Generic gold standard or contextualised public good? Teaching excellence awards in post-colonial South Africa
- Behari-Leak, Kasturi, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66774 , vital:28992 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1301910
- Description: Publisher version , Teaching Excellence Awards have raised the profile of teaching as a scholarly project. There are however a number of questions about what constitutes teaching excellence and how ‘excellence’ is understood in current higher education. In a post-colonial South Africa, where significant injustices permeate our society, we question whether excellence can be understood in a generic manner. Furthermore, we argue that as universities are a public good, teaching excellence needs to explicitly attend to the ways in which universities contribute to broad goals of transformation and inclusivity. We analysed data from the national Teaching Excellence Awards and 13 South African universities’ awards to interrogate the discourses that underpin ‘excellence’ in this context of social inequality. We found that while the awards have gone some way to enhancing the position of teaching in institutions, ‘excellence’ was largely articulated in fairly generic ways which failed to take into account the enablements and constraints of the discipline and the institution. Furthermore, the guidelines and criteria privilege a decontextualised notion of excellence that seeks a ‘gold standard’ and validates performativity, rather than a contextualised response to the needs of the students.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66774 , vital:28992 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1301910
- Description: Publisher version , Teaching Excellence Awards have raised the profile of teaching as a scholarly project. There are however a number of questions about what constitutes teaching excellence and how ‘excellence’ is understood in current higher education. In a post-colonial South Africa, where significant injustices permeate our society, we question whether excellence can be understood in a generic manner. Furthermore, we argue that as universities are a public good, teaching excellence needs to explicitly attend to the ways in which universities contribute to broad goals of transformation and inclusivity. We analysed data from the national Teaching Excellence Awards and 13 South African universities’ awards to interrogate the discourses that underpin ‘excellence’ in this context of social inequality. We found that while the awards have gone some way to enhancing the position of teaching in institutions, ‘excellence’ was largely articulated in fairly generic ways which failed to take into account the enablements and constraints of the discipline and the institution. Furthermore, the guidelines and criteria privilege a decontextualised notion of excellence that seeks a ‘gold standard’ and validates performativity, rather than a contextualised response to the needs of the students.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
Students’ navigation of the uncharted territories of academic writing
- Bharuthram, Sharita, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Bharuthram, Sharita , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187373 , vital:44626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2012.742651"
- Description: Many students enter tertiary education unfamiliar with the ‘norms and conventions’ of their disciplines. Research into academic literacies has shown that in order to succeed in their studies, students are expected to conform to these norms and conventions, which are often unrecognized or seen as ‘common sense’ by lecturers. Students have to develop their own ‘map’ of their programme’s expectations in order to make sense of the seemingly mysterious practices they are expected to take on. This study, undertaken at a University of Technology in South Africa, details students’ perceptions of their writing difficulties and their attempts to navigate their way through various writing tasks. The findings reveal that students experience a range of difficulties and that the students often feel unsupported in their travails with academic writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Bharuthram, Sharita , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187373 , vital:44626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2012.742651"
- Description: Many students enter tertiary education unfamiliar with the ‘norms and conventions’ of their disciplines. Research into academic literacies has shown that in order to succeed in their studies, students are expected to conform to these norms and conventions, which are often unrecognized or seen as ‘common sense’ by lecturers. Students have to develop their own ‘map’ of their programme’s expectations in order to make sense of the seemingly mysterious practices they are expected to take on. This study, undertaken at a University of Technology in South Africa, details students’ perceptions of their writing difficulties and their attempts to navigate their way through various writing tasks. The findings reveal that students experience a range of difficulties and that the students often feel unsupported in their travails with academic writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Possible futures for science and engineering education
- Blackie, Margaret, Le Roux, Kate, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Blackie, Margaret , Le Roux, Kate , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66796 , vital:28994 , ISSN 1573-174X , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9962-y
- Description: Publisher version , From Introduction: The understanding that the science, engineering, technology and mathematics disciplines (STEM) have a significant and directly causal role to play in economic productivity and innovation has driven an increased focus on these fields in higher education. Innovation in this context is a shorthand for the harnessing of the knowledge economy and the provision of products with novel significant ‘added value’. The assumption in both developed and developing economies alike is that STEM will drive national growth (World Bank 2002; UNESCO 2009), and this impacts on demands that universities provide competent graduates in sufficient numbers. However, exactly what ‘competency’ might mean in this context is open to debate.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Blackie, Margaret , Le Roux, Kate , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66796 , vital:28994 , ISSN 1573-174X , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9962-y
