiences of feedback. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna.

Bella’s PhD shares the stories of five young women making their way through university. Using the theories of Parity of Participation and Epistemic Justice, the study shows that when students get feedback on assignments and exams, they are being shown how to make knowledge. When such feedback is missing or unclear, students are excluded from powerful knowledge. And when feedback is focused on superficial issues or fails to recognize students’ understandings, this is a form of injustice. This study offers insights into how to provide feedback for equitable participation in learning.

 

2021

AGUNBIADE, Arinola Esther, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring learners’ evolving proficiency in stoichiometry and attitude towards science through process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) intervention. Supervisor: Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisor: Mrs J Sewry. 

Stoichiometry is one of the difficult topics in the senior secondary school chemistry curriculum. Problem-solving skills are critical in stoichiometry. Informed by socio-cultural theory, the goal of Agunbiade’s study was to explore learners’ evolving proficiency in stoichiometry and attitudes towards science as a result of their participation in Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) activities. The findings and valuable contributions of the study revealed that learners showed increased proficiency in stoichiometry and attitudes towards science after the intervention using POGIL.

 

BROWNING, Leanne Elizabeth, MEd (UKZN), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis:  Constraints and enablements on quality improvement in higher education. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna.

This study examined the structural, cultural and agential constraints and enablements on a quality process at a university in South Africa. The data analysis revealed that different departmental contexts impact on how mechanisms are activated: so one policy and set of processes can play out quite differently in different departments. This research adds to the understanding of the way in which quality processes take place at a micro-level within an institutional context and informs the approach to quality improvement more broadly, nationally and internationally. The research contributes to the knowledge that will inform planning, policies and practices in quality improvement processes in higher education and the findings identify a number of factors (mechanisms) that should inform the way in which a quality process is facilitated, will enable effective self-evaluation and review processes, and consequently are more likely to lead to quality improvement.

 

BURT, Jane Caroline, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by publication. Publication: Cognitive justice and environmental learning in South African social movements. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisors: Dr L Price and Professor CG Palmer.

Daily communities across South Africa are confronted with water justice issues. Drinking water is polluted, and water supplies fail the most vulnerable. Through co-researching three iterations of a participatory changing practice course with water activists, Jane developed an approach to social movement learning that gives careful attention to cognitive justice while practically also advancing water justice. Her study constitutes social movement learning as multileveled care work, involving care for individual psychologies, relations with others, and relations with the planet.

 

DEEPAK MAVANI, Beena, BSc, BEd, MA (Computer App) (Kerala), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A critical analysis of how the potential of Dynamic Geometry Software as a visualisation tool may enhance the teaching of Mathematics.  Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

This doctoral work showed that in order to harness the inherent visual capacity of computer technology such as GeoGebra applets in teaching mathematics, teachers need to make use of skill sets that they are not necessarily accustomed to and trained for. The integration of technology into teacher practice not only poses challenges of a technical nature but also of a pedagogical and epistemological nature. It is against this backdrop, and in the context of an activity-based constructivist teacher intervention programme in a rural and impoverished environment, that this work interrogated how self- and co-developed GeoGebra applets can optimally be used as visualization tools to develop conceptual understanding of selected Euclidean geometry theorems. The significance of this study lies in understanding the complexities of interweaving ICT technology into a teaching environment that is under-resourced and unsupported.

 

DIRWAI, Crispen, Cert. (Education), BEd, in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring social learning within the context of community-based farming: Implications for farmers' agency and capabilities. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. 

Climate change is placing smallholder farmers livelihoods at risk.  Through a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder social learning process involving crop and non-crop farmers in Zimbabwe, Crispin’s research reveals how farmers were able to mobilise their agency and capabilities for significant climate change adaptations through co-learning over time. This study shows that social learning oriented towards farmers valued beings and doings can enable smallholder farmers to absent hunger through producing healthy, organic foods for their communities, and commercialise some of their produce.

 

HEATH, Gavin Edward Craig, MCRP (UCT), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Catchment and River Management in Graduate Teacher Education: A case study of student teacher learning and teaching in the Upper uThukela Valley, KwaZulu-Natal. Supervisor: Professor RB O’Donoghue.

 

HOKONYA, Wellington Munetsi, Dip (Education) (Zimbabwe), MEd (Zimbabwe), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An exploration of the mathematical learner identities of high school learners who participated in after school mathematics clubs in primary school. Supervisor: Dr P Vale. Co-supervisor: Professor M Graven.

Dr Hokonya explored the mathematical learner identities of high school learners who participated in after-school mathematics clubs during primary school through analysing written and spoken narratives of their school mathematics stories. The analysis revealed that the learners’ mathematical identities were heavily influenced by the values that were foregrounded in the after-school clubs – the learners’ narratives reflected resilience and hard work. The examiners commended Dr Hokonya on a well-conceived and well-developed study which constitutes an exemplary example of scholarly research.

 

JEFFERY, Thomas Carnegie, MA (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Museums for the Planet: Dialectical Critical Realism and the Possibility of an Eco-decolonial Museology. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Museums in South Africa have been constructed as either natural history museums or cultural history museums.  Challenging the persistence of this dualism that separates the social from the ecological, through philosophical analysis and two case studies of exhibition projects, Tom developed a philosophical framework for museum practice that enables an understanding of people as complex, social-ecological beings. It establishes a relational eco-decolonial framework for contemporary relevance and deep transformation of South African museum practice in times of climate change.

 

JULIUS, Lukas Homateni, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An Investigation of the academic practitioners' conceptual and pedagogical practices of academic literacy at three higher education institutional types in Namibia. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna. Co-supervisor: Professor E Mgqwashu. 

