4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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    Exploring the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Open and Distance Learning (ODL): The Case study of Botswana Open University (BOU)
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Moreetsi-Magetse, Tebogo Angela; Naiker, V.S.; Khoza, S.D.
    Open and distance education has become popular worldwide in the last century. It extends beyond normal school or university boundaries because it is flexible and instils lifelong learning. This method of learning is mostly used by students who are studying part-time. Access to education is made easier by the increased usage of technology (smartphones, computers, internet connectivity) in teaching and learning. Botswana, like many countries around the world, has not been left behind. Its first and only Open Distance institution, Botswana Open University (BOU), like other institutions of higher learning, embraced the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning and integrated ICT to be an integral part of the teaching and learning delivery process in 2014. Programmes were created to use technology online using a learning management system (LMS) and Moodle platform. Since many academics have written on the factors to consider when implementing ICT in teaching and learning and others have discussed the challenges faced by users of online learning platforms, the author of this study decided to investigate the application of ICT in ODL by focusing on the students enrolled in the Master of Educational Management and Leadership (MEdEL) course at BOU. The study followed a qualitative approach using semi- structured interviews, an open-ended questionnaire and a policy document review. The first phase of the research determined the current perceptions of students on the use of e-learning in an ODL programme. The next phase established the practices of e-learning in the online programmes at BOU to determine the degree of technical knowledge and skills, especially in the use of e-learning in ODL and further investigated the strategies that are used by BOU to motivate students enrolled in their online learning programmes. Purposive sampling was used to select 14 participants including a lecturer at BOU, the online managers, the tutors, as well as the students, some of whom were registered at BOU at the time of the study. Data collected through interviews and questionnaires were thematically analysed while data from the documents reviewed were descriptively analysed. The study provided significant evidence of challenges faced by users and custodians of the LMS. The challenges in the implementation of the online programmes included the absence or shortage of resources, including human resources, and the calibre of students enrolled. It further revealed that lack of skills and limited skills also impacted the use of technology in ODL. Despite these challenges, the university has implemented policies intended to support students during their studies. The findings of the XI study revealed that although there are measures in place to support and assist students during their studies, they do not work for all students. It is necessary to support students, especially those in remote areas of the country where resources are limited. Furthermore, students enrolled in online ODL programmes need assistance when it comes to computer skills. The university needs to consider implementing a bridging course that will allow students to enhance their ICT skills and learn to navigate the learning space before the commencement of their main programme. Training on the use of the learning space needs to be enhanced, not only for students but also for tutors and lecturers born before computers arrived, as this will assist in ensuring that students receive the required support. There is also a need for the university to engage in an evaluation of the use of the LMS to identify areas in need of improvement. The implementation of a fully online learning programme entails having the necessary skills, resources, and most of all the support that will ensure the effective use and satisfaction of the user.
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    Drivers of the use of AI-powered tools in academic research: A study of university students in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Ngomane, Danisile Priscilla; Dorson, Thomas Anning
    The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across various sectors, including education, has garnered significant attention due to its potential to enhance productivity, accuracy, and innovation. There has been a notable lack of research focusing on students' adoption of AI tools in research settings, within the context of South Africa. The primary objective of this study was to provide insights to inform strategies aimed at facilitating the effective implementation of AI-powered technologies within the academic research landscape. The study employed a theoretical framework grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which provides a foundation for understanding individuals' acceptance or rejection of technology. The study aimed to investigate the drivers influencing university students' utilisation of AI tools in educational research settings. Adopting a positivist research philosophy, the study utilised a quantitative research design as the primary inquiry strategy. This involved the administration of a research survey to collect and analyse numerical data, enabling the testing of hypotheses, identification of patterns, and quantification of relationships between variables. The study employed a cross-sectional time horizon and utilised convenience sampling to administer a survey questionnaire to 271 final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students at Witwatersrand University. Analysis of the collected data using descriptive and inferential statistics revealed several key findings. A positive attitude towards utilising AI tools was found to be driven by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, prior knowledge, and awareness about the tools. This relationship was moderated by factors such as trust and self-efficacy. The AI tools were primarily utilised for tasks such as searching and summarising articles, writing, editing grammar, and making unbiased judgments about articles. Importantly, students were influenced by the perceived benefits derived from using specific AI tools, and the ease of use associated with these tools. This research study findings suggest that promoting awareness of AI tools among university students has the potential to enhance research outcomes, improve scholarly efficiency and increase overall effectiveness. As the demand for AI technologies continues to grow, integrating them into higher education settings holds promise for unlocking substantial benefits and transforming the academic research landscape.
