Research Outputs (School of Education)

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Experiences of sport coordinators in a physical education professional development programme
(2020) Zeller, D.; Roux, C. J.
Physical education (PE) is an essential component of the school curriculum. However, studies show that many facilitators responsible for the delivery of PE in South African schools possibly lack the requisite specialist skills for effective PE delivery. Such facilitators can therefore be assisted with in-service training and professional development (PD) interventions to equip them with the relevant PE teaching skills. The purpose of this study was to analyse sport coordinators’ views about the attributes of effective development of non-specialist PE teachers or programme facilitators in South African schools. A qualitative interpretive paradigm was used to conduct a case study among 32 sport coordinators who taught Foundation Phase PE in 32 schools in the North-West Province of South Africa. The training model of PD was used to design the intervention, which included four different workshops held over one year. Data were obtained by using three semi-structured questionnaires, which were completed at different stages during the intervention and consequently analysed using the conventional content analysis approach. The most significant finding was that continuous training and support should not be considered as optional, but rather a necessity. Both the selection of content and pedagogy used to present the programme need careful consideration. Developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) experientially is critical. Modelling of practice and engaging the participants in carefully designed practical activities to demonstrate theoretical principles is preferable compared to the traditional lecture method. Thus, teachers should be assisted, not only to grasp concepts associated with PE as a learning area, but also to develop the pedagogic insight needed to adapt their teaching strategies to the instructional settings in which they find themselves.
Decolonial History teachers' charter: A praxis guide
(2020) Dollie, A.; Ramjain, A.; Varachia, T.; Maangoale, T.M.; Tshipugu, T.; Laurence, T.; Laher, Y.; Dabhelia, A.; Abba, M.; Karanie, A.; Mitha, A.; Mbuli, M.; Mogane, K.; Montshioa, T.; Mamogobo, A.; Sahula, M.
The below text is a practical charter which calls for history teachers, students, learners and then the provincial and national Departments of Basic and Higher Education to decolonise. Decolonisation is often talked about in the abstract, it is separated out into curricula, pedagogy, or university spaces. This charter takes the argument into schools and explores several aspects of decolonisation in a substantial and detailed way. The charter was developed as a collective exercise in a history methodology class by third and fourth year Bachelor of Education students training to be histori(an) teachers. The idea from the charter emanated from the students, and was initially, pre-Covid, guided by the lecturer (see footnote 1); however, once Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) began, the students took complete ownership of the project. The lecturer's only role was to make the charter an assignment, to give students impetus to carry on with the task. Students could work collectively on the Decolonial History Teacher's Charter, or work on and submit individual assignments. This is important because the desire, the heart, the intellectual work, and the collectivity all emanated from the students. The below document can serve, in our collective view, as an important guide to new and serving history teachers, students, learners, and scholars.
Teaching History teachers during COVID-19: Charting poems, pathways and agency.
(2020) Godsell, S.
In this article I argue that Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) has necessitated and produced some transformative teaching methods, using the frameworks of Freire and hooks. However, I argue, that their methods are incongruous with this moment of online learning because of the 'invisibilisation' of the marginalised and vulnerable students, who can and do easily disappear into the void of online learning. This makes dialogic teaching (Freire) and teaching in community (hooks) impossible. I use examples of two undergraduate history and history method (teaching history) classes, specifically looking at the teaching methods and the assessment methods. I draw thematically on what the students produced in their assessments, analysing their texts (poems, creative essays, artistic submissions), looking at how they engaged with the assignment (method) and what emerged in the assignment, reading specifically for political engagement. In this discussion, I look at both the possibilities and the limitations of online teaching. Ultimately, I argue, that the limitations outweigh the possibilities of online teaching, and that there is a danger in claiming victories or even good teaching standards in this context. The danger is that the students who disappear are written out of the script of the University, and the promises (however precarious) that post-university life in South Africa offers. My argument here, using two specific courses as evidence, is thus a contradiction and a balance: for exploring this portal, and everything it offers, but pushing back vehemently against complete online migration because, in a country as unequal as South Africa, it is unethical, unjust, and anti-critical pedagogy.
