Book Review Growing the next generation of researchers: A handbook for emerging researchers and their mentors, Holness, L
- Motshoane, Puleng, Muthama, Evelyn, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Motshoane, Puleng , Muthama, Evelyn , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187205 , vital:44579 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v3i2.56"
- Description: South Africa urgently needs more researchers (NRF, 2008; NDP, 2011). We also need a transformation in the demographics of our researchers. One indicator of this is that currently only 14% of university professors are black African, and only 2% are black African females (DHET, 2012). The Staffing South Africa's Universities Framework includes a number of initiatives to drive the process of growing the next generation of academics. For example, the nGAP project has inserted 125 new posts into the higher education system in 2015, with more to follow. This project allows for new academics to undertake postgraduate study and develop as teachers and researchers through mentorship, a reduced teaching load and so on.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Motshoane, Puleng , Muthama, Evelyn , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187205 , vital:44579 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v3i2.56"
- Description: South Africa urgently needs more researchers (NRF, 2008; NDP, 2011). We also need a transformation in the demographics of our researchers. One indicator of this is that currently only 14% of university professors are black African, and only 2% are black African females (DHET, 2012). The Staffing South Africa's Universities Framework includes a number of initiatives to drive the process of growing the next generation of academics. For example, the nGAP project has inserted 125 new posts into the higher education system in 2015, with more to follow. This project allows for new academics to undertake postgraduate study and develop as teachers and researchers through mentorship, a reduced teaching load and so on.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
The Dangers of Student-Centered Learning-A Caution about Blind Spots in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187362 , vital:44624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070206"
- Description: Student-centered learning is an increasingly popular approach that shifts the focus from the teacher to the student. The approach argues that we need to have a clear understanding of who our students are and what their needs are in order for us to provide quality education. This paper applauds the focus on the student but raises two concerns about absences in this approach. Firstly, student-centered approaches rarely consider the actual knowledge being taught and learnt. There is little consideration of how the disciplinary knowledge is constructed and what norms and values underpin such constructions. Secondly, student-centered approaches are often undertaken within the dominant autonomous discourse where student success or failure is seen to result from characteristics inherent in the student. She is understood as an individual rather than as a member of a larger social group and there is equally little acknowledgement of the socially constructed nature of universities and the practices within them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187362 , vital:44624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2013.070206"
- Description: Student-centered learning is an increasingly popular approach that shifts the focus from the teacher to the student. The approach argues that we need to have a clear understanding of who our students are and what their needs are in order for us to provide quality education. This paper applauds the focus on the student but raises two concerns about absences in this approach. Firstly, student-centered approaches rarely consider the actual knowledge being taught and learnt. There is little consideration of how the disciplinary knowledge is constructed and what norms and values underpin such constructions. Secondly, student-centered approaches are often undertaken within the dominant autonomous discourse where student success or failure is seen to result from characteristics inherent in the student. She is understood as an individual rather than as a member of a larger social group and there is equally little acknowledgement of the socially constructed nature of universities and the practices within them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Lost in translation: Transformation in the first round of institutional audits
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187384 , vital:44627 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC132752"
- Description: The South African higher education institutional audit process was introduced alongside similar endeavors internationally. However, despite many similarities, each country foregrounds different concerns within their higher education quality processes. In their seminal article, Harvey and Green suggest five possible notions of quality, one of which is quality as transformation, and in South Africa the message has been clearly stated: notions of quality are intricately related to transformation. Local research has however suggested that the notion of 'transformation' as quality takes on particular nuances within the country’s context. In the two institutional case studies presented here, the 'quality as transformation' discourse appears to have been largely lost in translation. In one university transformation was not called upon to construct notions of quality; quality was primarily constructed by a discourse of excellence. In the other institution, the transformation aspects of quality seem to have been interpreted in a particularly reductionist way as relating solely to racial demographics. In both cases, this article argues that the 'quality as transformation' discourse prevalent in the audit documentation in the South African context was lost somewhere between the intentions embodied in national documents and the processes embarked upon by institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Quinn, Lynn
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187384 , vital:44627 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC132752"