- Description: Publisher version , From Introduction: The understanding that the science, engineering, technology and mathematics disciplines (STEM) have a significant and directly causal role to play in economic productivity and innovation has driven an increased focus on these fields in higher education. Innovation in this context is a shorthand for the harnessing of the knowledge economy and the provision of products with novel significant ‘added value’. The assumption in both developed and developing economies alike is that STEM will drive national growth (World Bank 2002; UNESCO 2009), and this impacts on demands that universities provide competent graduates in sufficient numbers. However, exactly what ‘competency’ might mean in this context is open to debate.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
Analysing an audit cycle: a critical realist account
- Boughey, Chrissie, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66741 , vital:28988 , ISSN 1470-3300 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1072148
- Description: Pre-print , This paper reports on the use of a framework developed from Bhaskar's critical realism and Archer's social realism to analyse teaching- and learning-related data produced as a result of the first cycle of institutional audits in the South African higher education system. The use of the framework allows us to see what this cycle of audits did achieve, namely some change in structural systems related to teaching and learning alongside the appointment of key agents. It also allows us to see how the stagnation of sets of ideas about teaching and learning in the domain of culture may mean that an assurance of the quality of learning experiences for all students remained elusive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66741 , vital:28988 , ISSN 1470-3300 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1072148
- Description: Pre-print , This paper reports on the use of a framework developed from Bhaskar's critical realism and Archer's social realism to analyse teaching- and learning-related data produced as a result of the first cycle of institutional audits in the South African higher education system. The use of the framework allows us to see what this cycle of audits did achieve, namely some change in structural systems related to teaching and learning alongside the appointment of key agents. It also allows us to see how the stagnation of sets of ideas about teaching and learning in the domain of culture may mean that an assurance of the quality of learning experiences for all students remained elusive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Academic literacy and the decontextualised learner
- Boughey, Chrissie, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64651 , vital:28585 , http://www.DOI:10.14426/cristal.v4i2.80
- Description: The literacy practices that are valued in the university emerge from specific disciplinary histories yet students are often expected to master these as if they were common sense and natural. This article argues that the autonomous model of literacy, which sees language use as the application of a set of neutral skills, continues to dominate in South African universities. This model denies the extent to which taking on disciplinary literacy practices can be difficult and have implications for identity. It also allows disciplinary norms to remain largely opaque and beyond critique. Furthermore, the autonomous model of literacy is often coupled with a discourse of the ‘decontextualised learner’ who is divorced from her social context, with higher education success seen to be resting largely upon attributes inherent in, or lacking from, the individual. Sadly, alternative critical social understandings have not been widely taken up despite their being well researched. Indeed, such understandings have often been misappropriated in ways that draw on critical social terminology to offer autonomous, decontextualised, remedial student interventions. We argue that these issues are implicated in students’ accusations that universities are alienating spaces.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64651 , vital:28585 , http://www.DOI:10.14426/cristal.v4i2.80
- Description: The literacy practices that are valued in the university emerge from specific disciplinary histories yet students are often expected to master these as if they were common sense and natural. This article argues that the autonomous model of literacy, which sees language use as the application of a set of neutral skills, continues to dominate in South African universities. This model denies the extent to which taking on disciplinary literacy practices can be difficult and have implications for identity. It also allows disciplinary norms to remain largely opaque and beyond critique. Furthermore, the autonomous model of literacy is often coupled with a discourse of the ‘decontextualised learner’ who is divorced from her social context, with higher education success seen to be resting largely upon attributes inherent in, or lacking from, the individual. Sadly, alternative critical social understandings have not been widely taken up despite their being well researched. Indeed, such understandings have often been misappropriated in ways that draw on critical social terminology to offer autonomous, decontextualised, remedial student interventions. We argue that these issues are implicated in students’ accusations that universities are alienating spaces.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Going to university: the Influence of higher education on the lives of young South Africans
- Case, Jennifer M, Marshall, Delia, McKenna, Sioux, Mogashana, Disaapele
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Mogashana, Disaapele
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- Aims and objectives -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa College students -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Social aspects Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Economic aspects
- Language: English
- Type: e-book , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61134 , vital:27981 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=T-RMDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Mogashana, Disaapele
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- Aims and objectives -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa College students -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Social aspects Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Economic aspects
- Language: English
- Type: e-book , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61134 , vital:27981 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=T-RMDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2018
From contradictions to complementarities: a social realist analysis of the evolution of academic development within a department