Colonial heritages, educational Incompartibilities and the challenges for a reunified Cameroon: 1961–2016
(2020) Ndille, R.
The reunification of British Southern Cameroons and La Republique du Cameroun 1961 required the adoption of new national policies which were to guarantee that none of the colonial identities were jeopardized.1 In doing this, the Federal Republic adopted harmonization as a policy framework for the establishment of a new national educational system that was to unequivocally represent both colonial heritages without feelings of marginalization by any side. Using archival evidence and some empirical literature, this paper has examined the landmark developments in the harmonization of education in the country. It has observed that although significant strides have been made there are still huge challenges. The paper concludes that until both sides are determined to put national interests above former colonial interests, harmonization and the ultimate establishment of a national educational system cannot be achieved.2
Rethinking the African space in a global education project: A representational reflection in the context of nationalism
(2020) Ndille, R.
The call to a global education project involves transformations of educational ideologies, policy formulation, systems restructuring, and curriculum reforms that go beyond national/local considerations. While advocates of globalization have identified inherent advantages in these transformations, the paper argues that in terms of the ‘globalism’ of its origins, values, and the standards it advocates in education, there is much that meets the eye. It uses attributes such as the origin of the global ideology, the main agents of global educational decision making, and the proposals of the kind of global history curriculum, to argue that a deeper consideration of these attributes reveals Euro-North America as generators and regulators of ideation while Africa and the Global South in general are forcefully involved consumers to the detriment of national and indigenous education orientations that should be prioritized. The paper concludes that until such times when issues of egalitarianism are considered in its ideation, decision making and flow of knowledge(s) within which Africa and the Global South find representation, globalization of education would continue to be seen as the perpetuation of the entrapment of Africa within the global matrices of power.
Organic translanguaging in Science classrooms: Perceptions of pre-service primary school teachers.
(2020) Charamba, E.
In spite of today’s science classrooms being linguistically diverse, languages are still kept separate during academic instruction with education policymakers and stakeholders emphasising language purism and a strict separation of languages in the classroom. The overarching aim of this article is to investigate science teachers’ perceptions regarding linguistic potential and language competence in relation to translanguaging strategies. The data presented consists of interview responses, lesson observations, and questionnaire responses from purposefully sampled 25 pre-service teachers at 6 different primary schools in South Africa. In analysing the data collected from the questionnaires, descriptive statistics were used to calculate the percentages of each Likert-type item in the questionnaire while qualitative data was analysed using structural coding. The present research findings corroborate previous research findings which affirm the pivotal role language plays in the science classroom and suggests teachers do away with ‘named languages’ through the use of students’ linguistic repertoire in the classroom. The study also shows how translanguaging assists science students and teachers in multilingual South African classrooms achieve voice and agency by challenging discourses otherwise framed in monolingual perspectives. Given the academic and social benefits as well as the fluid nature of a translanguaging approach, the study also recommends teachers to implement translanguaging pedagogy in their linguistically diverse multilingual science classes.
Encounters with mentor teachers: first-year students’ experiences on teaching practice.
(2020) Moosa, M.; Rembach, L.
Teaching practice is a compulsory, legislated component of initial teacher education programmes in South Africa. During this experience, preservice teachers engage with their mentor teachers. By exploring first-year students’ experiences with their mentor teachers during their first teaching practice, we argue that mentorship is a vital component of teaching practice in order for first-year students to grow and develop their teaching skills and their professional development. The theoretical framework chosen underpins the mentorship processes based on Hagger and Macintyre’s work, this enabled a multi-dimensional analysis and account of mentorship. Four hundred and twelve first-year students participated in this study and the data were analysed by means of an open coding method. The results were that 376 (91%) of participants reported that they felt unsupported and powerless during teaching practice, because of negative engagements and experiences with mentor teachers. These findings have implications for the preparation of preservice teachers in other contexts too.