- Description: The South African higher education institutional audit process was introduced alongside similar endeavors internationally. However, despite many similarities, each country foregrounds different concerns within their higher education quality processes. In their seminal article, Harvey and Green suggest five possible notions of quality, one of which is quality as transformation, and in South Africa the message has been clearly stated: notions of quality are intricately related to transformation. Local research has however suggested that the notion of 'transformation' as quality takes on particular nuances within the country’s context. In the two institutional case studies presented here, the 'quality as transformation' discourse appears to have been largely lost in translation. In one university transformation was not called upon to construct notions of quality; quality was primarily constructed by a discourse of excellence. In the other institution, the transformation aspects of quality seem to have been interpreted in a particularly reductionist way as relating solely to racial demographics. In both cases, this article argues that the 'quality as transformation' discourse prevalent in the audit documentation in the South African context was lost somewhere between the intentions embodied in national documents and the processes embarked upon by institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Students’ navigation of the uncharted territories of academic writing
- Bharuthram, Sharita, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Bharuthram, Sharita , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187373 , vital:44626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2012.742651"
- Description: Many students enter tertiary education unfamiliar with the ‘norms and conventions’ of their disciplines. Research into academic literacies has shown that in order to succeed in their studies, students are expected to conform to these norms and conventions, which are often unrecognized or seen as ‘common sense’ by lecturers. Students have to develop their own ‘map’ of their programme’s expectations in order to make sense of the seemingly mysterious practices they are expected to take on. This study, undertaken at a University of Technology in South Africa, details students’ perceptions of their writing difficulties and their attempts to navigate their way through various writing tasks. The findings reveal that students experience a range of difficulties and that the students often feel unsupported in their travails with academic writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Bharuthram, Sharita , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187373 , vital:44626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2012.742651"
- Description: Many students enter tertiary education unfamiliar with the ‘norms and conventions’ of their disciplines. Research into academic literacies has shown that in order to succeed in their studies, students are expected to conform to these norms and conventions, which are often unrecognized or seen as ‘common sense’ by lecturers. Students have to develop their own ‘map’ of their programme’s expectations in order to make sense of the seemingly mysterious practices they are expected to take on. This study, undertaken at a University of Technology in South Africa, details students’ perceptions of their writing difficulties and their attempts to navigate their way through various writing tasks. The findings reveal that students experience a range of difficulties and that the students often feel unsupported in their travails with academic writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Argumentative and trustworthy scholars
- McKenna, Sioux, Boughey, Chrissie
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Boughey, Chrissie
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187216 , vital:44580 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.934351"
- Description: Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Boughey, Chrissie
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187216 , vital:44580 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.934351"
- Description: Research-intensive universities, such as the Russell Group in the UK, the Ivy League Colleges in the USA and the Sandstone Universities in Australia, enjoy particular status in the higher education landscape. They are, however, also often associated with social elitism and selectivity, and this has led to critique as higher education systems seek to widen access. This article looks at how academic staff are discursively constructed in five such institutions in South Africa through an analysis of documentation submitted as part of a national review. Three interrelated discourses are identified: a discourse of ‘staff as scholars’ whereby research is privileged over teaching, a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ whereby a critical disposition is valued and is called upon by academics to resist development initiatives and a discourse of ‘trust’ whereby it is assumed that academics share a value system and should thus be trusted to undertake quality teaching without interference.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
'I won't be squeezed into someone else's frame': Stories of supervisor selection
- Harrison, Liz, McKenna, Sioux, Searle, Ruth
- Authors: Harrison, Liz , McKenna, Sioux , Searle, Ruth
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187395 , vital:44629 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15100"
- Description: Using a collection of stories from a group of women who belong to a PhD support group, this article tracks the issue of choosing a supervisor. These women are all academics and therefore had some claim to an "insider" status but as novice researchers they were also "outsiders". Their discussions around how and why they chose their supervisors highlight issues often underplayed or ignored in textbooks on postgraduate supervision. In particular, this article examines issues of knowledge, embodied subjectivity and power by following three questions that arise from the data : whose knowing is important; who should I be, and whose PhD is it?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Harrison, Liz , McKenna, Sioux , Searle, Ruth
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187395 , vital:44629 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15100"
- Description: Using a collection of stories from a group of women who belong to a PhD support group, this article tracks the issue of choosing a supervisor. These women are all academics and therefore had some claim to an "insider" status but as novice researchers they were also "outsiders". Their discussions around how and why they chose their supervisors highlight issues often underplayed or ignored in textbooks on postgraduate supervision. In particular, this article examines issues of knowledge, embodied subjectivity and power by following three questions that arise from the data : whose knowing is important; who should I be, and whose PhD is it?