In order to address the difficulties that students experience in transitioning from school to higher education, many universities have developed so-called ‘academic literacy courses’. Namibia is no exception and in his PhD, Lukas tracked the ways in which these courses have been introduced in the three universities in Namibia. He analysed all documentation related to these courses, observed classes, and interviewed academics. These courses emerge from a deep commitment to students' success but sadly do not draw on theorised understandings of how students become knowledge creators and take on the discipline-specific literacy practices of their target fields. Instead, the study found that the courses focused on a generic skills approach to student development and understood language to comprise technical surface-level correctness.

 

LONG, Roxanne, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Investigating Grade R Teacher Institutional Identity Presented in Policy and Expressed Through Narrative in a Time of Transition. Supervisor: Professor M Graven. 

Long’s study investigated Grade R (reception year) teacher institutional identity presented in policy and expressed through teacher narratives. The study was conducted in the context of a major national policy transition that involved the physical and contextual shift of Grade R out of the Early Childhood Development sector and into the formal schooling sector. This study powerfully highlights the way in which this shift is accompanied by mixed policy messages, with implications for Grade R teachers’ institutional identities and learning trajectories across their landscapes of practice. 

 

MUKWAMBO, Robson, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Mediating and examining expansive learning in the context of multidimensional complexities affecting household food security activity systems in Nyanyadzi Irrigation Scheme in the Manicaland Province of
Zimbabwe. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

There are multidimensional complexities influencing household food security in southern Africa. As a third generation farmer, educator and scholar, Robson tackled multi-dimensional complexities affecting the communal Nyanyadzi Irrigation Scheme in Zimbabwe with farmers, trainers, extension officers and others. Using formative interventionist research and expansive learning approaches, his research enabled co-engaged boundary crossing learning to resolve contradictions affecting the irrigation scheme. The research offers important insights into the role of insider formative interventionist  researchers mediating learning in community contexts.

 

MUTANHO, Chrispen, BEdHons, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Indigenisation of the Science Curriculum at a Higher Education Institution: Affordances and Hindrances. Supervisor: Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisors: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka and Professor E Mavhunga (Wits).

Using Indigenous research methodologies and Cultural Historical Activity Theory, Mutanho’s study focused on the indigenisation of university’s science curriculum and henceforth approached ethics from an African perspective. Informed by principles of Ubuntu and using a bottom-up decolonization approach, the study tapped into the cultural heritage of the community members to take indigenous science from communities to universities. Key findings are that indigenisation of the science curriculum can promote dialogue between knowledges, revitalize cultural heritage, and make science more accessible and relevant to students. This ground-breaking study is opportune, given current debates on social justice, inclusivity, decolonization, Africanisation and curriculum transformation.

 

NKHAHLE, Lebona Jerome, BSc (Lesotho), PG Cert. (UFS), BEdHons (UCT), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Continuing teacher professional development in the Environment Sector: A case study of Fundisa for Change continuing teacher professional development programme. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Dr NZ Songqwaru.

Teachers in South Africa are faced with the challenge of teaching new environmental knowledge that was not part of their own schooling, education or training. Lebona studied the professional learning and teaching practices of teachers involved in the teaching of biodiversity knowledge in the Fundisa for Change programme in three provinces. The study offers valuable insight into how professional development translates into teaching practice, showing how teaching practices are interrelated in ecologies of practice, with implications for professional development programmes. 

 

NCUBE, Kevin, MSc (Hertfordshire), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: In Marketing, it’s either you have it or you don’t: A study of knowledge and knowers legitimated in the Marketing diploma curriculum in South Africa. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna.

This large-scale study investigated the Marketing diploma at 11 universities in South Africa. Using Legitimation Code Theory, Kevin analysed curriculum documents and interviews with 31 academics. He found that the curriculum had a weak epistemic spine drawing as it did from a wide number of disciplines and facing a varied world of work. Kevin makes a social justice argument about the need for conceptual coherence in the curriculum to ensure students attain access to powerful knowledge. He similarly raises social justice concerns about the extent to which participants felt that success in the world of Marketing required a particular kind of knower and yet cultivating this desired ‘knower disposition’ was not curriculated because there was a view that such attributes were simply inherent or absent in the individual.

 

VAN BOREK, Sarah, BMA (Emily Carr), MFA (UCT), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Climate for Changing Lenses: Reconciliation through Site-Specific, Media Arts-Based Environmental Education on the Water and Climate Change Nexus in South Africa and Canada. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

The ‘double problem’ of growing racialised global water crisis and demand for transforming higher education at institutions of ongoing settler colonialism is visible worldwide.  Using decolonial media arts-based praxis - including film making and soundscape recording with students in South Africa and Canada, Sarah developed and tested a relational model of university curriculum. The curriculum cultivated human and nonhuman relations towards reconciliation, while contributing to justice at the water-climate change nexus. The study offers a generative reframing of curricula towards decoloniality.

 

2020

CHIKIWA, Samukeliso, BEd (Midlands), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring pre-service teachers' reflective practice in the context of video-based lesson analysis. Supervisor: Professor M Graven.

Samu's research and findings contribute to the local and international field of mathematics teacher education that is searching for ways to effectively support mathematics pre-service teachers' development of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching through becoming reflective practitioners. Her findings indicate that effective reflection is not an innate skill. It requires structured and deliberate support to enable students to move beyond general descriptive reflections to analytic, dialogic reflections focused on mathematical aspects of teaching and learning and on the improvement of future practice. 

 

CHIMPOLOLO, Andrew, MA (Otago), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring learner attitudes and Mediation of heutagogical practices through the use of mobile technologies as learning tools: An intervention for a teacher training programme in Malawi. Supervisor: Professor L Dalvit.