From learner to teacher: Personal experiences, beliefs and attitudes about bullying victimisation
(2020) Moosa, M.
Research shows that first-year pre-service teachers enter initial teacher education programmes with certain beliefs in place about schooling. This paper explores first-year pre-service teachers' experiences of, beliefs and attitudes about bullying. Social Learning Theory and Theory of Planned Behaviour are used to shed light on bullying as a learned behaviour and the impact this could have on how pre-service teacher will handle incidents at school. Three hundred and five first-year pre-service teachers participated in a mixed-methods research study. Multiple-choice and open-ended questionnaires were collated and analysed. The paper argues that pre-service teachers use their personal experiences, beliefs and attitudes about bullying victimisation to make decisions on how to assist learners. The findings of this research indicate that more than half of this cohort has witnessed bullying at school at some point. They did nothing about it because of fear, inadequate reporting systems at schools and lack of action been taken by teachers. Should they witness bullying in schools as teachers they might opt to take the same approach if they are not adequately prepared. Nonetheless, they are willing to use their experiences of bullying to become proactive teachers and stop the cycle of bullying. Keywords: Pre-service teachers; bullying; violence; victimology; bystanders; Social Learning Theory; Theory of Planned Behaviour.
Deconstructing South African Grade 1 learners' awareness of number in terms of cardinality, ordinality and relational understandings.
(2020) Askew, M.; Venkat, H.
The cardinal and ordinal aspects of number have been widely written about as key constructs that need to be brought together in children’s understanding in order for them to appreciate the idea of numerosity. In this paper, we discuss similarities and differences in the ways in which understandings not only of ordinality, cardinality but also additive and multiplicative relations have been theorized. We examine how the connections between these can be considered through a focus on number line representations and children positioning and comparing numbers. The responses of a cohort of South African Grade 1 learners’ (6- and 7-year-olds) to a numerical magnitude estimation task and to a numerical comparison task are analysed and the findings compared to those in the international literature, some of which argue that children’s early, informal, understandings of cardinality and ordinality are underpinned by an intuitive logarithmic model relating number order and size. A main finding presented here is that the responses from learners in this study exhibited a better fit with an exponential model of the relationship between cardinality and ordinality. These findings raise questions about whether some of the findings in previous research are as universal as sometimes claimed.
Teacher talk in professional learning communities.
(2020) Brodie, K.; Chimhande, T.
Professional learning communities can be important sites for teacher learning depending on the quality of the conversations in these communities. This paper shows how different activities in teacher communities support different kinds of conversation at different levels of depth, through examining the conversations of four professional learning communities of mathematics teachers over two years. Our analysis suggests three key findings. First, there were strong relationships between different activities and the content of the conversations in the communities. Second, the depth of the conversation in the communities was constant across activities and over time. Third, conversations about learner thinking, a key goal of the project, did not increase over time, but there were increases in talk about mathematics and practice. We explore the implications of these findings for teacher learning.