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Applying a student curriculum discourse in higher education teaching and learning
- Mndzebele, Samuel, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Mndzebele, Samuel , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187417 , vital:44633 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2013.786210"
- Description: Indications of poor quality in students’ written work necessitated the need for deeper investigations aimed at designing and applying appropriate teaching/learning and assessment innovations in the course curriculum. The project-exercise engaged a conceptual-explorative approach through: reviews/investigations; educational diagnosis; design/application of innovations and evaluation processes. In addition to other challenges, diagnosed problems included: students’ ignorance on key curriculum components; imbalance in teaching/learning and assessment tasks engaging all 3-learning domains; less intensiveness of the e-learning mode; and superficial formative feedback. Included a “Student-Curriculum-Discourse” self-tutorial guide, and tasks alignment of the teaching/learning and assessment. Learners’ performance can be improved through a curriculum-discourse self-tutorial exercise, complemented with: intellectual, social, experiential, and emotional structures. Both educators and learners share specific responsibilities in the teaching/learning environment. There is need to expand/probe the theoretical dimension within which the on-line distance education occurs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Mndzebele, Samuel , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187417 , vital:44633 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2013.786210"
- Description: Indications of poor quality in students’ written work necessitated the need for deeper investigations aimed at designing and applying appropriate teaching/learning and assessment innovations in the course curriculum. The project-exercise engaged a conceptual-explorative approach through: reviews/investigations; educational diagnosis; design/application of innovations and evaluation processes. In addition to other challenges, diagnosed problems included: students’ ignorance on key curriculum components; imbalance in teaching/learning and assessment tasks engaging all 3-learning domains; less intensiveness of the e-learning mode; and superficial formative feedback. Included a “Student-Curriculum-Discourse” self-tutorial guide, and tasks alignment of the teaching/learning and assessment. Learners’ performance can be improved through a curriculum-discourse self-tutorial exercise, complemented with: intellectual, social, experiential, and emotional structures. Both educators and learners share specific responsibilities in the teaching/learning environment. There is need to expand/probe the theoretical dimension within which the on-line distance education occurs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Higher education studies as a field of research
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187405 , vital:44631 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC161436"
- Description: The field of Higher Education Studies is a rapidly growing one in South Africa and abroad but there has been little systematic review of the form this growth is taking. This article presents a case study of higher education research by considering a newly formed Higher Education Studies doctoral programme. The programme comprises 29 PhD scholars in 2014, all engaged in research on some aspect of higher education. The description of the PhD programme, the PhD scholars and what their research topics are, reveals a picture of the broad range of concerns within the field of Higher Education Studies and suggests that the field is a region, in Bernstein's terms. This means that it draws on multiple disciplines and looks both to the values and structures of those disciplines and to the professional world of work. It is argued that the strengthening of the epistemological base of Higher Education Studies is necessary for higher education research to move forwards with enhanced relational and positional autonomy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187405 , vital:44631 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC161436"
- Description: The field of Higher Education Studies is a rapidly growing one in South Africa and abroad but there has been little systematic review of the form this growth is taking. This article presents a case study of higher education research by considering a newly formed Higher Education Studies doctoral programme. The programme comprises 29 PhD scholars in 2014, all engaged in research on some aspect of higher education. The description of the PhD programme, the PhD scholars and what their research topics are, reveals a picture of the broad range of concerns within the field of Higher Education Studies and suggests that the field is a region, in Bernstein's terms. This means that it draws on multiple disciplines and looks both to the values and structures of those disciplines and to the professional world of work. It is argued that the strengthening of the epistemological base of Higher Education Studies is necessary for higher education research to move forwards with enhanced relational and positional autonomy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Neoliberalism’s conditioning effects on the university and the example of proctoring during COVID-19 and since
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426929 , vital:72401 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2100612"
- Description: Neoliberalism has shaped the academy in ways that constrain its potential as a public good. Neoliberalism is based on the assumption that, by submitting to the so-called neutral forces of the market, wealth can be created alongside the achievement of equality and efficiency. Although this assumption is demonstrably false, neoliberalism remains politically powerful. As an example, this article discusses how neoliberalism has enabled the rapid uptake of proctoring software during the covid pandemic and since. ‘Proctoring' is the online monitoring of students’ behaviour as they sit for exams. Many within the academy consider proctoring software to be dehumanizing – essentially legalized spyware. They argue that the software invades privacy and is inherently racist and ableist, amongst other things. It is hoped that by understanding how structural forces such as neoliberalism affect both our agency and university activities, frequently against the common good, strategies can be developed to change these structures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426929 , vital:72401 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2100612"