- Case, Jennifer M, Heydenrych, Hilton, Kotta, Linda, Marshall, Delia, McKenna, Sioux, Willliams, Kevin
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Heydenrych, Hilton , Kotta, Linda , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Willliams, Kevin
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66752 , vital:28990 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045479
- Description: Publisher version , Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the legacy of apartheid. The present study uses a social realist perspective to analyse the 25-year evolution of an academic development project within an engineering department at a South African university. The findings show that while academic development initially posed a contradictory logic to the department, the response was to reform the nature of this project into one that suited the other commitments of the department: a logic of complementarity. The department's relationships with industry were shown to have played a key role in fostering this form of change.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Case, Jennifer M , Heydenrych, Hilton , Kotta, Linda , Marshall, Delia , McKenna, Sioux , Willliams, Kevin
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66752 , vital:28990 , ISSN 1470-1294 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045479
- Description: Publisher version , Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the legacy of apartheid. The present study uses a social realist perspective to analyse the 25-year evolution of an academic development project within an engineering department at a South African university. The findings show that while academic development initially posed a contradictory logic to the department, the response was to reform the nature of this project into one that suited the other commitments of the department: a logic of complementarity. The department's relationships with industry were shown to have played a key role in fostering this form of change.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
Developing academic literacies through understanding the nature of disciplinary knowledge
- Clarence, Sherran, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Clarence, Sherran , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61062 , vital:27942 , https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.15.1.04
- Description: Much academic development work that is framed by academic literacies, especially that focused on writing, is concerned with disciplinary conventions and knowledges: conceptual, practical, and procedural. This paper argues, however, that academic literacies work tends to conflate literacy practices with disciplinary knowledge structures, thus obscuring the structures from which these practices emanate. This paper demonstrates how theoretical and analytical tools for conceptualizing disciplinary knowledge structures can connect these with academic literacies development work. Using recent studies that combine academic literacies and theories of knowledge in novel ways, this paper will show that understanding the knowledge structures of different disciplines can enable academic developers to build a stronger body of practice. This will enable academic developers working within disciplinary contexts to more ably speak to the nature of coming to know in higher education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Clarence, Sherran , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61062 , vital:27942 , https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.15.1.04
- Description: Much academic development work that is framed by academic literacies, especially that focused on writing, is concerned with disciplinary conventions and knowledges: conceptual, practical, and procedural. This paper argues, however, that academic literacies work tends to conflate literacy practices with disciplinary knowledge structures, thus obscuring the structures from which these practices emanate. This paper demonstrates how theoretical and analytical tools for conceptualizing disciplinary knowledge structures can connect these with academic literacies development work. Using recent studies that combine academic literacies and theories of knowledge in novel ways, this paper will show that understanding the knowledge structures of different disciplines can enable academic developers to build a stronger body of practice. This will enable academic developers working within disciplinary contexts to more ably speak to the nature of coming to know in higher education.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The role of doctoral education in early career academic development
- Frick, Liezel, Albertyn, Ruth, Brodin, Eva, McKenna, Sioux, Claessson, Silwa
- Authors: Frick, Liezel , Albertyn, Ruth , Brodin, Eva , McKenna, Sioux , Claessson, Silwa
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66658 , vital:28978 , ISBN 9781928357216 , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311427468/download
- Description: The social and economic significance of the doctorate is recognised across the world, as doctoral candidates are considered to be key contributors to the knowledge society by contributing to socio-economic development through innovation (Barnacle 2005; Taylor 2012). Doctoral students – regardless of their discipline – are expected to take part actively in the knowledge creation process at universities, and this is especially important for those who will remain in academia and continue to contribute in this way.1 But knowledge creation is a complex process. Knowledge creation at the doctoral level and beyond requires a comprehensive understanding of relevant knowledge, sound judgment, and the ability to advise with insight. Doctoral learning also includes aspects such as abstract reasoning, the ability to conceptualise, and problem solving. Thus, through the original contribution candidates are expected to create during the doctorate, they are supposed to become experts in their chosen field of study. This process has been described by Evans (2014) as disciplinary acculturation. Various authors (for example Danby & Lee 2012; Lin & Cranton 2005; Manathunga & Goozée 2007) point out that this process of becoming an expert is by no means easy or straightforward. Rather, developing as a scholar is a lifelong process in which moving from a novice to an expert is an essential rite of passage into academic practice (Dreyfus & Dreyfus 1986). Benmore (2014) states that for those pursuing academic careers, it involves coming to know, but also coming to be an academic. Such a process of becoming doctorate implies movement over time, progression, and transformation (Barnacle, 2005).