Guidance and counselling programme and overall adjustment of teenage mothers: Evidence from secondary schools in Kenya
(2020) Opondo, C.M.; Aloka, P. P
Background: School adjustment is multifaceted that involves an array of demands varying in kind and degree which requires a variety of coping responses. Several teen mothers have been re-admitted to secondary schools in Kenya. Objective: The present study investigated the Guidance and Counselling Programme and Adjustment of Teenage Mothers in Secondary Schools in Kenya. Methods: The study adopted ex post facto’s Causal-comparative research design. The target population of the study was 242 re-admitted teenage mothers from selected schools in Ugenya Sub County, Kenya. The sample size comprised of 138 re-admitted teenage mothers who underwent the counselling programme and 104 re-admitted teenage mothers who were integrated back to the school without going through the counselling programme. Academic adjustment Questionnaire, Social Adjustment Questionnaire, Emotional Adjustment Questionnaire, Psychological Adjustment Questionnaire, Attitude towards Guidance and Counselling Questionnaire were used to collect data. The questionnaires had a good internal consistency of minimum α = 0.78. The data were analysed by both descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, standard deviation and percentages, and inferential statistics such as multiple regression techniques. Results: The results of the study revealed that student mothers registered the highest rating in social adjustment and they recorded the least rating in academic adjustment. However, the findings of the study revealed that students who had gone through formal counselling generally registered higher adjustments than those who did not pass through formal counseling. The teenage mothers’ attitude had a mediating effect on the relationship between guidance and counselling program and the overall adjustment of teenage mothers. Conclusion: School principals should provide comprehensive guidance and counselling programs to ensure the holistic adjustment of teenage mothers in schools. Keywords: Guidance, Counselling program, Adjustment, Teenage mothers, Secondary schools, Kenya.
Challenging gender hierarchies in narratives of the nation: representations of women in Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon and Hard Choice
(2020) Nkealah, N.; Oluwasuji, O.G.
Abstract Ideas of nationalisms as masculine projects dominate literary texts by African male writers. The texts mirror the ways in which gender differentiation sanctions nationalist discourses and in turn how nationalist discourses reinforce gender hierarchies. This article draws on theoretical insights from the work of Anne McClintock and Elleke Boehmer to analyse two plays: Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon by Bole Butake and Gilbert Doho and Hard Choice by Sunnie Ododo. The article argues that women are represented in these two plays as having an ambiguous relationship to nationalism. On the one hand, women are seen actively changing the face of politics in their societies, but on the other hand, the means by which they do so reduces them to stereotypes of their gender. Keywords: ambiguity; gender hierarchy; nationalism; feminism; masculinity; narratives of the nation
Exploring educators’ challenges of online learning in Covid-19 at a rural school, South Africa
(2020) Mukana, K.; Aloka, P.J.O
Abstract. This study explored the perceived challenges of online learning encounter by rural educators in response to COVID-19 pandemic at a selected rural school in South Africa. Within the qualitative approach, a multiple case study was used as a research design. A sample size of six participants (N=6, two males and four females) was drawn from a rural school in a Thabo Mofutsanyana District in the Free State Province. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used to select participants in this study. The participants had teaching experience ranging from 2 to 7 years. Data were collected through telephone interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The finding suggested that the Protection Motivation Theory was an insightful framework in responding to the challenges emanating from COVID-19 induced online teaching and learning. Thus, the study revealed that there are various challenges to online learning. These include poor parental involvement in children’s homework, incomplete work and poor performance, insufficient personal protective equipment, poor access to network access, and lack of learning devices. Subsequently, we recommend that stakeholders such as the Department of Education, Department of Basic Education, and School Governing Bodies, among others, should ensure that parents are sensitized about the need for learners to manage the resources at their disposal. Furthermore, the provision of adequate resources such as; Internet connectivity and Information and Communication Technologies learning devices is imperative. Keywords: Online learning; COVID-19; Protection Motivation Theory; Rural school; Educators’ challenges
A stylistic analysis of a wildlife conservation of a prologue and visual narrative documentary, “From brutal poacher to delicate pastry chef”
(2020) Moodley, V.