The research focuses on how the use of ICTs, particularly mobile devices, can facilitate and engender new learning and teaching approaches among Malawian student-teachers through the development of heutagogical practices. This study contributes to scholarly understandings of the potential and challenges of digital technology in Education in an interesting but relatively under-researched context.  Of particular significance is its highlighting differences along gender, year of study and location of work in relation to expectations vs actual use of mobile technology to foster "learning how to learn" both during professional training and at work. One of his examiners commented that: “I have reviewed several doctoral theses that take a similar approach to research design, and this thesis is by far one of the methodologically sound and theoretically grounded, especially in the way that the interpretative approach is implemented ... the combination of the situational analysis with mixed methods and the design of an intervention produced a very comprehensive doctoral thesis that merits not only his degree but also its publication”.

 

DEEPAK MAVANI, Pravin, MSc (Kerala), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An analysis of how visualisation capabilities in dynamic geometric software develop meaning-making of mathematical concepts in selected Grade 11 learners. Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

This doctoral work showed that learning mathematics using computer technology is a complex process of interweaving ICT knowledge and mathematical content knowledge. The inherent visual nature of dynamic geometry software allowed the selected Grade 11 participants of this study to not only display and make visual complex geometry calculations but also manipulate intricate geometric relationships in the process of solving geometry problems. Against a backdrop of an activity-based and constructivist classroom environment, the researcher used screen-tracking software to observe and interrogate how his participants solved given mathematical problems. Notwithstanding the neglect of ICT support and resources in many South African schools, the significance of this study lies in interrogating the complex learning processes that take place when using ICT as a mathematising tool in the mathematics classroom.

 

DENUGA, Desalu Dedayo, MSc (Lagos), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An intervention on supporting teachers’ understanding of and mediation of learning of stoichiometry in selected schools in the Zambezi Region.  Supervisor: Professor KM Ngcoza. Co-supervisor: Mrs JD Sewry.

Using Participatory Action Research and Community of Practice approaches to professional development in his interventionist study, Denuga worked with 6 Grade 11 Chemistry teachers in three rural schools in the Zambezi Region in Namibia, with a view to improve understanding of and pedagogies in teaching stoichiometry. The study was informed by constructivism and TSPCK as lenses. The findings of the study revealed that this approach to continuing professional development improved the teachers’ self-efficacy, subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.

 

GUNZO, Fortunate Takawira, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Teachers’ perceptions, experiences and challenges related to using ICTs in teaching Social Sciences in marginalised classrooms in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Supervisor: Professor L Dalvit.

The promise that ICT would radically transform the education system and change the way we teach and learn has not yet materialised, particularly in marginalised contexts such as the ones this thesis focuses on. This study examined teacher’s perceptions and experiences of using ICTs in teaching Social Sciences in marginalised Eastern Cape classrooms. The study found that ICT availability in the schools does not necessarily entail ICT use in the classroom. Teachers had positive perceptions towards computers in general and thought they were easy to use in their personal lives but not their professional lives and that time constraints hampered ICT cross-curriculum integration. The study recommends that teachers should be capacitated to use technology already at their disposal and that the DBE should consider allocating space in the curriculum specifically to the use of ICT in the classrooms. One of the external examiners said the thesis is “Interesting and well-thought-out work, which provides useful insights on the adoption and use of ICTs in South African schools. The work is well written with the part describing the original work rather enjoyable to read". A second examiner commented that "The results highlight what the issues are and as such the DBE should take note of the findings when planning for teacher ICT professional development. The recommendations are vital. An aspect that shines through is the candidate’s passion for ICT utilization that transcends the instructivist-behaviouristic tradition".

 

KULUNDU-BOLUS, Injairu Magdalene, BA, PGDip (International Studies), MA (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Not Yet Uhuru! Attuning to, re-imagining and regenerating transgressive decolonial pedagogical praxis across times. Khapa (ring) the rising cultures of change drivers in contemporary South Africa. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Too often young people in Africa are perceived from the vantage point of what they are not, rather than what they are.  Co-conspiring with 21 young Change Drivers and their rising cultures through art-based inquiries, Injairu articulates who Africa’s youth are in this present moment as they grapple towards decolonial futures.  Through attuning to young people’s longings for regenerative futures, the study offers audacious insights into decolonial pedagogical praxis in ways that significantly advance youth studies in Africa.

 

MADONDO, Nkosinathi Emmanuel, MEd (UKZN), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: On locating the experiences of students from rural areas in higher education in the field of science. Supervisor: Professor EM Mgqwashu.

This study was designed to investigate the experiences of Second Year Science students who come from rural backgrounds within a Higher Education context. The purpose of the study was to understand the enabling and/or constraining factors that influence the teaching and learning of Second Year Science students who come from rural contexts. Archer’s (1995, 1996) analytical dualism was used as the analytical framework to identify the interplay of structural, cultural and agential mechanisms shaping the emergence of, and practices associated with students’ experiences of the science curriculum and academic teachers’ observations of these experiences. Findings show that when students are presented with knowledge that seems completely separate from their identities, their heritage, their backgrounds and value systems, accessing that knowledge can seem inordinately difficult. There is therefore a clear need to bring something ‘from home’ into our teaching as a means of reassuring students that all is not foreign and that what they already know is valuable.
Examiner’s comment: A critically essential study that is comprehensive, eloquent and engaging. The level of work and the argument presented with the evidence throughout the study is commendable. This research adds value to the field of student experiences, specifically in Science Education. Issues of culture, rurality, curriculum, power, agency and persons, lead to the discourse of the “decontextualized learner”; and the “decontextualized university”, provide the thesis for this study.

 

MPHAHLELE, Matee Martha, MBA (NWU), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Conceptualisations of and Responses to Plagiarism in the South African Higher Education System. Supervisor: Professor SM McKenna. Co-supervisor: Dr D Layton.