- Description: Neoliberalism has shaped the academy in ways that constrain its potential as a public good. Neoliberalism is based on the assumption that, by submitting to the so-called neutral forces of the market, wealth can be created alongside the achievement of equality and efficiency. Although this assumption is demonstrably false, neoliberalism remains politically powerful. As an example, this article discusses how neoliberalism has enabled the rapid uptake of proctoring software during the covid pandemic and since. ‘Proctoring' is the online monitoring of students’ behaviour as they sit for exams. Many within the academy consider proctoring software to be dehumanizing – essentially legalized spyware. They argue that the software invades privacy and is inherently racist and ableist, amongst other things. It is hoped that by understanding how structural forces such as neoliberalism affect both our agency and university activities, frequently against the common good, strategies can be developed to change these structures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
How the Teaching Development Grant was used (and the problem of common-sense understandings of teaching and learning)
- Moyo, Temwa, McKenna, Sioux, Ndebele, Clever
- Authors: Moyo, Temwa , McKenna, Sioux , Ndebele, Clever
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426917 , vital:72400 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a07"
- Description: Teachers at primary and secondary education levels are required to hold a professional qualification but, at the higher education level, all that is required is content expertise. This may well contribute to South Africa's low university throughput and retention rates, in response to which, since 2004, the state has provided ZAR5.5 billion in the form of the Teaching Development Grant (now the University Capacity Development Grant) to address poor completion rates. We present an analysis of the use of the grant across the sector using a social realist framework. Every academic and student has themselves been taught and so have developed untheorised assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy. Such common-sense assumptions about teaching and learning often serve to reinforce the status quo, which is particularly problematic in a sector with poor and racially differentiated throughput and success rates. Many initiatives funded through the grant evidenced a reliance on common-sense assumptions rather than on theorised accounts. In particular, student development often took the form of remedial, add-on initiatives that left the mainstream curriculum untouched-and staff development was often generic and short term. We also found that expertise in academic development, which could potentially challenge common-sense assumptions, was unevenly distributed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Moyo, Temwa , McKenna, Sioux , Ndebele, Clever
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426917 , vital:72400 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a07"
- Description: Teachers at primary and secondary education levels are required to hold a professional qualification but, at the higher education level, all that is required is content expertise. This may well contribute to South Africa's low university throughput and retention rates, in response to which, since 2004, the state has provided ZAR5.5 billion in the form of the Teaching Development Grant (now the University Capacity Development Grant) to address poor completion rates. We present an analysis of the use of the grant across the sector using a social realist framework. Every academic and student has themselves been taught and so have developed untheorised assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy. Such common-sense assumptions about teaching and learning often serve to reinforce the status quo, which is particularly problematic in a sector with poor and racially differentiated throughput and success rates. Many initiatives funded through the grant evidenced a reliance on common-sense assumptions rather than on theorised accounts. In particular, student development often took the form of remedial, add-on initiatives that left the mainstream curriculum untouched-and staff development was often generic and short term. We also found that expertise in academic development, which could potentially challenge common-sense assumptions, was unevenly distributed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Plagiarism and the commodification of knowledge
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426967 , vital:72404 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00926-5"
- Description: Universities have put in place various policies and punishments to manage plagiarism and it is an issue of signifcant interest. This article looks at how plagiarism is discussed in the 55 Higher Education articles between 1982 and June 2022 that make some reference to the term. Many of the articles focused on a police-catch-punish approach and imbued a strong moral charge to the issue. In contrast to such articles were those that presented citation as a complex academic practice that needs to be engaged with educationally. Our understandings of and responses to plagiarism emerge from a number of causal mechanisms but I argue that a key mechanism is the commodifcation of knowledge. Where knowledge is a product to be packaged, bought, and sold, then ownership and attribution become more important than engagement and personal meaning making. Instead of our obsession with a police-catch-punish approach to plagiarism, at a more micro-level, we should be inducting students into the many roles citations serve, and at a macro-level, we should be engaging in considerations of the purposes of a higher education and how we might better enable students to enjoy a transformative relationship to knowledge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426967 , vital:72404 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00926-5"
- Description: Universities have put in place various policies and punishments to manage plagiarism and it is an issue of signifcant interest. This article looks at how plagiarism is discussed in the 55 Higher Education articles between 1982 and June 2022 that make some reference to the term. Many of the articles focused on a police-catch-punish approach and imbued a strong moral charge to the issue. In contrast to such articles were those that presented citation as a complex academic practice that needs to be engaged with educationally. Our understandings of and responses to plagiarism emerge from a number of causal mechanisms but I argue that a key mechanism is the commodifcation of knowledge. Where knowledge is a product to be packaged, bought, and sold, then ownership and attribution become more important than engagement and personal meaning making. Instead of our obsession with a police-catch-punish approach to plagiarism, at a more micro-level, we should be inducting students into the many roles citations serve, and at a macro-level, we should be engaging in considerations of the purposes of a higher education and how we might better enable students to enjoy a transformative relationship to knowledge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Book Review Quinn, L.(ed.) 2019. Re-imagining Curriculum: Spaces for Disruption