Documentaries, like other genres, are being increasingly used by wildlife conservationists for creating awareness and influencing viewers to become active backers of wildlife protection. While there have been analyses of documentaries that focus on cinematic techniques, stylistic analyses of the language used in them have been limited. This paper analyses the prologue to the documentary, “The journey from brutal poacher to delicate pastry chef”, and the visual monologue narrative, “The Pastry Chef”, to show how the scriptwriter uses language as rhetoric to raise social consciousness amongst its audience. The paper adopts the stylistic pluralism approach which blends literary criticism, linguistic analysis and stylistic description. Leech and Short’s (2007) broad framework of linguistic and stylistic categories (i.e. lexical items, grammatical features, figures of speech and other rhetoric features and cohesiveness) is used to show how the scriptwriter creates awareness of wildlife conservation and positions people as active backers of wildlife protection. It argues that linguistic choices – such as lexical items, grammatical features and cohesive devices – and rhetoric are critical features of documentary design. Keywords: documentary; rhetoric; stylistics; wildlife conservation
The use of experiential learning as a teaching strategy in Life Sciences.
(2020) McPherson-Geyser, G.; De Villiers, R.; Kavai, P.
The implementation of experiential learning within schools may hold many advantages. The objective of this study was to identify how experiential learning influences the teaching and learning of Life Sciences (biology). This qualitative inductive research focused on creating a rich amount of data through a multiple case study approach. The collection and analysis of data were done through the use of interviews, classroom observations and worksheet checklists. The interpretivist researcher in this study chose dual-medium public high schools of different socialeconomic backgrounds to participate in this study. Life Sciences teachers in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa were interviewed and observed in their classes while teaching. This study showed that teachers do not fully understand the context of experiential learning. The issue that was addressed was the need for quality education by enforcing the correct use of experiential learning. The insertion of generic skills in schools will improve the development of Life Sciences learners and enable them to subsequently progress in the classroom. An experience not utilized in another area of education has not value, specifically in the Life Sciences classroom. This experience permitted learners to form a union between the outside of the classroom and the theory taught inside the classroom when testing implications. These implications can form part of experiments, subject matter or any theme related to science and society. Experiential learning sustained a gateway to the learners’ outside lives, where the concepts came alive in common areas of their daily lives. Keywords: biology, experiential learning, life sciences, teachers, teaching strategy
Choice shifts in school disciplinary decision making: Analysis of age differences of panel members
(2020) Aloka, P.
Background: Decision making is critical to each organization and it requires the ability to find a possible balance between risky and cautious decisions. The Kenyan secondary schools are mandated by the Ministry of Education to manage students’ misbehaviors by the disciplinary panels. Aim: The present study investigated the choice shifts in disciplinary decision making in Kenyan secondary schools based on age groups of the panel members. Methods: The Quasi-Experimental Pretest-Posttest Design was adopted. The study targeted 360 teachers- members of disciplinary panels in 45 secondary schools in the Rongo sub-county of Kenya. A sample size of 78 members of disciplinary panels in 10 secondary schools was involved. This was 22% of the target population of members of disciplinary panels in the Rongo district. The choice shift in decisions was ascertained using the Modified Choice Dilemma Questionnaire. The validity of the tools was ensured by the expert judgment by two Kenyan psychologists, while the reliability was determined using the internal consistency method and an alpha of 0.695 was reported. Results: The results of the Multivariate Analysis Of Variance indicated that there were differences in choice shifts from the pre to post-disciplinary hearing decisions among the members of selected school disciplinary panels on the basis of their age groups (Wilk’s Lambda (λ) test: F (12, 188) = 7.40, P = 0.000, P < 0.05). Conclusion: It was concluded that the age of the members of disciplinary panels influenced the nature of choice shifts in decisions. It was recommended that principals should ensure that the membership of school disciplinary panels is broad-based.
Universities trailing behind: Unquestioned epistemological foundations constraining the transition to online instructional delivery and learning
(2020) Dlamini, R.; Ndzinisa, N.
