African University Research Articles

A blended teaching and learning model for family-medicine registrar training at a South African university

A blended teaching and learning model for family-medicine registrar training at a South African university

The spatiality of geography assessment questions: a case study of selected South African universities

ABSTRACT Spatial thinking is an essential skill for geographers and can be taught and learnt at any age. Spatial thinking should, therefore, form part of the Geography curriculum at every study level. An initial desktop study by the authors has indicated that the inclusion of spatial thinking in the undergraduate Geography curriculum at South African universities needs improvement. Up to now, published research papers have focused mostly on questions on spatiality included in Geography textbooks at the school and tertiary levels. None of these papers focused on the spatiality of assessment questions. This research aims to assess the spatiality of questions posed in formative and summative assessments of undergraduate geography modules at six selected South African universities. The taxonomy of spatial thinking was used to determine the spatiality of 2864 formative and summative assessment questions used at the first, second and third-year levels at six selected South African universities. The results indicate that the assessment questions, generally, do not reach a desirable level of spatiality and will, therefore, contribute towards developing students’ spatial thinking skills only in a limited way. Based on the results, recommendations are supplied to improve the spatiality of undergraduate Geography assessment questions using the taxonomy of spatial thinking.

How dignity matters for life and lifelong learning: insights from participatory story-telling by university students in South Africa

ABSTRACT The claim made is that dignity matters in both legal and recognitional aspects for flourishing and lifelong learning opportunities for young adults. Dignity is understood here as a foundational capability and functioning to be and to do in ways which matter to a person, requiring the material and non-material conditions which enable and secure equal dignity for each person. The claim is first explored drawing on both the capability approach and conceptualisations of dignity, especially the inflorescent form. Then, to empirically animate the claim, the article draws on a participatory story-telling project undertaken in a South African university in 2020 with graduate students, in which they were co-creators of knowledge. Participants were supported pedagogically in producing their own individual and collective digital stories, focusing on their lived experiences of social justice and specifically of human dignity. The project shows that dignity is an especially important capability for young people’s present and future wellbeing and their aspirations. Dignity is formed in and sustained relationally in collective spaces. Further, dignity enables repair of the injustices of the colonial and apartheid past. If dignity is not fostered in and through education in adult and higher education spaces, education will always fall short of social justice aspirations and lifelong learning conditions.

Perceived stress and burnout syndrome in chiropractic students at a South African university during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study.

Higher stress levels may be associated with decreased academic success and physical and psychological well-being in chiropractic students. This study aimed to determine the perceived stress and burnout of chiropractic students at the University of Johannesburg during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a quantitative, exploratory study utilizing a self-administered online questionnaire distributed to chiropractic students (n = 246) at the university. The questionnaire consisted of 3 main components: demographics, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS). Data were analyzed utilizing exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach alpha for reliabilities, and descriptive statistics for mean scores being interpreted using subscales pertaining to the 2 survey tools. The response rate was 63.82% (n = 157) with the PSS-10 indicating participants obtained a total mean score of 25.08 (average stress). For the MBI-SS categories, participants scored 18.96 out of 30 for exhaustion, 10.31 out of 30 for cynicism, and 22.46 out of 36 for professional efficiency; higher scores of exhaustion and cynicism and lower scores of professional efficiency are indicative of higher degrees of burnout. Statistically significant differences for both tools were noted in relation to age and academic year with higher values indicated with increased age and progression in the program. The results indicate that chiropractic students experienced moderate levels of stress but higher burnout than other health sciences student populations when compared to current literature. Age and progression in the program appear to have a negative influence on both these factors.

Neo-Liberalism’s Shadows: Modern slavery in South African Higher Education

Neoliberal ideology globally prioritises competition and productivity over staff well-being in higher education, leading to exploitative practices and heightened stress among academic faculty, culminating in what can be termed modern academic slavery. This study investigates the contemporary impact of neoliberalism on South African universities, focussing on governance, funding and academic freedom, and how these factors contribute to deteriorating conditions for academic staff and toxic work environments. This research examines academic experiences in a South African urban higher education institution (HEI) utilizing a single-case study approach. It examines their context within institutional and societal trends. Using a single-case ideographic approach in a South African HEI, the study utilises detailed documentation, incident analysis and literature review to understand academic enslavement within the chosen HEI, contextualising the academic’s experiences within these broader institutional and societal trends. The findings reveal four key themes: moral disengagement, corporate malfeasance, exploitative labour practices, and labour coercion, illustrating the widespread exploitation of academic staff. The study advocates for urgent interventions to ensure respectful treatment, foster ethical work environments, and address disparities between administrators and faculty. It calls for autonomy, ethical leadership and a culture of inquiry in HEIs to combat modern academic slavery while acknowledging the need for further action and exploration.Contribution: This study underscores the current impact of neoliberalism on higher education in South Africa, exposing challenges for academic staff and advocating systemic reforms. It emphasises the necessity for future investigations into institutional accountability and strategies to enhance staff well-being in HEIs.