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185865 , vital:44441 , xlink:href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.14426/cristal.v9i1.434"
- Description: This book is in some ways a continuation of the conversation begun with Reimaging Academic Staff Development: Spaces for Disruption (2012), also edited by Lynn Quinn. But the 2019 volume takes a much wider viewpoint including, as it does, twenty chapters by forty-two authors who are academics and academic developers across institutional types from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the West Indies. Quinn and Vorster (2019: 2) state in Chapter One that the purpose of the book is 'to share theoretical perspectives and practical ideas for ways in which academic developers (and academic leaders) can work in partnership with lecturers and students to respond to the urgent calls for curriculum transformation and decolonisation'. This captures the four threads that run throughout the collection.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185865 , vital:44441 , xlink:href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.14426/cristal.v9i1.434"
- Description: This book is in some ways a continuation of the conversation begun with Reimaging Academic Staff Development: Spaces for Disruption (2012), also edited by Lynn Quinn. But the 2019 volume takes a much wider viewpoint including, as it does, twenty chapters by forty-two authors who are academics and academic developers across institutional types from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the West Indies. Quinn and Vorster (2019: 2) state in Chapter One that the purpose of the book is 'to share theoretical perspectives and practical ideas for ways in which academic developers (and academic leaders) can work in partnership with lecturers and students to respond to the urgent calls for curriculum transformation and decolonisation'. This captures the four threads that run throughout the collection.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
The Unintended Consequences of Using Direct Incentives to Drive the Complex Task of Research Dissemination
- Muthama, Evelyn, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187116 , vital:44569 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/6688"
- Description: Universities have used an array of incentives to increase academic publications, which are highly rewarded in the South African higher education funding formula. While all universities use indirect incentives, such as linking promotion and probation to publication, the mechanisms used in some institutions have taken a very direct form, whereby authors are paid to publish. This process has paralleled a large rise in publication outputs alongside increased concerns about quality. Significantly, there are ethical questions to be asked when knowledge dissemination is so explicitly linked to financial reward through the payment of commission to academics. Based on an analysis of institutional policies and data from an online survey and interviews with academics from seven South African universities, we argue that when money is the main means used to encourage academics to contribute to knowledge, numerous unintended consequences may emerge. These include a focus on quantity rather than the quality of research, a rise in predatory publishing, and resentment among academics. We argue that incentives, in particular direct payment for publications, undermine the academic project by positioning publications in terms of exchange-value rather than their use-value as a contribution to knowledge building.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187116 , vital:44569 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/6688"
- Description: Universities have used an array of incentives to increase academic publications, which are highly rewarded in the South African higher education funding formula. While all universities use indirect incentives, such as linking promotion and probation to publication, the mechanisms used in some institutions have taken a very direct form, whereby authors are paid to publish. This process has paralleled a large rise in publication outputs alongside increased concerns about quality. Significantly, there are ethical questions to be asked when knowledge dissemination is so explicitly linked to financial reward through the payment of commission to academics. Based on an analysis of institutional policies and data from an online survey and interviews with academics from seven South African universities, we argue that when money is the main means used to encourage academics to contribute to knowledge, numerous unintended consequences may emerge. These include a focus on quantity rather than the quality of research, a rise in predatory publishing, and resentment among academics. We argue that incentives, in particular direct payment for publications, undermine the academic project by positioning publications in terms of exchange-value rather than their use-value as a contribution to knowledge building.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
The obstinate notion that higher education is a meritocracy
- Sobuwa, Simpiwe, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Sobuwa, Simpiwe , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187150 , vital:44574 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v7i2.184"
- Description: Student 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' 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.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Sobuwa, Simpiwe , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187150 , vital:44574 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v7i2.184"
- Description: Student 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' 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.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Writing groups as transformative spaces
- Wilmot, Kirstin, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:44576 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1450361"