Universities across South Africa have positioned learning management systems (LMS) as central to remote teaching and learning in response to COVID-19. This fundamentally challenges traditional teaching and learning practices where lecturers typically have close personal contact with students. Our argument is underpinned by critical discourse analysis and social constructivist pedagogy to gain deeper insights into the dimensions of LMS pedagogical affordances and the notion of equitable access to tertiary education in the midst of COVID-19 and the subsequent education and economic depression. Conducting a social constructivist pedagogy inspired analytical argumentative evaluation, we interrogate how digital technologies and platforms challenge the status quo and then argue on the systemic deficits of placing LMS at the centre of the transition in the hope of automatically cultivating an equitable learning environment to enable ubiquitous learning. Our analysis highlights potential contradictions in universities’ reliance on lecturers’ ingenuity without developing enabling structures supporting digital pedagogies at grassroots. This is to ensure inclusivity and avoid creating systemic inequalities that affect individual students’ experiences.
Strategies used by Grade Four educators to decode science terminology: A case study
(2020) Kazeni, M.; Maleka, M.
In this paper, we discuss the results of a case study about the teaching strategies used by three primary school educators to decode Grade 4 science terminology. In South Africa, the study of science is formally introduced to learners in Grade 4. Additionally, Grade 4 is the year when learners transition from being taught in their native languages in Grades 1 to 3 to being taught in English. This presents the challenge of learning a new subject in an unfamiliar language. Research shows that the majority of South African primary school learners find science terminology difficult to comprehend due to linguistic challenges, which could account for their poor performance in science assessments. The way educators decode science terminology during science lessons could affect learners’ comprehension of science vocabulary and consequently their performance in science. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data in a qualitative case study in order to determine the strategies used by three science educators to teach and decode science terminology in Grade 4. The study findings suggest that the participating educators use ad hoc, teacher-centered teaching strategies to decode science concepts. These findings have implications for the preparation of primary school science educators in teacher training institutions.
Through the eyes of parents: Culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces
(2020) Van As, A.; Excell, L.; Magadala, N.; Gqoli, N.
There is a growing emphasis for early education to be both contextually appropriate and culturally responsive. In post-apartheid South Africa, early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres have become ‘melting pots’ of different cultures, reinforcing the call to become culturally relevant. Affirming each family’s cultural norms and values is pivotal in shaping the child’s identity – especially in a multicultural society. However, there exists an absence of research investigating how parents of young children view their families’ cultural norms and values. This phenomenologically qualitative study investigated parents’ understandings of culture and their cultural aspirations for their young children attending culturally diverse ECCE centres. One-on-one interviews were conducted to explore parents’ cultural narratives of how they view the cultural identities of their young children. Participants comprised 19 parents who were purposefully selected from five South African provinces. Findings revealed that parents were initially hesitant to articulate what culture in a democratic South Africa would look like. However, when they reflected on culture as enacted in the lives of their families they responded with conviction, revealing a range of views about the topic. They described how they experienced their culture through artefacts, language, family, religion and place. Parents recognised the valuable opportunities that the language-diverse ECCE spaces offered for mixing languages and developing bilingualism and multilingualism. The parents’ intuitive understandings of their children’s culture confirm that there are meaningful levels of cultural knowledge to be found at the grassroots level.
Educating for work in the time of COVID-19: Moving beyond simplistic ideas of supply and demand. Southern African Review of Education.
(2020) Allais, S.; Marock, C. C.
This article describes how the Covid-19 pandemic has been particularly negative for skill formation in South Africa but, at same time, there are high expectations for the technical and vocational education and training system to support economic recovery and individual livelihoods. We argue that many policy recommendations for how education can meet these expectations are trapped in a narrow and mechanistic notion of supply and demand. The knowledge and skills required to do work are not developed somewhere outside of the economy, and then ‘supplied’ to meet labour market ‘demand.’ Skill formation is embedded in a range of different economic, social, and political arrangements and systems. Policy notions of ‘supply and demand’ of skills also underestimate how the ability of education to prepare for work is shaped by the ways in which work is organised. We argue that both researchers and policymakers need to think about vocational skills development programmes within industry sector master plans that drive economic recovery. We provide ideas of how policymakers can think about education and work more holistically, and argue that the key move is away from market-based regulatory models and towards models focused on building institutional capacity.

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