Plagiarism is the scourge of academia, a terrifying threat for students and a repetitional risk for institutions. And yet, as Amanda Mphahlele’s study shows, most universities approach the issue of plagiarism from a series of problematic assumptions which can actually increase the likelihood of it occurring. She analysed the plagiarism policies and processes at every South African university and interviewed a number of academics sitting on plagiarism committees. The use of punishment for even unintended incidents and the misuse of software for policing students were found to lead to confusion rather than reduction in incidents of plagiarism. Plagiarism was generally understood to always be an intentional act and prevention interventions comprised referencing skills workshops that took place outside of the discipline and had no bearing on knowledge production. 

 

MPHEPO, Gibson Yadunda Andrew, BSc (Agric) (Malawi), MSc (Swansea), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Informal learning in local farming practices by rural women in the Lake Chilwa Basin, Malawi: Towards coping and adaptation to climate variability and climate change. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisors: Professor S Shackleton (UCT) and Professor S Chiota (Malawi).

Africa’s food is grown by rural women.  Yet, their voices are seldom heard in advancing appropriate knowledges for food production in contexts already hard hit by climate change. Working in the drought afflicted Lake Chilwa Basin in Malawi with rural women, Gibson undertook generative research enabling expansive learning and transformative agency amongst groups of rural women. His research reveals how women’s experiential and indigenous knowledge can shift from the margins to the centre in climate change adaptation science and extension.

 

MUSARA, Ellison, MEd (Nipissing University), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A comparative study of conceptualizations and practices of inclusion as an aspect of social justice in three teacher education institutions in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe.  Supervisor: Professor JE Vorster. Co-supervisor: Professor C Grant.

This study compares understandings and practices related to inclusion as social justice in teacher education programmes in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism (1978) forms the meta-theoretical basis of this qualitative study, while Fraser’s normative theory of social justice (2008, 2009) and Tronto’s ethic of care (1993, 2013) are used to explore how teacher educators and teacher candidates in three faculties of education in different national locations understand and practice inclusion. The study found that inclusion is framed differently in educational policies and that it is understood in different ways by different people based on contrasting theoretical and ideological orientations in the three contexts. The study adds to knowledge about the ways in which inclusive education in the three countries is shaped by political, economic and cultural conditions.

 

NHASE, Zukiswa, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An exploration of how grade 3 foundation phase teachers develop basic scientific process skills using an inquiry-based approach in their classrooms. Supervisor: Professor KM Ngcoza. Co-supervisors: Ms S Murray and Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Using socio-cultural theory, Nhase’s qualitative case study explored how four Grade 3 Foundation Phase teachers, in South African school settings where resources are least favourable, developed basic scientific process skills using the inquiry-based approach.  Zarenskii’s six conditions and principles were used as lenses for analysis. The findings of the study revealed that regardless of their socio-cultural, political and economic context, inquiry-based approaches can promote scientific process skills in young learners, which is one of the valuable contributions of this study.

 

SONGQWARU, Nonyameko Zintle, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A theory-based approach to evaluating a continuing professional development programme aimed at strengthening environment and sustainability education. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.  Co-supervisor: Professor I Schudel.

One of the examiners noted:  "This research adds value to the field in terms of the design and implementation, of an Environmental Education programme that worked for change among participants in the Teacher Professional Development sector.  The literature is extensive and the new knowledge generated certainly adds a depth and newness to the rationale, integrity and rigour required when designing a professional development programme and for why the inclusion of the facets should be considered in Teacher education.  The student and the supervisors are congratulated on an excellently, methodically executed research thesis."

 

2019

ARMSTRONG, Meredith Tamar Alexandra, MA (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Learning to learn: a critical realist exploration into the home established learning practices of a marginalised community in Port Elizabeth. Supervisor: Dr CM Boughey.

Preparation and support for schooling in the home have long been recognized as critical for long term success in education.  This study involved Meredith spending time in a marginalized community in Port Elizabeth on a daily basis in order to explore the way caregivers and children went about learning to learn.  The study provides detailed insights on the way poverty impacts on language and literacy development and works to thwart the desires of caregivers who want nothing but the best for children.

 

BELL, Caroline Margaret, BScHons (UKZN), MSc (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Understanding the learning that occurs through up-skilling opportunities and practices in the marine sector of South Africa.  Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

One of the major environmental problems facing humanity is ocean degradation. Caroline’s study addresses the much-neglected area of upskilling of Marine Science and Management professionals in South Africa. The study provides an in-depth understanding of the complex nature of upskilling practices of marine professionals and shows that there is a need for giving attention to the intersection of learning, specialisation, and sector community building in upskilling practices. Importantly, the study shows that marine environmental conditions themselves significantly shape upskilling processes. 

 

CHINGANGA, Percy, MA (Zimbabwe), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Expanding learning in clergy leadership formation in an Anglican Church province in Southern Africa: a critical realist study. Supervisor: Professor Emeritus H van der Mescht.

This study probed the contested terrain of leadership formation in the Anglican Church of South Africa. Drawing on activity theory and critical realism, the study found that the various bodies involved in leadership formation in the church could work towards a shared understanding of the leadership project through expansive learning. The study concludes by proposing a model to this effect.

 

DONGWI, Beata Lididimikeni, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Examining mathematical reasoning through enacted visualisation. Supervisor: Professor M Schäfer.

This doctoral work showed that reasoning and visualization are thinking processes that are inextricably linked when solving mathematical problems. Using the theory of enactivism, this work was able to show how reasoning and visualization co-emerged as embodied processes that selected Grade 11 learners employed when solving geometry word problems.  The significance of this study lies in interrogating the much-neglected learning process of using visualization as a strategic problem-solving strategy in mathematics.

 

HLATSHWAYO, Mlamuli Nkosingphile, MSocSci (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: ‘I want them to be confident, to build an argument’: an exploration of knowledge and knower structures in Political Studies. Supervisor: Professor SM McKenna. Co-supervisor: Dr AI Hlengwa.