Reterritorialisation of the transformative power of self-care activities: Students’ wellness

Students including health sciences at universities that appear to subscribe to neoliberal logic are at risk for social injustices and inequalities, anxiety, depression, academic demands and unethical activities. There has been little discussion about students’ self-care and well-being in and beyond the neoliberal universities. This article explored the transformative power of self-care activities on the wellness and learning of health sciences students at a university in the Western Cape, South Africa. A qualitative exploratory-descriptive research approach was conducted with 10 health sciences students purposively recruited from a South African university. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Three themes identified from the analysis were: students’ understanding of self-care, engagement in self-care activities and the transformative power of self-care activities. The key barriers to engagement in self-care activities were academic demands and unsafe environments; however, the students had to make time and effort.Contribution: This article makes several noteworthy contributions to how self-care horizontal and complicated conversations can be infused into health sciences education and work-integrated learning contexts to heal and transform the wounds of neoliberal logic at universities. Additionally, we propound the applicability of ubuntu currere (ubuntu curriculum) and wellness as liberating frameworks that can be used for reterritorialisation and reconceptualisation of self-care and well-being to cultivate health sciences students’ professional and personal development.

A Reparative Lens for Exploring Youth Aspirations in South African Universities

ABSTRACT In South Africa, low-income rural black youth are assumed to exhibit endurance in their higher education agency while yet not really being agentic, because they accommodate an oppressive university and settle for less ambitious aspirational horizons. Drawing on illustrative empirical data from a longitudinal study of black youth without hot knowledge of higher education to deploy from their families’ biographies, the project explored students’ accessing, participating in and moving on from their studies at five South African universities. In exploring youth aspirations and agency, the concept of repair is employed to position aspirations as reparative and temporal where past injustices, present and future intersect in shaping agency and in projecting imagined futures for youth. The cultural lens of aspiration offers a space to interrogate and dismantle past exclusions and unsettle norms of the “disadvantaged student” to avoid reinscribing past injustice in ways which are globally relevant to marginalised university students from poor backgrounds compared to better off students. It shows how day to day negotiated conditions of living in universities by these students are agentic; enduring poverty and exclusion is an active aspirational struggle for dignity and recognition, even if these students are not able to undo relations of power. Ubuntu is mobilised as an ontological means to further deepen how we understand aspirations and agency as interdependent and interacted between person and community and as refusal of the neoliberal university. Finally, features of universities as potential spaces of aspirations and repair for transformative change and transformative futures are sketched.

Robbing the cradle: Factors promoting lecturer-on-student transactional sex relationships at a South African university

While universities have been lauded as sanctuaries of peace where students and staff pursue educational goals, there has been a marked increase in the victimisation of students by staff members who have been known to hound students for sexual favours. This increase in unethical conduct continues regardless of "sound" policies regulating university student and staff relationships. Against this background, this study sought to explore the factors shaping the pervasive practice of transactional sex between staff and students at a university in rural South Africa. Underpinned by the sexual exchange theory, the study utilised an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. The findings categorised into four key themes—academic reasons, impunity and power dynamics, financial constraints, and peer pressure and influence—highlight the entrenched nature of this practice within the university setting. The study recommended implementing and enforcing strict policies with clear consequences for perpetrators and establishing confidential reporting systems and dedicated support units for victims.