- Description: Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to supporting students took the form of add-on, ‘deficit-model’ approaches which understood poor student retention and success rates as emerging from students’ lack of neutral literacy ‘skills’. Recent initiatives have begun to adopt more socio-cultural understandings of literacy that seek to challenge traditional power structures and cultivate horizontal peer-orientated spaces for learning with a focus on practice rather than on product. Writing groups, as spaces for academic writing development, embrace this orientation and are argued to provide a transformative framework that foregrounds proactive student learning and experience, while still accommodating disciplinary learning through peer engagement. Drawing on the successful implementation of such forms of support at a research-intensive university, this paper argues that writing groups can play a critical role in both personal (student) transformation and broader curriculum transformation. Data include anonymous questionnaires and surveys with participants and coordinators of the writing groups. An inductive, constant comparative analysis indicated that students feel empowered in this space to develop not only their writing practices but also their transforming identities as scholars. Writing groups were found to provide ‘safe spaces’ where academic practices can be made explicit and where they can be challenged. The paper therefore argues that writing groups can play a small but key role in broader transformation efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Wilmot, Kirstin , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:44576 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1450361"
- Description: Curriculum transformation is a central concern for higher education in response to rapidly expanding technologies, globalisation and the widening diversity of the student and staff body. This is particularly true for South Africa, which is still grappling with inequalities and pressure for social redress in its universities. Early responses to supporting students took the form of add-on, ‘deficit-model’ approaches which understood poor student retention and success rates as emerging from students’ lack of neutral literacy ‘skills’. Recent initiatives have begun to adopt more socio-cultural understandings of literacy that seek to challenge traditional power structures and cultivate horizontal peer-orientated spaces for learning with a focus on practice rather than on product. Writing groups, as spaces for academic writing development, embrace this orientation and are argued to provide a transformative framework that foregrounds proactive student learning and experience, while still accommodating disciplinary learning through peer engagement. Drawing on the successful implementation of such forms of support at a research-intensive university, this paper argues that writing groups can play a critical role in both personal (student) transformation and broader curriculum transformation. Data include anonymous questionnaires and surveys with participants and coordinators of the writing groups. An inductive, constant comparative analysis indicated that students feel empowered in this space to develop not only their writing practices but also their transforming identities as scholars. Writing groups were found to provide ‘safe spaces’ where academic practices can be made explicit and where they can be challenged. The paper therefore argues that writing groups can play a small but key role in broader transformation efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Postgraduate writing groups as spaces of agency development
- Oluwole, David O, Achadu, A, Asfour, Fouad-Martin, Chakona, Gamuchirai, Mason, Paul, Mataruse, P, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Oluwole, David O , Achadu, A , Asfour, Fouad-Martin , Chakona, Gamuchirai , Mason, Paul , Mataruse, P , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187194 , vital:44578 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20853/32-6-2963"
- Description: Academic writing is a peculiar phenomenon – it varies greatly from discipline to discipline and its requirements are rarely made overt. Taking on the writing practices of the academy has implications for identity and it is thus unsurprising that it is seen to be a risky endeavour. This article analyses the experiences of postgraduate scholars who have participated in writing groups that meet weekly to read each other’s work and provide supportive critique. Thirty-two people provided detailed, anonymous evaluations of their writing groups and these were studied using a discourse analysis. Three main findings are discussed here. Firstly, writing circles allowed for academic writing development to be engaged with as a social practice, where the disciplinary norms could be made more explicit through peer deliberation, and where they could also be challenged. Secondly, the lack of hierarchical power in the writing groups was key to making safe spaces for agency development, and also for providing positive peer pressure whereby participants were spurred on to work on their writing. Thirdly, the fact that the groups were interdisciplinary, within cognate disciplinary families, provided an interesting challenge in that the students had to consider what these non-specialist readers would or would not understand. This process assisted students in clarifying their writing. Participants’ evaluation of the writing groups revealed an overall sense that these contributed to postgraduate student wellbeing and were places of significant agential development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Oluwole, David O , Achadu, A , Asfour, Fouad-Martin , Chakona, Gamuchirai , Mason, Paul , Mataruse, P , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187194 , vital:44578 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.20853/32-6-2963"
- Description: Academic writing is a peculiar phenomenon – it varies greatly from discipline to discipline and its requirements are rarely made overt. Taking on the writing practices of the academy has implications for identity and it is thus unsurprising that it is seen to be a risky endeavour. This article analyses the experiences of postgraduate scholars who have participated in writing groups that meet weekly to read each other’s work and provide supportive critique. Thirty-two people provided detailed, anonymous evaluations of their writing groups and these were studied using a discourse analysis. Three main findings are discussed here. Firstly, writing circles allowed for academic writing development to be engaged with as a social practice, where the disciplinary norms could be made more explicit through peer deliberation, and where they could also be challenged. Secondly, the lack of hierarchical power in the writing groups was key to making safe spaces for agency development, and also for providing positive peer pressure whereby participants were spurred on to work on their writing. Thirdly, the fact that the groups were interdisciplinary, within cognate disciplinary families, provided an interesting challenge in that the students had to consider what these non-specialist readers would or would not understand. This process assisted students in clarifying their writing. Participants’ evaluation of the writing groups revealed an overall sense that these contributed to postgraduate student wellbeing and were places of significant agential development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
The Rise of the Executive Dean and the Slide into Managerialism