Calls for decolonisation echo loudest in university corridors. This study uses an investigation of the field of Political Studies to show that central to curriculum decolonisation are issues of both what knowledge is legitimated and the extent to which students are expected to become particular kinds of knowers. Findings uncover ways in which the development of a critical gaze was required in this field and the study demonstrates tools for ensuring that all curricula are inclusive, open and socially just.

 

JALASI, Experencia Madalitso, MA (Malawi), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Investigating and expanding learning across activity system boundaries in improved cookstove innovation, diffusion and adoption in Malawi. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor RB O’Donoghue.

Over 2 million low energy cookstoves have been distributed to communities in Malawi to address climate change challenges. Few have given attention to how this socio-technical innovation aligns with local cultures of cooking practice. Experencia, through a three-year transformative learning process, engaged women, NGO distributors and government officials in addressing this issue. The study is a world-first, as it centres on concerns of the rural women who use these stoves. Importantly, it shows their agency for driving change. 

 

MASUKU, Lynette Sibongile, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A post-colonial exploration of socio-cultural intergenerational learning through cattle as a medium of cultural expression in Mpembeni, KwaZulu-Natal. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

Too many children in South Africa fail to progress beyond the first years of schooling. With this as a central problem, Sibongile investigated local cultures of children, with emphasis on their sophisticated knowledge of cattle. Seeing this as an important medium of cultural expression, she develops a strong argument for post-colonial approaches to teaching and learning in education. Her work provides a leading African study in respecting the knowledge of young children as a foundation for early learning and curriculum development.

 

MATAKA, Tawanda Wallace, Dip (Education), BA (Zimbabwe), BEdHons, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Reading to learn for secondary schooling: an interventionist action research study within a South African under-privileged setting. Supervisor: Professor EM Mgqwashu.

 

MURPHY, Mary, BA (Ulster), MA (Wits), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Responding to iconic images of risk through reflexive and narrative enquiry represented in a stratified text for Environmental Education readers. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

We are all faced with the complexity of dealing with mixed messages about the environmental risk presented via the media. In this study, Mary considers the complexity and contradictions in multi-media messages and how they influence our agency for change. Reflecting on her own experiences in addressing conflicting signals embedded in many environmental media texts, she develops a transformative learning approach using the semiotics of storytelling for communicating complex environmental concerns in environmental education. The thesis itself offers such a story. 

 

MUTHAMA, Evelyn Loko, MEd (UCT), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Conditions constraining and enabling research production in Historically Black Universities in South Africa. Supervisor: Professor SM McKenna.

The national university funding formula greatly rewards research output but fails to consider how the histories of our institutions continue to have effects. This study, as part of a larger project on institutional differentiation, analysed data from all seven historically black universities and identified how both university contexts and neoliberal forces in the so-called knowledge economy affect research production. The study also identified that financial incentives for research production can limit our conceptions of research and result in unintended consequences.

 

MYERS, Lyndrianne Peta, PGDHE, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A social realist account of constraints and enablements navigated by South African students during the four-year professional accounting programme at Rhodes University, South Africa. Supervisor: Professor JE Vorster. Co-supervisor: Ms J Reynolds.

The four-year Accounting programme is the gateway to becoming a chartered accountant. Worryingly, too few black candidates complete this programme successfully. The findings of this social realist study into mechanisms that help and hinder student success offer practitioners and policy-makers insight into the struggles of some Accounting students with the language, practices and ways of being required for success; and that make it difficult, especially for black students from poor backgrounds, to take advantage of learning opportunities available to them.

 

NDJENDJA, Elizabeth, BSc, PG Dip (Education) (Namibia), MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Investigating mathematical proficiency testing in Namibian school high stakes Mathematics examinations: an exploratory study. Supervisor: Professor B Brown.

This exploratory study investigated possible adaptations of Namibian high stakes mathematics examinations, to allow assessment of mathematical proficiency beyond predominantly factual recall and procedural skill. Adapted marking rubrics incorporating proficiency and relational complexity yielded insight into learner proficiency and current examination design. Remarked results correlated with original attainment, but showed proficiency variations within-grade groupings. The lack of questions requiring the presentation of mathematical reasoning and organization was a feature of current examinations that constrained the full assessment of proficiency.

 

NGHIKEFELWA, Josephine Mwasheka, MA (Namibia), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An investigation into the mediation of the representation of gender roles in God of women: a critical discourse analysis of pedagogic practices in selected Namibian schools. Supervisor: Professor EM Mgqwashu.

An investigation into the mediation of the representations of gender roles in God of Women: a critical discourse analysis of pedagogic practices in selected Namibian schools.  The study used Feminism and Critical Discourse Analysis to explore the role of pedagogical practices in the mediation of stereotypical gender representations in God of Women, a literary set-work for Grade 9 ESL learners in Namibian secondary schools. How teachers’ pedagogic practices shape learners’ understanding of gender representation through classroom discourse was the study’s focus. Teachers focused more on the form than the content.  There was an absence of discussion on gender stereotypes in the text.  Learners maintained the traditional gender roles as endorsed by their teachers. 

 

NZWALA, Kenneth Jakobo, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Examination of teacher mediation and its impact on foundational reading skills in Grade-R classrooms in Namibia. Supervisor: Dr GD Harrison. Co-supervisor: Professor EM Mgqwashu.

Given the Namibian literacy quagmire among learners in all grades, this study used Vygotsky’s theory to explore how children learn through teacher mediation of foundational literacies in Grade R classrooms. The study revealed that teachers lacked an understanding of emergent literacies and could not effectively mediate learners’ foundational literacies in Grade R. This resulted in teachers implementing the Grade R literacy curriculum in a rather schoolified manner, leading to the perpetuation of low literacy levels in the country.