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    Bicultural Life Experiences and Career Orientation of South African Indian Women Engineers
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Pillay, Vanishree Nundagopaul; Ndaba, Zanele
    The purpose of this research is to explore the bicultural life experiences of South African Indian women engineers and from this, understand how identity experiences in their bicultural context inform their decision to remain in the profession. A review of the relevant literature offered biculturalism within the discourse of Identity Theory, and social cognition stemming from Social Cognitive Career Theory, as the main concepts to guide the trajectory of this investigation. The study is exploratory in nature with a qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 South African Indian women engineers from the public and private domains. Non-probability sampling strategy was adopted and effected through a snowballing technique to purposively secure candidates fitting the eligibility criteria. A narrative analysis of the transcripts was executed in a two-step process. First, by means of a three-part approach consisting of personal, social and temporal dimensions; life stories were unearthed from the interview transcripts in a deductive manner and formulated into a narrative. Secondly, narratives were inductively analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that support from family, coupled with the transformed application of an Indian androcentric cultural value system within the home, positively influenced participants’ socialisation process. This triggered optimistic social cognition that informed high levels of self-efficacy and progressive decision-making. The limited organisational support reported by participants pointed to ubiquitous gender challenges: these negatively impacted professional opportunities and growth. Also clearly evident were perceptions and bias about women in the profession, strongly premised on gender identity, as opposed to racial identity. Motivation to remain an engineer was predicated on: (a) passion for the discipline; (b) career growth and opportunities; and (c) financial independence/empowerment. The findings, and their implications, offer higher education institutions and engineering bodies a point of departure that can inform strategies to motivate female engineers to remain in the profession. The study contributes to the evolving body of knowledge on biculturalism through the bicultural life stories presented by a sample of ethnic minority women who are absent from the literature pertaining to biculturalism. The research offers an assimilated version of Lent and Hackett’s Social Cognitive Career model, represented in a Bicultural Social Career Trajectory, as an understanding of the interplay between identity tags, context, cognitive processing and action behaviour. The sample’s location and nationality impose certain limitations on this study. Participants were South African- born Indian women engineers from three of the country’s nine provinces. Hence, the findings cannot be generalised to South African Indian women engineers from the remaining six provinces, nor to foreign nationals of Indian descent. These limitations offer an opportunity for future research on ethnic minority women of Indian descent, regardless of nationality. This would entail an extended geographical reach to include countries that have a population of Indian womenengineers. Such a study could potentially unearth interesting nuances regarding the bicultural life experiences and career orientation of Indian women engineers on a global scale.
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    Investigating In-service Teachers’ Beliefs and Self-efficacy about Mathematical Modelling Using a Structural Model of Professional Competence for Teaching Mathematical Modelling
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Khoza, Siyabonga Jabulane; Ekol, George
    In this study, I investigate in-service teachers’ beliefs and self-efficacy about teaching mathematical modelling. I further understood teachers’ perceptions about teaching modelling in the Grades 10 - 12 CAPS mathematics curriculum. The purpose of the study was to reveal teachers’ beliefs and SEF to support the development of teachers' modelling competency. The study was underpinned by a structural model of professional competence for teaching mathematical modelling among in-service teachers. A structured questionnaire with a 5 Likert scale was used to collect data on the ISTs' beliefs, SEF, and prior knowledge about teaching modelling in the Grade 10 – 12 CAPS curriculum. Further semi-structured interview sessions were secured with three participants to further confirm quantitative data. Thus, a ‘Sequential explanatory research design from a mixed method research design’ was used to report the collected data. From the questionnaire obtained results, three major themes were formulated from the research questions and used to analyse, present, and discuss the data, which were ISTs’ beliefs about mathematical modelling, ISTs’ self-efficacy about mathematical modelling, and ISTs’ prior knowledge about modelling. From the qualitative data, four themes stood out from the data during the transcription process, namely, teachers are more product-driven than process, learners should take the lead during mathematical modelling, the curriculum timeframe limits learners from exploring modelling, and the limitation of mathematics content in the curriculum. What was revealed from the data is that teachers do believe in the existence of modelling in the mathematics curriculum. Teachers showed being constructivists in the classroom when teaching mathematics in general, including modelling. Their prior experiences with teaching modelling showed that it has contributed to their belief in teaching and learning modelling. Though teachers' beliefs and prior knowledge in this study showed to be developed and acquired respectively, to sufficiently show competencies of teaching modelling in the classroom. However, their SEF to diagnose learners' abilities during their modelling processes showed to be limited. Meaning, teachers did not show confidence in their abilities to diagnose learners' abilities when modelling, and it was not confirmed if they can identify learners' abilities when solving mathematical tasks in general. I believe in South African modelling can be taught and learnt in the classroom if it is sufficiently catered for in the curriculum and if teachers get the necessary support in teaching modelling. The value of the study is an important contribution to teachers' mathematical modelling competency.