Design & automation of a small-scale towing tank for flow visualization

Although the towing tank is a standard piece of equipment used to investigate fluid phenomena, it primarily exists as custom-built hardware that takes up a significant footprint. The size, cost, and custom-built nature have heretofore inhibited the production of this equipment in the authors’ context, an African university. This paper presents a small-scale (1000 mm x 200 mm x 200 mm), low-cost (<$1,000) towing tank made using readily available components and basic digital fabrication tools. Other universities on the continent and beyond can hence create this foundational platform for fluid mechanics-related teaching and research. Leveraging an Arduino microcontroller loaded with the GRBL firmware, G-code is sent from the computer to stepper motors to execute movements in two axes. This allows for automation capabilities, controlled towing speeds, and consistent experimental conditions. Validation tests revealed motion accuracy within 1 %. A glitter-based flow visualization approach to measuring surface phenomena is demonstrated here. Experiments conducted successfully visualized relevant flow characteristics generated by bluff bodies being towed in the tank. As the Reynolds number increased within the operating range, wider wakes and larger, more distinct vortices were generated, as expected. This platform can be replicated widely in institutions that may otherwise forego experimentation in fluid mechanics.

Navigating Future Roles and Professional Identity Shift of Academics at a South African University: Perceived Attitudes towards Emerging Technologies

Navigating Future Roles and Professional Identity Shift of Academics at a South African University: Perceived Attitudes towards Emerging Technologies

Memification of Students’ Experiences at South African Universities: A Critical Examination of Meme Value within UCT Just Kidding and Wits Just Kidding Memes

Memes are considered a communication tool that allows groups of individuals to form a community and express themselves through three semiotic resources: visuals, text and humour. They provide new references that contribute to the construction of identities. This is especially true within university student communities. In this study, we use two students’ meme pages in South Africa, UCT Just Kidding (@uctjustkidding) and Wits Just Kidding (@witsjustkidding), as case studies to investigate how students use memes to highlight their everyday experiences and the values attached to these memes. We also explore how memes portray significant issues affecting students’ development and progression within the broader South African higher education institutions. Using semi-structured interviews conducted with 7 meme creators and administrators, textual and visual analysis of 14 memes from both pages and Marx’s labour theory of value as a theoretical framework, we argue that students use memes to communicate and raise awareness on salient issues affecting them. We, therefore, underscore memes as a powerful tool for constructing social, political, economic and cultural realities among university students in particular and communities in general.

Racial discourses and colonial education policy: The discursive construction of education development at a historically white South African university

Motivated by critiques from black students during the protests (2015-2016), I trace continuities between the racialised discourses and knowledge regimes that justified colonial education policies and that of Education Development at a historically white South African university. First, I show how the University of Cape Town’s Humanities Education Development Programme racialised and misrecognised black students, despite attempted reforms. Secondly, I trace the discursive formation of the ED project - from the assimilationist discourse of missionary education; the adapted model of trusteeship; the production of race science during apartheid; to a return to assimilationist discourse via the Cape Liberal tradition during apartheid’s demise. However, after a generation of inferior Banu Education, the attempt to assimilate black students into historically white universities’ curricula was not feasible. Instead, an adapted, remedial model was proposed that became entrenched post-apartheid by a state and HE system that failed to transform its inherited Eurocentric curriculum.

Examining employee engagement and its importance at the selected South African university

An engaged workforce is vital for higher education institutions to contribute positively to the developing world. The purpose of this study is to examine employee engagement and its significance for academic and administrative employees at the Durban University of Technology in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The study opted for a quantitative research design to explore the role and importance of employee engagement. The target population consisted of 1,861 university employees at the selected university in South Africa, and 320 employee from different university units and positions were selected using simple random sampling without replacement. The results revealed that 80% of respondents exert high levels of physical energy, concentration, and dedication toward achieving institutional objectives. Additionally, the results showed a significant difference in the support employees get, with administrative staff receiving more support than academic staff members. The study concluded that university employees exhibit high levels of physical energy at work. In addition, the study found a significant and positive relationship between employees exhibiting high levels of physical energy at work and employees who find their work meaningful and experience inspiration.

Africanizing the SDGs: A key factor for enhancing sustainability consciousness within South African universities

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be viewed as the aftermath of the Millennial Development Goals (MDGs). This is due to the fact that the seventeen (17) SDGs are designed to continue the work expected to have been done by the MDGs. In other words, the failure of the MDGs to eradicate poverty birthed the SDGs. However, the SDGs seem not to be achieving the desired result. This has led to the projection for the need for a decade of action. In the African context, the questions of why the MDGs failed and the SDGs tend to be failing are yet to be asked. By projection, if the questions are not asked and answers are not provided, the projection of the decade of action may also fail. Hence, the reason for this conceptual paper which was targeted at exploring the possibility of considering the Africanization of the SDGs as remedy to ensuring sustainable development in the African continent. Different relevant sources were identified, reviewed and analysed. The findings from the reviewed and analysed sources showed among others that for Africanization of the SDGs to be a reality and practicable, glocalization must be embraced. Meanwhile, there will be need to question the use of Eurocentric curricula in African institutions of learning.