 

PESANAYI, Victor Tichaona, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Boundary-crossing expansive learning across agricultural learning systems and networks in Southern Africa. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisors: Professor RB O’Donoghue and Professor A Wals (Wageningen University).

African communities have been disconnected from land, and from traditional agro-ecological practices including seed saving and water harvesting. In this study, Tichaona recovers African cultures of agriculture. Working generatively with agricultural colleges and farmers in South Africa and Zimbabwe he re-centres the smallholder farmer in agricultural education and learning systems. His expansive, boundary-crossing learning network approach to transformative learning in agricultural learning systems offers a new model for agricultural education and training in Africa with significant theoretical and practical implications. 

 

REID, Gillian Janet, MEd (UKZN), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by Thesis. Thesis: Shifting contexts, shifting identities: a realist exploration of transnational mobility, change and identity construction in South African higher education expatriates in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Supervisor: Dr CM Boughey.

This study examines the identity shifts experienced by a group of academics who left South Africa for jobs in Abu Dhabi because of changes to the higher education system here that impacted on their sense of themselves as academics. Unfortunately, the move left them confronting many of the same conditions they had fled with the result that participants ultimately experienced an even greater loss of academic identity than in their home country.

 

2018

GIQWA, Nomfundiso Louisa, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis: Thesis: Waste management knowledge, its production, recontextualisation and circulation in Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) training programmes. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

There are very few studies that provide insight into workers’ knowledge in South Africa. Nomfundiso’s study investigated how waste management knowledge is produced and how it translates into workers’ training on waste management in the Expanded Public Works Programme in South Africa. The study identified that waste management researchers, policymakers and trainers generally don’t take account of workers’ prior knowledge of waste management. The study recommends approaches that can recognise workers' knowledge in EPWP training programmes to improve learning.

 

KAJEE, Farhana Amod, MEd (UKZN), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Knowledge and knowers in Educational Leadership and Management (ELM) Master’s programmes in South Africa. Supervisor: Professor H van der Mescht. Co-supervisor: Professor C Grant.

Responding to national concerns as well as perceived weaknesses in the field of Educational Leadership and Management, this study used Legitimation Code Theory to surface serious discrepancies in terms of both knowledge and knowers across Master’s programmes offered by six South African universities. The study concluded that weak programmes’ most significant weakness lay in envisaging students as knowers who were professionally proficient but critically weak, thereby perpetuating the legacy of an impoverished and socially unjust education.   

 

MAGADLA, Noluthando, MEd (WSU), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An investigation of the teaching of reading in isiXhosa in three Grade 1 classrooms in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Supervisor: Professor E Mgqwashu.

Using a Systemic Functional Linguistics lens, this study investigated the teaching of isiXhosa reading in three Grade 1 classrooms in the Mt Frere District of the Eastern Cape. The two participants were Grade 1 teachers in a rural, township and ex Model-C school. Classroom observations, unstructured interviews and documentary evidence were used as research methods. The findings revealed a correlation between home literacies in isiXhosa and the development of reading in isiXhosa for all learners. 

 

MAWELA, Rethabile Rejoice, MEd (Solusi), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Using reading to learn Pedagogy to enhance the English First Additional Language Teachers’ classroom practice. Supervisor: Professor E Mgqwashu.

As a literacy intervention, this study used Reading to Learn pedagogy t develop teachers’ pedagogical practices in the teaching of English First Additional Language. Eight English First Additional Language teachers at six rural schools near Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province participated in the study. The findings revealed that Reading to Learn pedagogy enhanced teachers’ classroom practice by expanding their content knowledge and developing their pedagogical practices. Furthermore, it enhanced their learners’ critical reading skills and writing abilities.

 

MOYO, Mtheto Temwa, MCom (Zululand), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An analysis of the implementation of the teaching development grant in the South African Higher Education Sector. Supervisor: Professor S McKenna. Co-supervisor: Professor C Ndebele (Sefako Makgatho University).

Over R5 billion has been spent on the Teaching Development Grant to address poor graduation rates in universities. This study analyzed over 300 reports on the grant. While there were some success stories, the lack of strategic planning and the reliance on untheorized approaches to teaching and learning undermined the use of the grant. The historical legacies of our universities also meant that institutions with the lowest success rates were the least likely to have the capacity to spend it.

 

MTOMBENI, Thabile Nokuthula, MEd (UKZN), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning.  Degree by thesis. Thesis: Knowledge practices and student access and success in general Chemistry at a large South African university. Supervisor: Professor J Vorster.

General Chemistry is compulsory for many degree programmes in the natural sciences. However, there is ample evidence that success in this subject remains a major challenge, particularly for black students. Using Legitimation Code Theory, the study makes visible the principles that shape the General Chemistry curriculum in one university and points to how changes to the structure of the curriculum could make it possible for more students to gain access to the knowledge of the field of Chemistry more broadly.

 

MUTAAYA, Sirajee Abu-Baker, (Makerere), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Decentralization and quality assurance in the Ugandan primary education sector. Supervisor: Dr C Smith (UJ).

This case study explored how school monitoring and evaluation informs policymaking in Uganda’s decentralised education sector. The study adopted Critical Realists assumptions. Interviews were conducted with school personnel, members of government, and school district and education ministry officials. On-site observations and document analysis complemented the interviews. The findings indicate that although monitoring and evaluation processes are in place, decentralisation has resulted in an ambiguous quality assurance policy environment that poses a risk to the primary education sector.

 

NUDELMAN, Gabrielle Reeve, MA (UCT), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning.  Degree by thesis. Thesis: A social realist study of employability development in engineering education. Supervisor: Professor LE Quinn. Co-supervisor: Professor J Vorster.