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Frick, Liezel , Albertyn, Ruth , Brodin, Eva , McKenna, Sioux , Claessson, Silwa
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66658 , vital:28978 , ISBN 9781928357216 , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311427468/download
- Description: The social and economic significance of the doctorate is recognised across the world, as doctoral candidates are considered to be key contributors to the knowledge society by contributing to socio-economic development through innovation (Barnacle 2005; Taylor 2012). Doctoral students – regardless of their discipline – are expected to take part actively in the knowledge creation process at universities, and this is especially important for those who will remain in academia and continue to contribute in this way.1 But knowledge creation is a complex process. Knowledge creation at the doctoral level and beyond requires a comprehensive understanding of relevant knowledge, sound judgment, and the ability to advise with insight. Doctoral learning also includes aspects such as abstract reasoning, the ability to conceptualise, and problem solving. Thus, through the original contribution candidates are expected to create during the doctorate, they are supposed to become experts in their chosen field of study. This process has been described by Evans (2014) as disciplinary acculturation. Various authors (for example Danby & Lee 2012; Lin & Cranton 2005; Manathunga & Goozée 2007) point out that this process of becoming an expert is by no means easy or straightforward. Rather, developing as a scholar is a lifelong process in which moving from a novice to an expert is an essential rite of passage into academic practice (Dreyfus & Dreyfus 1986). Benmore (2014) states that for those pursuing academic careers, it involves coming to know, but also coming to be an academic. Such a process of becoming doctorate implies movement over time, progression, and transformation (Barnacle, 2005).
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
Death of the PhD: when industry partners determine doctoral outcomes
- Frick, Liezel, McKenna, Sioux, Muthama, Evelyn
- Authors: Frick, Liezel , McKenna, Sioux , Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66680 , vital:28981 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1263467
- Description: Pre-print , The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar’s rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39 examiners’ reports on 13 PhDs produced over a five-year period by scholars from the Higher Education Research doctoral studies programme at Rhodes University in South Africa. Drawing on aspects of Karl Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this study uses the dimensions of LCT:Specialisation and LCT:Semantics to explore what kinds of knowledge, skills and procedures and what kinds of knowers are validated in the field of Higher Education Research through the examination process. The study found that despite concerns in the literature about the a-theoretical nature of the Higher Education Studies field, examiners valued high-level theoretical and meta-theoretical engagement as well as methodological rigour. In addition, examiners prized the ability to demonstrate a strong ideological position, to use a clear doctoral voice, and to recognise the axiological drive of the field. The analysis showed that examiners were interested in strong contextualisation of the problem-spaces in higher education in South Africa but also commented positively on candidates’ ability to move from troubling an issue within its context to being able to abstract findings so as to contribute to the field as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Frick, Liezel , McKenna, Sioux , Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66680 , vital:28981 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1263467
- Description: Pre-print , The PhD is the highest formal qualification and signifies a scholar’s rite of passage as a legitimate contributor of new knowledge in a field. Examiner reports make claims about what is legitimate in a thesis and what is not and thus articulate the organising principles through which participation in a field is measured. The authors analysed 39 examiners’ reports on 13 PhDs produced over a five-year period by scholars from the Higher Education Research doctoral studies programme at Rhodes University in South Africa. Drawing on aspects of Karl Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this study uses the dimensions of LCT:Specialisation and LCT:Semantics to explore what kinds of knowledge, skills and procedures and what kinds of knowers are validated in the field of Higher Education Research through the examination process. The study found that despite concerns in the literature about the a-theoretical nature of the Higher Education Studies field, examiners valued high-level theoretical and meta-theoretical engagement as well as methodological rigour. In addition, examiners prized the ability to demonstrate a strong ideological position, to use a clear doctoral voice, and to recognise the axiological drive of the field. The analysis showed that examiners were interested in strong contextualisation of the problem-spaces in higher education in South Africa but also commented positively on candidates’ ability to move from troubling an issue within its context to being able to abstract findings so as to contribute to the field as a whole.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Reimagining academic identities in response to research demands at Universities of Technology
- Gumbi, Thobani, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Gumbi, Thobani , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185897 , vital:44446 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v8i1.234"
- Description: In the last volume of this journal, Garraway and Winberg called for a reimagination of Universities of Technology (UoT) within the South African higher education system. This article continues that conversation by looking at the implications that the formation of the UoT had for academics’ identities. Technikon lecturers’ identities were closely tied to workplace expertise, but demands for research in UoTs have changed this. A social realist analysis of interviews with fifteen academics at three UoTs finds that research remains a contested issue. Interviewees understood research to take the form of acquiring postgraduate qualifications, rather than as an ongoing activity tied to their identities. Echoing Garraway and Winberg’s study, the bureaucratic nature of the institutional culture was referred to as a constraint. There was also a view that for this programme, Dental Technology, a demand for research was needed from industry if this was to be a valued aspect of academics’ identities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Gumbi, Thobani , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185897 , vital:44446 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v8i1.234"
