So much for the practice, now what about the theory? : Vygotskian principles in higher education in South Africa.

Date
2009-01-05T09:49:25Z
Authors
Mooney, G. A.
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Abstract
In the capitalist democracy, universities have been increasingly controlled by the state, which rewards generative, rather than disseminative practice. Universities have attempted to maximise income generation by increasing student numbers, and in many instances, reducing staff numbers. In the last fifty years, there have attempts to increase participation in higher education by diverse gender, racial and class groups. Since the 1980s, the disjunction between school and university education has been widening. University graduates are expected to be critical thinkers, who have high-level competancies when joining the workforce. Consequently, the lecturer is confronted with an increasingly large and diverse group of students and the increasingly complex task of teaching knowledge and skills that are relevant in an ever-changing world. The current study evaluated the practices of teaching and learning in higher education in South Africa through the examination of four successive cohorts of First Year Health Sciences learners who registered for Psychology between 2000 and 2003. A unique interpretation of L.S. Vygotsky’s ontological and epistemological framework was presented in terms of the practices of higher education in South Africa at the beginning of the Twenty-First century. Vygotsky’s conflictual model of development in which the historical (what knowledge and skills have been acquired) and the social (critical thinking in Psychology) are inextricably linked, provided the foundation of this dialectical historical materialist analysis. The teaching practices had two parts, namely tasks and tools, and social interaction. Students were positioned, not as customers, but as learners who were required to learn a specific set of knowledge and skills in order to develop understanding. A post-hoc analysis was conducted on all forms of semiotic mediation and social interactions between the lecturer and the large group of students. The cultural tasks (learning outcomes and essay tasks) and tools (problem-solving strategies for the essay tasks, the general and specific lecture outlines, lecture notes, case studies and challenge questions) were analysed in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Naturalistic observations of interactions between the lecturer and a large group of students were also analysed in terms of the gender and racial characteristics of participating students and the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of the lecturer. The iii students’ cognitive and affective perceptions of all the cultural tasks and tools were analysed, and viewed in relation to the constructions of the lecturer. Matches, or shared practice, between the lecturer and the students related to the structure of the process of learning; the use of examples that relate to “real” life; the Resourcepack as a tool for the navigation of the learning process and the valuing of the interactive dialogue between the lecturer and the students. The mismatches between the lecturer and the students primarily concern the dialectic between knowledge and skills in the development of understanding. For students in the First Year of higher education, understanding is conceptualised as the reproduction of knowledge and the application of that knowledge to a concrete experience. A surprising finding in the current study was that no significant differences were found between the sociohistorical variables (gender, race and degree) concerning the cultural tasks and tools. The current study also proposed a unique method of conducting large class lecturerstudent interactions. The evidence from both the lecturer and the students supported the use of the small group learning techniques in the large classes. What makes the current study’s use of the small group method is the importance placed on a hierarchy of dialogues between the lecturer and the students in which adult guidance is of central importance. This adult guidance is dependent upon certain characteristics of the facilitation by the lecturer. The shortcoming of this particular method of conducting large classes is that dominant and subordinate groups of learners still existed in the large class. However, representivity of the subordinate groups was achieved. In addition, the students did not relate the use of the method to increased understanding of the concepts in the course. The current study also proposed a unique definition of participation in which multiple forms of activity are present.
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Keywords
Higher education, South Africa, Vygotskian principles
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