A key purpose of an engineering degree is to prepare students for the workplace. However, the findings of this study, which critically examined two courses specifically aimed at this purpose, show that, contrary to commonsense understandings, the acquisition of discreet workplace skills does not improve employability. An engineering degree needs to provide authentic learning opportunities that promote real-life application of knowledge, understanding of the roles of engineers and most importantly, opportunities for students to take on the identities of engineers.

 

RAMADHAN, Maryam Khamis, MEd (Dar es Salaam), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A critical analysis of the establishment, conceptualisation, design and curriculum component selection of Master of Education programmes at selected Tanzanian universities. Supervisor: Professor PD Wilmot. Co-supervisor: Professor B Brown.

This study responds to the need for quality teacher education in Tanzania. Using Bernsteinian and Critical Realist lenses, Maryam undertook an in-depth critical analysis of the way in which the curricula of two Master of Education degrees for teacher educators were developed and implemented at two universities. She uncovered, identified and explained factors enabling and/or constraining quality in the programmes. The findings are relevant and useful for the quality assurance boy of Tanzanian higher education and the two universities.

 

ROBERTSON, Sally-Ann, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The place of language in supporting children’s Mathematical development: Two Grade 4 teachers’ use of classroom talk. Supervisor: Professor M Graven.

This study illuminates the linguistic challenges to second language children’s learning of school mathematics. It describes the challenges teacher face in covering the curriculum, while simultaneously inducting learners into mathematical discourse. It highlights the need for proactive challenging of English as a language of learning and teaching as an obvious route to educational and economic opportunity. Furthermore, it counterbalances deficit discourses implicating teachers as a major contributor to South Africa’s poor mathematics performance.

 

SAULS, Gideon George, MPhil (UPE), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The national skills fund and green skills: Towards a generative mechanism approach. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka.

The field of educational grantmaking is an under-researched area in South Africa. In this study, Gideon undertook an in-depth, critical analysis of the National Skills Fund and its responsiveness to the rapidly emerging demand for green skills and sustainable development in South Africa. The study identified key mechanisms influencing grantmaking in the National Skills Fund. It recommended strategic approaches that inform a more pro-active approach to aligning the National Skills Fund grantmaking function with sustainable development goals in South Africa.

 

SHILONGO, Erica, MEd (UMEÂ), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Factors that shape learner achievement in socially disadvantaged and rural contexts: A social realist study in two rural senior secondary schools in Omusati region, Namibia. Supervisor: Professor E Mgqwashu.                    

Using a Social Realist Lens, this study used survey questionnaires, unstructured interviews, documentary evidence, classroom observations and field notes to understand the factors that shaped learner performance in the Omusati region of Namibia. The research participants were teachers, 12 learners and their parents/guardians. The findings revealed that learners constantly navigate their socio-economic conditions and succeed academically.

 

VAN STADEN, Wilma, MSc (North-West), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A review of climate-smart system innovations in two agricultural colleges in the North West Province of South Africa. Supervisor: Distinguished Professor H Lotz-Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor R O’Donoghue.

The Agricultural sector in South Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change. Yet there is little curriculum innovation for Climate Smart Agriculture taking place in South Africa’s Agricultural Colleges. In this study, Wilma collaboratively developed a curriculum innovation review tool informing integration of Climate Smart Agriculture in SA’s agricultural colleges. Working intensively with two colleges in the North West province, the study shows that the curriculum review tool can pro-actively support the integration of Climate Smart Agriculture into Agricultural College curricula.

 

2017

BALOI, Aristides Manuel De Estevao, MSc (Kharhov), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring transformative social learning and sustainability in community based irrigation scheme contexts in Mozambique. Supervisor: Professor H Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor R O'Donoghue.

Aristide’s PhD focuses on transformative social learning in community-based irrigation scheme development in Mozambique.  Engaging with farmers, trainers, and market system actors in two sites over a three year period, Aristides examined how farmers’ learning of associative irrigation scheme practices can be expanded via co-engaged research and learning processes. The study offers a new model of transformative social learning which contributes to post-colonial curriculum transformation, and to the improvement of agricultural livelihoods, well-being and sustainability amongst farmers moving out of poverty.

 

CHIDINDI, Joseph, MPhil (Oslo), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Discursive constructions of quality assurance: The case of the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education.  Supervisor:Professor SM McKenna.

Quality assurance processes have become commonplace for universities around the world. Joseph Chidindi’s thesis analysed the implementation of the Zimbabwean Council on Higher Education’s quality reviews. The study found that quality enhancement was constrained when excellence is seen to mean the same thing everywhere and where context isn’t taken into account. There were also power struggles between stakeholders within and beyond the universities which led to superficial compliance with regulations and prevented the kinds of collegiality fundamental to quality enhancement.  

 

DE BIE, Gabrielle Jacqueline, MPhil (Stell), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Analysis of a foundational biomedical curriculum: Exploring cumulative knowledge-building in the rehabilitative health professions. Supervisor: Professor SM McKenna.

Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists have to be able to access complex knowledge about anatomy and physiology to develop interventions for their patients. Gabi De Bie’s study looked at the structure of knowledge in a biomedical curriculum to ask how it is that students develop cumulative knowledge practices whereby new understandings build on previous ones. She showed that if universities merge subjects without careful consideration of how each discipline produces knowledge, it can undermine the development of cumulative knowledge building processes.

 

KANGELA, Nyameka Constance, MScEng (Business Management) (Warwick), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A study of mathematics teacher identity as shaped through participation in a mathematics professional development programme. Supervisor: Professor M Schafer.

This ethnographic research study tracked five mathematics teachers as they participated in a teacher enrichment programme in Grahamstown.  The participating teachers’ growth was analysed by looking for evidence of how their professional identity grew by using Wenger’s theory of belonging.  The study found that as the teachers embraced the notion of belonging to a community of practice they were able to accumulate shared histories of learning and teaching which assisted them in moving to a designated identity that emphasized a conceptual teaching approach in mathematics.

