UWC Scholar Publishing Support (University of the Western Cape)
Not a member yet
1520 research outputs found
Sort by
How do students\u27 beliefs about mathematics ability change in their first year at university?
Get PDFThe affective dimension of students’ transition into university is an area of development that has the potential to improve student success. Large-scale research suggests that developing a growth mindset belief –that academic ability can always be expanded–may be especially helpful for first generation students. A starting point for developing growth mindsets as one type of affective support for students is to investigate how we can position students on the fixed-to-growth spectrum of beliefs about academic ability. This mixed-methods study considers the changes during their first year of university in the mindset beliefs held by two representative first-year mathematics students, one who passed and one who had to repeat the second semester of mathematics. Without experiencing interventions aimed at developing growth mindsets, both students showed small shifts towards stronger growth mindsets over their first year. Limitations with assessing mindsets are acknowledged and recommendations for future research in this area are suggested.
The obstinate notion that higher education is a meritocracy
Get PDFStudent success is an enormous concern in light of the high drop-out rates in South African universities. There is a wealth of local and international research which provides complex explanations for these statistics, but the common-sense understanding is that those students who have the right attributes and who work hard will do well. While the notion of higher education as a meritocracy is pervasive, it is invalid given the effects of numerous other mechanisms at play in the students\u27 educational experiences. This article draws from the literature to discuss the problems of the meritocratic explanation in how it fails to sufficiently account for the centrality of agency and the ways in which this intersects with societal structures. We argue that more useful understandings of student success and failure require social theory that acknowledges the complexities underpinning student success or failure
The governmentality of teaching and learning: acquiescence or resistance?
Get PDFThis article critiques the ethics of teaching and learning (T&L) practices in the university. It argues they consummate contemporary regimes of government through the backdoor of the classroom. To this end, the university is first depicted as an organisation opened up by the imperatives of advanced liberalism. The article then examines Henry Giroux’s critical pedagogy, which links the cultivation of critical citizens to a democratic polity. However, Giroux’s proposal for student emancipation through juxtaposing knowledge with power is rejected in favour of a Foucauldian framework of governmentality. It understands the teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) of active learning as a solution to the imperatives of the conduct of conduct incited by advanced liberal government, which traditional T&L practices of passive learning are unable to satisfy. The innocuousness of these changes in student conduct is subsequently interpreted in terms of its ethical import. Following Michel Foucault’s demarcation of ethics from morality, four elements of ethics are discerned and mapped onto TLRs: the ethical substance, or what to act on (mind); the ethical work, or how to act upon (individualisation); the mode of subjectification, or who must act (autonomous learners); and the ethical conduct, or why we must act (self-entrepreneurial subjects). Finally, the article suggests the academic’s purgatory between their former identity as a teacher and their current role as an instructor can be resolved in the classroom itself through an agonistic ethical relation to the student, which is simultaneously a form of resistance of TLRs
Book Review: Activity Theory, Authentic Learning and Emerging Technologies: Towards a Transformative Higher Education Pedagogy, V. Bozalek et al. (eds)
No full textBook Review: Activity Theory, Authentic Learning and Emerging Technologies: Towards a Transformative Higher Education Pedagogy, V. Bozalek et al. (eds
Review essay: Propositions for posthuman teaching and research: a diffractive re-view of three books
Get PDFReview essay: Propositions for posthuman teaching and research: a diffractive re-view of three books
Snaza, N. & Weaver, J.A. (eds). 2015. Posthumanism and Educational Research. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-78235-8. Hbk, 203 pp.
Taylor, C.A. & Hughes, C. (eds). 2016. Posthuman Research Practices in Education. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN: 978-1-137-45307-5. Hbk, 272 pp.
Vannini, P. (ed). 2015. Non-Representational Methodologies: Re-Envisioning Research. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-71301-6. Hbk, 194 pp
Journal of Entrepreneurial Innovations: Special Issue: Entrepreneurship Education: Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2023
No full textUse of Mother Tongue and Gender as Determinants of Students’ Attitudes Towards Entrepreneurship Education
Get PDFThe study investigated the use of mother tongue and gender as determinants of students\u27 attitudes towards entrepreneurship education (EE) in higher education institutions (HEIs) using the Faculty of Education, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State, Nigeria as a case study. The objective was to determine the relationship between the use of the mother tongue, gender, and students\u27 attitude toward entrepreneurship education. Two hypotheses were formulated to serve as a guide to the study. Three hundred (300) Alex Ekwueme Federal University students were randomly selected for the study. A questionnaire titled ‘“Use of mother tongue scale and students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship education”’ questionnaire was administered and used for data collection. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression tested at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that the criterion variable (students\u27 attitude towards entrepreneurship education correlated positively and low towards the use of the mother tongue. Also, gender was not a determinant factor in both students\u27 attitudes towards entrepreneurship educationand the use of the mother tongue. The results also showed that only students with knowledge of the use of the mother tongue with the regressional coefficient (b) of .258, and a beta weight of .592 significantly have a good attitude towards entrepreneurship education, while gender was not a significant factor in predicting students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship education. Based on these findings, some recommendations were made which include, but are not limited to, that students should be encouraged to be knowledgeable on the use of their mother tongue, understand, speak, and use their mother tongue, irrespective of gender. The university should encourage the use of the mother tongue in entrepreneurship education
Decoloniality, language and literacy: conversations with teacher educators Edited by Carolyn Mckinney and Pam Christie
Get PDFThe book offers a view on the role of teacher educators as transformation agents of language and literacy practices in South African classrooms and PGCE/teaching programmes. The book explores the way in which the authors themselves as teacher educators/facilitators and researchers show how multilingualism and multiliteracies can be curated by working with different modalities and exposure to different school spaces across the economic spectrum in South Africa. The book offers a view on how teacher educators and pre- service teachers can build collaborative relationships with each other in developing creative ways in which their own positioning and knowledge aid in developing linguistically rich learning environments, breaking down the status quo of coloniality in education. Through the perspective of ‘third’ spaces (Guiterrez, 2008) the authors demonstrate ways in which pluriversality (Mignolo, 2013) can emerge through collaborative language practices in the classroom, which by and large paves the way for decolonised education in South Africa
Multilingualism and Indigenous School Education in Brazil: past, present and future challenges
Get PDFIn Brazil, only with the Federal Constitution of 1988 is indigenous peoples guaranteed the right to use their languages and cultures. However, since colonization, many languages have disappeared. The number of speakers of these languages has decreased, and different stages and language policies have promoted the Portuguese language at the expense of indigenous languages. All these factors to different sociolinguistic situations, current challenges in language teaching and learning, as scenarios of monolingualism in an indigenous language, continuum bilingualism, and non-speaking communities of an indigenous language. However, with revitalization, actions occur in the Brazilian context. We resorted to assumptions derived from studies on multilingualism, language policy, and language pedagogies. Based on these assumptions, this article aims to reflect on the moments and movements of indigenous school education and language policies in Brazil’s multilingual and multicultural country. This study is qualitative interpretive research based on a literature review in an integrative approach of theoretical perspectives concerned with the topic