- Description: In the last volume of this journal, Garraway and Winberg called for a reimagination of Universities of Technology (UoT) within the South African higher education system. This article continues that conversation by looking at the implications that the formation of the UoT had for academics’ identities. Technikon lecturers’ identities were closely tied to workplace expertise, but demands for research in UoTs have changed this. A social realist analysis of interviews with fifteen academics at three UoTs finds that research remains a contested issue. Interviewees understood research to take the form of acquiring postgraduate qualifications, rather than as an ongoing activity tied to their identities. Echoing Garraway and Winberg’s study, the bureaucratic nature of the institutional culture was referred to as a constraint. There was also a view that for this programme, Dental Technology, a demand for research was needed from industry if this was to be a valued aspect of academics’ identities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
'I won't be squeezed into someone else's frame': Stories of supervisor selection
- Harrison, Liz, McKenna, Sioux, Searle, Ruth
- Authors: Harrison, Liz , McKenna, Sioux , Searle, Ruth
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187395 , vital:44629 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15100"
- Description: Using a collection of stories from a group of women who belong to a PhD support group, this article tracks the issue of choosing a supervisor. These women are all academics and therefore had some claim to an "insider" status but as novice researchers they were also "outsiders". Their discussions around how and why they chose their supervisors highlight issues often underplayed or ignored in textbooks on postgraduate supervision. In particular, this article examines issues of knowledge, embodied subjectivity and power by following three questions that arise from the data : whose knowing is important; who should I be, and whose PhD is it?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Harrison, Liz , McKenna, Sioux , Searle, Ruth
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187395 , vital:44629 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15100"
- Description: Using a collection of stories from a group of women who belong to a PhD support group, this article tracks the issue of choosing a supervisor. These women are all academics and therefore had some claim to an "insider" status but as novice researchers they were also "outsiders". Their discussions around how and why they chose their supervisors highlight issues often underplayed or ignored in textbooks on postgraduate supervision. In particular, this article examines issues of knowledge, embodied subjectivity and power by following three questions that arise from the data : whose knowing is important; who should I be, and whose PhD is it?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas: implementing sevice-learning differently in diverse disciplines
- Hlengwa, Amanda I, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61051 , vital:27933 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_67_2017/Dangers_of_generic_pedagogical_panaceas_Implementing_service-learning_differently_in_diverse_disciplines.sflb.ashx
- Description: Descriptions of service-learning in the literature tend to position it as a powerful pedagogic tool as well as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ applicable across all disciplines and institutional contexts. Furthermore service-learning is couched as a moral imperative. In the South African context, this moral imperative is translated into policy pronouncements driving institutions of higher education to demonstrate responsiveness to the transformation needs of broader society. In this article, two departments, Philosophy and Environmental Science, at one university are used as case studies to interrogate what enables the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. Drawing on the work of Fairclough, this paper identifies the dominant discourses at play and considers how they constrain or enable the uptake of service-learning. We advocate for the infusion of service-learning in curricula, but argue that institutional culture, disciplinary values and the structure of knowledge impact on its uptake and should not be dismissed in the implementation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61051 , vital:27933 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_67_2017/Dangers_of_generic_pedagogical_panaceas_Implementing_service-learning_differently_in_diverse_disciplines.sflb.ashx
- Description: Descriptions of service-learning in the literature tend to position it as a powerful pedagogic tool as well as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ applicable across all disciplines and institutional contexts. Furthermore service-learning is couched as a moral imperative. In the South African context, this moral imperative is translated into policy pronouncements driving institutions of higher education to demonstrate responsiveness to the transformation needs of broader society. In this article, two departments, Philosophy and Environmental Science, at one university are used as case studies to interrogate what enables the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. Drawing on the work of Fairclough, this paper identifies the dominant discourses at play and considers how they constrain or enable the uptake of service-learning. We advocate for the infusion of service-learning in curricula, but argue that institutional culture, disciplinary values and the structure of knowledge impact on its uptake and should not be dismissed in the implementation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The lenses we use to research student experiences:
- Hlengwa, Amanda I, McKenna, Sioux, Njovane, Thandokazi
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux , Njovane, Thandokazi
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142736 , vital:38112 , ISBN 9781928331902 , http://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/e3388578-a030-46de-8d8e-df18dcb52bec/Higher_Education_Pathways_9781928331902.pdf#page=160