The humanities impacting communities through entrepreneurship: A case study of student enterprise from a South African university

The role of a university education is to transform and develop communities through the production of academically competent graduates and research, as well as through knowledge creation. However, research has shown that the level of unemployment in South Africa remains high despite the increasing number of graduates. The Faculty of the Humanities at a South African university has been intentional in impacting communities by inculcating a culture of entrepreneurship among students. In this article, I reflect on a case study of students from various disciplines, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, who have been mentored in entrepreneurship, have registered a business, and interacted with communities to provide identified services. I follow a participatory research approach to engage the students in a reflection on their relationships with the community members and on the impact of their interventions on these communities. I also analysed the data collected through a focus group discussion and semi-structured interviews to identify common themes and determine the attributes developed by students as they engaged in entrepreneurship. The findings from the reflections demonstrate the humanities students’ perceived value of entrepreneurship on communities’ development and graduates’ employability.

Enhancing Students’ Resilience Through Student-Support Initiatives: A Case Study of Three African Universities

Enhancing Students’ Resilience Through Student-Support Initiatives: A Case Study of Three African Universities

Promoting Institutional Resilience Through Blended Learning During and Post-Covid-19 in South African Universities

Promoting Institutional Resilience Through Blended Learning During and Post-Covid-19 in South African Universities

Adaptation and Resilience of Rural Students in South African Universities: An Indigenous Knowledge Perspective

Adaptation and Resilience of Rural Students in South African Universities: An Indigenous Knowledge Perspective

Barriers and facilitators of translating doctoral research findings into policy: The case of a selected health sciences school in a South African university

BackgroundAlthough the barriers and facilitators of translating health research into policy are generally well documented, not much has been reported for universities in low-and middle-income countries. We identified and analyzed barriers and facilitators of translating doctoral research findings into policy in a selected health sciences school in a South African university. MethodsThe study adopted a quantitative descriptive research design. We conveniently collected data through an online questionnaire administered to 47 PhD graduates, 11 PhD final year students and 21 PhD supervisors of the School of Nursing and Public Health. Descriptive statistics was performed, and data were summarized using percentages. ResultsMore than half (72.4 %) of the students reported not involving Department of Health during formulation of research questions for their projects and 62.1 % reported not directly sharing research findings with the Department of Health. 53.4 % of the students indicated that they attended Department of Health research days and only 39.7 % said they presented research findings at the meetings. Only 39.7 % of the students who shared their research results to the Department of Health received feedback. About 52.4 % of the academic supervisors believed the introduction of the quartile system as a measure of impact of publications may reduce policy impact. An individual PhD supervisor supervises an average of 6 PhD students at any given time. 85.7 % of PhD supervisors reported that they consider stakeholders needs/interests when assisting students to identify research topics. ConclusionThe study revealed the need for universities to make policymakers aware of available evidence, conduct research that is informed by the Department of Health's research agenda, involve the Department of Health in identifying research projects, and disseminate findings using platforms accessible to policymakers. Other key considerations are political will to utilize evidence, packaging evidence in a user-friendly manner and building the capacity of policymakers to use evidence.

Measuring dimensions of teacher resilience in Africa: Self-efficacy and teacher efficacy

With this article we aimed to contribute evidence on reliable and valid measurement of teacher resilience in an under researched African context and population. Scales from an existing instrument, ENTREEi, were used to measure the resilience of pre-service teachers at a South African university. The sample constituted 1,193 final-year pre-service teachers (20–32 years), who completed the FIRE teacher resilience measure (2015 to 2017). Teacher resilience data were purposively selected from the FIRE dataset and items analysed related to self-efficacy and teacher efficacy beliefs. A quantitative approach was used, which consisted of reliability (internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha) and validity (construct validity using Spearman correlations) analyses of the teacher resilience scale and the teacher efficacy scale. The statistical analyses indicate that the FIRE teacher resilience measure is a reliable and valid measure for intrapersonal resilience-enabling pathways in a challenged context. The underlying variable structure of the teacher resilience scale and teacher efficacy scale held in a Global South setting when used with pre-service teachers. The article contributes to teacher resilience measurement discourse by providing insights into the utility of teacher resilience scales in South Africa. The results act as a precursor for comparative teacher resilience results worldwide for future studies.