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187139 , vital:44573 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2221-4070/2020/v9i0a6"
- Description: Universities have long been characterised by hierarchical and paternalistic management structures and institutional cultures. Change is therefore to be welcomed but, in contexts where social change is urgently needed, it is possible to mistake a change in any direction as being worthwhile. Around the world, recent shifts in university leadership and management have been towards managerialist approaches that work against a shared responsibility for the academic project. Accusations of managerialism often refer to a general sense that institutions are becoming bureaucratic, or that it is the logic of the market that drives decision-making. But beyond vague complaints, these accusations fail to identify the exact processes whereby managerialism takes hold of the institution. This article hones in on one specific example of institutional change in order to argue that it is implicated in the move towards managerialism: most universities in South Africa have changed from having elected deans, selected by faculty, to executive deans, appointed by selection committee. Crudely distinguished, it can be said that elected deans represent the interests of their faculty up into various institutional structures whereas executive deans are tasked with implementing the decisions of top management down into faculty. This paper tracks the differences between the two forms of deanship through reflections on discussions about such a change at one South African institution, Rhodes University. It analyses the literature to argue that we do not have to choose between patriarchal management and compliance-based managerialism. Instead, we can choose shared responsibility for the academic project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187139 , vital:44573 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2221-4070/2020/v9i0a6"
- Description: Universities have long been characterised by hierarchical and paternalistic management structures and institutional cultures. Change is therefore to be welcomed but, in contexts where social change is urgently needed, it is possible to mistake a change in any direction as being worthwhile. Around the world, recent shifts in university leadership and management have been towards managerialist approaches that work against a shared responsibility for the academic project. Accusations of managerialism often refer to a general sense that institutions are becoming bureaucratic, or that it is the logic of the market that drives decision-making. But beyond vague complaints, these accusations fail to identify the exact processes whereby managerialism takes hold of the institution. This article hones in on one specific example of institutional change in order to argue that it is implicated in the move towards managerialism: most universities in South Africa have changed from having elected deans, selected by faculty, to executive deans, appointed by selection committee. Crudely distinguished, it can be said that elected deans represent the interests of their faculty up into various institutional structures whereas executive deans are tasked with implementing the decisions of top management down into faculty. This paper tracks the differences between the two forms of deanship through reflections on discussions about such a change at one South African institution, Rhodes University. It analyses the literature to argue that we do not have to choose between patriarchal management and compliance-based managerialism. Instead, we can choose shared responsibility for the academic project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Curriculating powerful knowledge for public managers and administrators
- McKenna, Sioux, Harran, Marcelle, Lück, Jacqueline
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Harran, Marcelle , Lück, Jacqueline
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187160 , vital:44575 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2019.1652103"
- Description: Public Management and Public Administration are important professions for an emerging democracy such as South Africa. They operate as the interface between state and public and are responsible for enacting many of the government's policies and social initiatives. Concerns about a lack of capacity in the sector suggest that those in these roles may be unable to meet the demands of the workplace. This article reports on a study that responded to calls for the curriculum to address such concerns by interrogating the knowledge structures of Public Management and Public Administration programmes in higher education. Interviews, textbooks and course guides were analysed to illuminate the forms of knowledge being legitimated in curricula. The study found that the focus on knowledge, skills and processes might be at the expense of a focus on the development of particular attributes or dispositions in the knowers. Furthermore, the knowledge level focus was limited in that it was highly contextualised and “light” on theory, raising questions about the acquisition of powerful knowledge needed for good governance and critical engagement in the public sector. The study recommends that both programmes include more conceptual knowledge; exposure to critical powerful forms of knowledge; and the development of particular attributes and dispositions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Harran, Marcelle , Lück, Jacqueline
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/187160 , vital:44575 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2019.1652103"
- Description: Public Management and Public Administration are important professions for an emerging democracy such as South Africa. They operate as the interface between state and public and are responsible for enacting many of the government's policies and social initiatives. Concerns about a lack of capacity in the sector suggest that those in these roles may be unable to meet the demands of the workplace. This article reports on a study that responded to calls for the curriculum to address such concerns by interrogating the knowledge structures of Public Management and Public Administration programmes in higher education. Interviews, textbooks and course guides were analysed to illuminate the forms of knowledge being legitimated in curricula. The study found that the focus on knowledge, skills and processes might be at the expense of a focus on the development of particular attributes or dispositions in the knowers. Furthermore, the knowledge level focus was limited in that it was highly contextualised and “light” on theory, raising questions about the acquisition of powerful knowledge needed for good governance and critical engagement in the public sector. The study recommends that both programmes include more conceptual knowledge; exposure to critical powerful forms of knowledge; and the development of particular attributes and dispositions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Constraints on improving higher education teaching and learning through funding