 

KNOTT-CRAIG, Ian Duncan, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Am I my brother's keeper? Learner leadership development in a secondary school in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Supervisor: Professor H van der Mescht.

The development of learner leadership at schools in South Africa has received scant attention in research in the last two decades. Addressing this need, this study employs Cultural Historical Activity Theory as an interventionist and analytic framework. It records the personal and moral growth of a group of learner leaders over a period of three years. The study shows how transformative agency may be enabled through workshop activities framed by cultural-historical awareness. The research makes an important contribution to this under-researched field. 

 

MANDIKONZA, Caleb, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring change-orientated learning, competencies and agency in a Regional Teacher Professional development programme's change projects. Supervisor: Professor H Sisitka. Co-supervisor: Professor R O'Donoghue

Caleb’s PhD focuses on mediation processes that support teacher educators to integrate sustainability principles and practices into teacher education programmes. The study produced co-engaged, in-depth case studies of changing practice with teacher educators over a three year period in two SADC countries. It shows how change-oriented learning support for teacher educators shapes collective agency for curriculum and institutional transformation. The findings are already informing a UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development Teacher Education Initiative in 60 institutions in 9 SADC countries. 

 

MISTRI, Gitanjali Umesh, MEd (HEd) (Natal), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A social realist analysis of participation in academic professional development for the integration of digital technologies in Higher Education. Supervisor: Professor LE Quinn. Co-supervisor: Professor B Leibowitz (UJ).

Although digital technologies for teaching and learning are common in universities globally, the uptake of opportunities to learn how to use these technologies by academics is variable.  Using the Durban University of Technology as a case study, Gitanjali explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the professional development of academics for the integration of digital technologies in their teaching. Emerging from the study is the significance of disciplinary knowledge structures to explain academics’ responses to academic professional development for digital learning. 

 

MUKWAMBO, Muzwangowenyu, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Exploring and expanding situated cognition in teaching science concepts: The nexus of indigenous knowledge and Western modern science. Supervisor: Professor K Ngcoza. Co-supervisor: Dr C Chikunda.

Using Afrocentric methodologies and Cultural Historical Activity Theory, Mukwambo’s study explored the nexus between Indigenous Knowledge and Modern Western Science. It explored practical ways that IK can be integrated into Science classrooms in under-resourced rural schools in Namibia. The key finding is that the inclusion of IK in Science lessons has the potential to enable teachers to effectively contextualize Science and to make it accessible to learners. The study is opportune, given current debates about decolonization, Africanisation and curriculum transformation.

 

NKOMO, Sibhekinkosi Anna, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Institute for the Study of English in Africa. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An investigation into the effect of an extensive reading programme on bilingual Grade 3 learners' reading attitudes in two primary schools in Grahamstown. Supervisor: Professor M Hendricks. Co-supervisor: Dr MMbelani.

The focus of this study was the implementation and evaluation of a bilingual English-isiXhosa Extensive Reading Programme in two Grade 3 classes in Grahamstown. Extensive Reading entails access to a variety of appropriate reading materials and relaxed reading opportunities. Much research on measuring reading through speed, fluency and comprehension has resulted in the neglect of learners’ attitudes to reading. In a safe, informal context, where reading was a social activity, this study found that learners gained confidence, improved their self-esteem, read more books, and participated in book talks.

 

O'SHEA, Catherine Mary, MA (Rhodes), in Education, in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning. Degree by thesis. Thesis: Understanding the reading practices of Fort Hare students. Supervisor: Professor SM McKenna. Co-supervisor: Dr C Thomson.

Reading in the ways expected by universities has implications for identity. Cathy O’Shea’s thesis analysed how students at the University of Fort Hare grappled with these identity demands. A strong resistance to reading was identified, emerging from the idea that those who take on academic practices consider themselves superior to their classmates. Institutional identity was also a constraining factor. The study argues that academics can support access to powerful knowledge by understanding the relationship between academic practices and student identity. (80 words)

 

RAMSARUP, Presha, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: A critical realist dialectical understanding of learning pathways associated with two scarce skill environmental occupations within a transitioning systems frame. Supervisor: Professor H Sisitka.

Presha’s PhD offers the first in-depth, systemic and critical understanding of environmental occupations and their emergence via learning pathways in South Africa. Importantly, the study uncovers key gaps in the post-schooling skills development system that need to be addressed if South Africa is to develop the occupational learning pathways needed for inclusive, sustainable development. The study offers a new methodology for learning pathways research that is already being taken up at the national level to inform green work and learning pathway development. 

 

VALE, Pamela, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: An exploration of the prior conceptual understanding of measurement of first year national certificate (vocational) engineering students. Supervisor: Dr B Brown. Co-supervisor: Ms S Murray.

Mathematical learning is acknowledged as a great weakness in South African Technical and Vocational Education. This research examined the prior knowledge of measurement, of students beginning their College studies in Engineering. The research shows students possessed some conceptual embodied knowledge and some symbolic formal knowledge, at varying levels of stability, but that they struggled to bring them together effectively. The research identifies this weak link and provides important recommendations for schooling and college preparation in order to strengthen this relating.

 

WESTAWAY, Lise, MEd (Rhodes), in Education, in the Department of Education. Degree by thesis. Thesis: The emergence and expression of teachers' identities in teaching Foundation Phase Mathematics. Supervisor: Professor M Graven.

This thesis contributes to scholarship that explains foundation phase learners’ underperformance in mathematics. Drawing on rich empirical data and rigorous theoretical analysis, the thesis argues that by understanding teachers’ modes of reflexivity, which are inextricably linked to their identities, one can make sense of their classroom practice. The thesis breaks new ground in that it is the first internationally to explore the fundamental influence of teachers’ reflexivities on learner underperformance in mathematics. 

Last Modified: Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:30:57 SAST