- Description: The recent student protests that erupted in the South African higher education landscape in 2015 and 2016 suggest that research concerning student experiences in our institutions has become all the more crucial. In light of this, our chapter argues for theoretically rigorous and conceptually rich approaches to research on the student experience, without which we will not be in a position to address the significant concerns raised by these protests. There is, of course, already a robust body of work detailing the student experience (for example Case, 2013; Case, Marshall, McKenna, and Mogashana, 2018; Walker and Wilson-Strydom, 2017). However, questions are often raised about the extent to which such research is being drawn on in subsequent studies (Niven, 2012) and this suggests that limited accounts of student experience remain dominant despite this body of research (Boughey and McKenna, 2016). It thus seemed important to make sense of the ways in which current research on student experience is being constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux , Njovane, Thandokazi
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142736 , vital:38112 , ISBN 9781928331902 , http://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/e3388578-a030-46de-8d8e-df18dcb52bec/Higher_Education_Pathways_9781928331902.pdf#page=160
- Description: The recent student protests that erupted in the South African higher education landscape in 2015 and 2016 suggest that research concerning student experiences in our institutions has become all the more crucial. In light of this, our chapter argues for theoretically rigorous and conceptually rich approaches to research on the student experience, without which we will not be in a position to address the significant concerns raised by these protests. There is, of course, already a robust body of work detailing the student experience (for example Case, 2013; Case, Marshall, McKenna, and Mogashana, 2018; Walker and Wilson-Strydom, 2017). However, questions are often raised about the extent to which such research is being drawn on in subsequent studies (Niven, 2012) and this suggests that limited accounts of student experience remain dominant despite this body of research (Boughey and McKenna, 2016). It thus seemed important to make sense of the ways in which current research on student experience is being constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Partnerships and parents–relationships in tutorial programmes
- Layton, Delia M, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Layton, Delia M , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66699 , vital:28983 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2015.1087471
- Description: The tutorial system is considered to be a useful pedagogical intervention to improve student retention, particularly in the context of a first-year student’s experience of entering university. For these novice students to achieve academic success, it is important that they are given access to the subject-specific knowledge and practices in their different disciplines, that is, that they acquire ‘epistemological access’. A recent study of the tutorial system in a South African university (Layton, D.M. [2013]. A social realist account of the tutorial system at the University of Johannesburg (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown), sought to discover to what extent tutorials were discursively constructed as being about the enablement of epistemological access. This paper focuses on two discourses that emerged from the study – the parent discourse and the partnership discourse. Both discourses were concerned with relationships between key stakeholders in the tutorial programme. Given that tutorials are considered to be spaces in which more intimate learning can take place than in the anonymous environment of the large lecture hall, an interrogation of the relationships fostered in tutorials is important. The parent discourse, in which students were positioned as ‘kids’ needing care, was supportive of new students but ran the risk of being patronising and reductionist. The partnerships discourse, in which tutors and academics were seen to be working together towards the common goal of student success, was seen to be enabling of epistemological access. But it required a commitment to teaching endeavours that was in tension with the institutional focus on research. Through a social realist analysis of the two discourses constructing relationships in the tutorial system, we conclude that these discourses have the power to both constrain and enable the extent to which the tutorial system can be a site of epistemological access.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Layton, Delia M , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66699 , vital:28983 , ISSN 1469-8366 , https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2015.1087471
- Description: The tutorial system is considered to be a useful pedagogical intervention to improve student retention, particularly in the context of a first-year student’s experience of entering university. For these novice students to achieve academic success, it is important that they are given access to the subject-specific knowledge and practices in their different disciplines, that is, that they acquire ‘epistemological access’. A recent study of the tutorial system in a South African university (Layton, D.M. [2013]. A social realist account of the tutorial system at the University of Johannesburg (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown), sought to discover to what extent tutorials were discursively constructed as being about the enablement of epistemological access. This paper focuses on two discourses that emerged from the study – the parent discourse and the partnership discourse. Both discourses were concerned with relationships between key stakeholders in the tutorial programme. Given that tutorials are considered to be spaces in which more intimate learning can take place than in the anonymous environment of the large lecture hall, an interrogation of the relationships fostered in tutorials is important. The parent discourse, in which students were positioned as ‘kids’ needing care, was supportive of new students but ran the risk of being patronising and reductionist. The partnerships discourse, in which tutors and academics were seen to be working together towards the common goal of student success, was seen to be enabling of epistemological access. But it required a commitment to teaching endeavours that was in tension with the institutional focus on research. Through a social realist analysis of the two discourses constructing relationships in the tutorial system, we conclude that these discourses have the power to both constrain and enable the extent to which the tutorial system can be a site of epistemological access.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
The Dangers of Student-Centered Learning-A Caution about Blind Spots in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187362 , vital:44624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070206"