- Authors: Moyo, Temwa , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185854 , vital:44440 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2021/7807"
- Description: In the midst of massification, targeted funding has been used in various countries to address inefficiencies in teaching and learning. In South Africa, arguments have been made for significant investments to be made and the University Capacity Development Grant (UCDG) in particular is being used as a driver for improved outputs. Prior to its implementation in 2018, the UCDG comprised the Research Development Grant and the Teaching Development Grant. The Teaching Development Grant was intended to address low retention and throughput rates and ZAR5.5 billion was spent to this end over a 12-year period. The analysis presented here of all Teaching Development Grant budget plans and progress reports from 2007 to 2015 shows that the undifferentiated implementation of the Teaching Development Grant within a differentiated sector limited its potential for system-wide gains. Institutions without adequate resources tended to divert Teaching Development Grant funds to attend to backlogs rather than to address teaching and learning practices and such universities lost much of their allocation through the withholding of unspent funds. This blanket practice addressed the symptoms of underspending but not the structural, cultural and agential mechanisms that led to such under-expenditure. Uneven access to the limited teaching development expertise also impacted on the use of the grant. This call for a context-based approach to funding has been identified as a key success factor in grant interventions in both African and European universities. We recommend a sector-wide response in the form of a national body or plan for the benefit of all universities and investment in financial management enhancement. The study contributes to a better understanding of how government funding interventions can achieve intended goals. The study calls for a more contextualised approach to funding and to greater collaboration across the sector to maximise limited capacity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Moyo, Temwa , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185854 , vital:44440 , xlink:href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2021/7807"
- Description: In the midst of massification, targeted funding has been used in various countries to address inefficiencies in teaching and learning. In South Africa, arguments have been made for significant investments to be made and the University Capacity Development Grant (UCDG) in particular is being used as a driver for improved outputs. Prior to its implementation in 2018, the UCDG comprised the Research Development Grant and the Teaching Development Grant. The Teaching Development Grant was intended to address low retention and throughput rates and ZAR5.5 billion was spent to this end over a 12-year period. The analysis presented here of all Teaching Development Grant budget plans and progress reports from 2007 to 2015 shows that the undifferentiated implementation of the Teaching Development Grant within a differentiated sector limited its potential for system-wide gains. Institutions without adequate resources tended to divert Teaching Development Grant funds to attend to backlogs rather than to address teaching and learning practices and such universities lost much of their allocation through the withholding of unspent funds. This blanket practice addressed the symptoms of underspending but not the structural, cultural and agential mechanisms that led to such under-expenditure. Uneven access to the limited teaching development expertise also impacted on the use of the grant. This call for a context-based approach to funding has been identified as a key success factor in grant interventions in both African and European universities. We recommend a sector-wide response in the form of a national body or plan for the benefit of all universities and investment in financial management enhancement. The study contributes to a better understanding of how government funding interventions can achieve intended goals. The study calls for a more contextualised approach to funding and to greater collaboration across the sector to maximise limited capacity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
Crossing the border from candidate to supervisor: The need for appropriate development
- Motshoane, Puleng, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Motshoane, Puleng , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185876 , vital:44442 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2021.1900814"
- Description: Postgraduate education has grown enormously worldwide, which has led to supervisors being expected to take on a supervisor's role immediately upon graduation. But crossing the border from being a doctoral candidate to becoming a doctoral supervisor entails significant shifts in identity and an understanding of postgraduate pedagogy and institutional expectations. This paper argues that supervision development opportunities are crucial, but they need to be contextualised and include critical key agents with some institutional authority if they are to be deemed worthwhile and effect change. An online survey completed by 186 participants from across institutional types and disciplines in South Africa is analysed using Archer's social realism to provide insights into how emerging supervisors are currently supported. The resultant recommendations on supervision development could contribute to more confident border crossing by emerging supervisors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Motshoane, Puleng , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/185876 , vital:44442 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2021.1900814"
- Description: Postgraduate education has grown enormously worldwide, which has led to supervisors being expected to take on a supervisor's role immediately upon graduation. But crossing the border from being a doctoral candidate to becoming a doctoral supervisor entails significant shifts in identity and an understanding of postgraduate pedagogy and institutional expectations. This paper argues that supervision development opportunities are crucial, but they need to be contextualised and include critical key agents with some institutional authority if they are to be deemed worthwhile and effect change. An online survey completed by 186 participants from across institutional types and disciplines in South Africa is analysed using Archer's social realism to provide insights into how emerging supervisors are currently supported. The resultant recommendations on supervision development could contribute to more confident border crossing by emerging supervisors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021