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    The impact of manager-employee coaching relationship and self-leadership on performance behaviours of corporate graduate interns in a South African telecommunications company
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Molekwa, Solomon Molefi; Msimango-Galawe, Jabulile
    The objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of the manager-employee coaching relationship and self-leadership practice on the performance of corporate graduate interns. The study employed a post-positivist paradigm and a quantitative approach. Through an online Qualtrics questionnaire, data was gathered from a sample size of 200 corporate graduate interns. Data analysis method that was adopted was regression analysis to test hypotheses. The results demonstrated a significant positive impact between self-leadership skills practice and performance behaviours of corporate graduate interns. The hypothesis that the perceived quality of a manager-employee coaching relationship impacts positively on the performance behaviours of corporate graduate interns was not supported. The key message from this study is that the self-leadership coaching is critical for the development and growth of corporate graduate interns. Leadership that practices coaching is vital for supporting employees to develop and practice self- leadership skills, which impact positively on their development of desired job- related performance behaviours
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    Factors influencing the next generations’ succession decisions for family businesses in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Maduka, Oluchi Jane; Msimango-Galawe, Jabulile
    The involvement of the next-generation family members on succession decisions can improve continuity of the business. i Although several factors scan influence an individuals i choice of career, including in relation to joining the family business, parental support is the most influential. the primary objective of the study was to investigation factors influencing the next-generations’ succession decisions for family i businesses in SA. given that challenges usually emerge during succession decisions especially when the founder wants to pass down the torch to his/her children. This can discontinue the business if a proper process is not instituted.
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    Motivational factors, intent and contextual factors that influence the creation of small entrepreneurial ventures in Gauteng
    (2021) Tsenki, Relebohile G
    Orientation – Many South Africans have opted for entrepreneurship to earn a decent living, while the government directs itself to the fighting of unemployment and to increasing economic growth and development. Currently, the country faces high levels of unemployment, leaving entrepreneurship to be viewed as a positive answer to such a problem. Motivation for the study – For entrepreneurship to occur, there must be some type of motivation, behaviour or action, belief in one’s ability and external forces playing a role. The idea for this topic developed due to the high unemployment rate in South Africa, with the focus being on the Gauteng province. The importance given to identifying the intent (desire and behaviour) to become an entrepreneur led by the motivation through push-and-pull factors, with the necessary belief one had in themself (self-efficacy) and by the external environment (the contextual factors) with which the participants in the current study were faced when attempting to create their venture. The present study did not focus on those individuals who wanted to start a business in the future, but rather on those who had already established a business, which lent additional insight into what they had to endure to get their business up and running. Research purpose – The main purpose of the current study was to identify the motivational factors, intent and contextual factors that influence the creation of small entrepreneurial ventures in Gauteng, focusing on individuals aged 18 and above. Research design, approach, and method – The study uses quantitative research methods based on a positivist research paradigm. The questionnaire was administered, using a link via WhatsApp and email, to a sample of 120 entrepreneurs who were registered and who operated in the Gauteng region at the time of the study. The data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis, reliability and validity testing, correlation analysis and linear regression. Main findings – The findings of the study concluded that a positive relationship existed between entrepreneurial intent, with motivational push-pull and contextual factors, in small entrepreneurial ventures in the Gauteng region. No evidence was found in the study regarding to the relationship between entrepreneurial intent and self-efficacy. Practical/managerial implications – The results of this research have practical implications for policymakers, researchers and incubators. Contribution/value add – The study contributes to the existing empirical findings as to how different dimensions of motivational factors and contextual factors can affect entrepreneurial intent, as well as their effects on small entrepreneurial ventures in a developing country.