- Description: Student-centered learning is an increasingly popular approach that shifts the focus from the teacher to the student. The approach argues that we need to have a clear understanding of who our students are and what their needs are in order for us to provide quality education. This paper applauds the focus on the student but raises two concerns about absences in this approach. Firstly, student-centered approaches rarely consider the actual knowledge being taught and learnt. There is little consideration of how the disciplinary knowledge is constructed and what norms and values underpin such constructions. Secondly, student-centered approaches are often undertaken within the dominant autonomous discourse where student success or failure is seen to result from characteristics inherent in the student. She is understood as an individual rather than as a member of a larger social group and there is equally little acknowledgement of the socially constructed nature of universities and the practices within them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187362 , vital:44624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070206"
- Description: Student-centered learning is an increasingly popular approach that shifts the focus from the teacher to the student. The approach argues that we need to have a clear understanding of who our students are and what their needs are in order for us to provide quality education. This paper applauds the focus on the student but raises two concerns about absences in this approach. Firstly, student-centered approaches rarely consider the actual knowledge being taught and learnt. There is little consideration of how the disciplinary knowledge is constructed and what norms and values underpin such constructions. Secondly, student-centered approaches are often undertaken within the dominant autonomous discourse where student success or failure is seen to result from characteristics inherent in the student. She is understood as an individual rather than as a member of a larger social group and there is equally little acknowledgement of the socially constructed nature of universities and the practices within them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Lost in translation: Transformation in the first round of institutional audits
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187384 , vital:44627 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC132752"
- Description: The South African higher education institutional audit process was introduced alongside similar endeavors internationally. However, despite many similarities, each country foregrounds different concerns within their higher education quality processes. In their seminal article, Harvey and Green suggest five possible notions of quality, one of which is quality as transformation, and in South Africa the message has been clearly stated: notions of quality are intricately related to transformation. Local research has however suggested that the notion of 'transformation' as quality takes on particular nuances within the country’s context. In the two institutional case studies presented here, the 'quality as transformation' discourse appears to have been largely lost in translation. In one university transformation was not called upon to construct notions of quality; quality was primarily constructed by a discourse of excellence. In the other institution, the transformation aspects of quality seem to have been interpreted in a particularly reductionist way as relating solely to racial demographics. In both cases, this article argues that the 'quality as transformation' discourse prevalent in the audit documentation in the South African context was lost somewhere between the intentions embodied in national documents and the processes embarked upon by institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187384 , vital:44627 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC132752"
- Description: The South African higher education institutional audit process was introduced alongside similar endeavors internationally. However, despite many similarities, each country foregrounds different concerns within their higher education quality processes. In their seminal article, Harvey and Green suggest five possible notions of quality, one of which is quality as transformation, and in South Africa the message has been clearly stated: notions of quality are intricately related to transformation. Local research has however suggested that the notion of 'transformation' as quality takes on particular nuances within the country’s context. In the two institutional case studies presented here, the 'quality as transformation' discourse appears to have been largely lost in translation. In one university transformation was not called upon to construct notions of quality; quality was primarily constructed by a discourse of excellence. In the other institution, the transformation aspects of quality seem to have been interpreted in a particularly reductionist way as relating solely to racial demographics. In both cases, this article argues that the 'quality as transformation' discourse prevalent in the audit documentation in the South African context was lost somewhere between the intentions embodied in national documents and the processes embarked upon by institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Argumentative and trustworthy scholars
- McKenna, Sioux, Boughey, Chrissie
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Boughey, Chrissie
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187216 , vital:44580 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.934351"
- Description: Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Boughey, Chrissie
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187216 , vital:44580 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.934351"
- Description: Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Higher education studies as a field of research
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187405 , vital:44631 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC161436"
- Description: The field of Higher Education Studies is a rapidly growing one in South Africa and abroad but there has been little systematic review of the form this growth is taking. This article presents a case study of higher education research by considering a newly formed Higher Education Studies doctoral programme. The programme comprises 29 PhD scholars in 2014, all engaged in research on some aspect of higher education. The description of the PhD programme, the PhD scholars and what their research topics are, reveals a picture of the broad range of concerns within the field of Higher Education Studies and suggests that the field is a region, in Bernstein's terms. This means that it draws on multiple disciplines and looks both to the values and structures of those disciplines and to the professional world of work. It is argued that the strengthening of the epistemological base of Higher Education Studies is necessary for higher education research to move forwards with enhanced relational and positional autonomy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187405 , vital:44631 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC161436"
- Description: The field of Higher Education Studies is a rapidly growing one in South Africa and abroad but there has been little systematic review of the form this growth is taking. This article presents a case study of higher education research by considering a newly formed Higher Education Studies doctoral programme. The programme comprises 29 PhD scholars in 2014, all engaged in research on some aspect of higher education. The description of the PhD programme, the PhD scholars and what their research topics are, reveals a picture of the broad range of concerns within the field of Higher Education Studies and suggests that the field is a region, in Bernstein's terms. This means that it draws on multiple disciplines and looks both to the values and structures of those disciplines and to the professional world of work. It is argued that the strengthening of the epistemological base of Higher Education Studies is necessary for higher education research to move forwards with enhanced relational and positional autonomy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
A critical investigation into discourses that construct academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1317 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004121
- Description: This thesis examines the construction of academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology through a discourse analysis of interviews with educators and learners. Academic literacy comprises the norms and values of higher education as manifested in discipline-specific practices. Students are expected to take on these practices, and the underlying epistemologies, without any overt instruction in, or critique of, these ways of being. Lecturer and student discourses are identified and discussed in terms of their impact on the teaching and learning process. This broad context of educator and student understandings is set against the backdrop of the changing educational policies and structures in post-Apartheid South Africa. The changes in approach to academic development are also traced as a setting for the institutional study. The discourses about the intersection between language and learning were found largely to assume that texts, be they lectures, books, assignments etc, are neutral and autonomous of their contexts. Difficulties some learners experience in accessing or producing the expected meaning of these texts were largely ascribed to their problems with language at a surface level rather than to their lack of shared norms regarding the construction of these texts. The study provides an analysis of how the ‘autonomous’ model is manifested iii and illustrates the limitations on curriculum change imposed by this understanding of how texts are constructed and interpreted. Discourses of motivation presume that students’ difficulties in taking on the literacy practices esteemed by the academy are related to attitude. This discourse assumes that learners have a fairly fixed identity, an assumption that did not bear out in the data. The multiple identities of the learners often presented tensions in the acquisition of discipline-specific academic literacies. The learners were found not to invest strongly in an academically literate identity, or were found to experience conflict between this target identity and the identities they brought with them to the institution. The elevation of academic literacy practices is questioned if the surface features, characteristic of these practices, are valued without a concomitant claim to knowledge production. The rapid emergence of a high skills discourse in Universities of Technology in South Africa is also interrogated, given the current emphasis on training for economic growth over discourses of social redress and transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1317 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004121
- Description: This thesis examines the construction of academic literacy at the Durban Institute of Technology through a discourse analysis of interviews with educators and learners. Academic literacy comprises the norms and values of higher education as manifested in discipline-specific practices. Students are expected to take on these practices, and the underlying epistemologies, without any overt instruction in, or critique of, these ways of being. Lecturer and student discourses are identified and discussed in terms of their impact on the teaching and learning process. This broad context of educator and student understandings is set against the backdrop of the changing educational policies and structures in post-Apartheid South Africa. The changes in approach to academic development are also traced as a setting for the institutional study. The discourses about the intersection between language and learning were found largely to assume that texts, be they lectures, books, assignments etc, are neutral and autonomous of their contexts. Difficulties some learners experience in accessing or producing the expected meaning of these texts were largely ascribed to their problems with language at a surface level rather than to their lack of shared norms regarding the construction of these texts. The study provides an analysis of how the ‘autonomous’ model is manifested iii and illustrates the limitations on curriculum change imposed by this understanding of how texts are constructed and interpreted. Discourses of motivation presume that students’ difficulties in taking on the literacy practices esteemed by the academy are related to attitude. This discourse assumes that learners have a fairly fixed identity, an assumption that did not bear out in the data. The multiple identities of the learners often presented tensions in the acquisition of discipline-specific academic literacies. The learners were found not to invest strongly in an academically literate identity, or were found to experience conflict between this target identity and the identities they brought with them to the institution. The elevation of academic literacy practices is questioned if the surface features, characteristic of these practices, are valued without a concomitant claim to knowledge production. The rapid emergence of a high skills discourse in Universities of Technology in South Africa is also interrogated, given the current emphasis on training for economic growth over discourses of social redress and transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004