List of Titles

Visit the COVID-19 Corona Virus South African Resource Portal on https://sacoronavirus.co.za/

Quick View

Ritualised discourse practices of feedback in a university foundation programme: a critical investigation

- Richardson, Amy

Authors: Richardson, Amy
Date: 2012
Subjects: Uncatalogued
Language: English
Type: thesis , text , Masters , MA
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164955 , vital:41187
Description: In order for students to become true members of academic communities of practice they need epistemological access, including guidance on central institutional knowledge-producing processes and mastery of key academic literacy practices. A powerful source of guidance is marker feedback. Drawing on key insights from the New Literacy Studies and taking up the mandate of Critical Ethnography to improve the status quo, this thesis reports on the feedback practices in a university foundation programme. The findings are based on three micro-case studies compiled and analysed by means of methods drawn from Ethnography, Sociolinguistics and Critical Analysis in conjunction with an expanded, multimodal, APPRAISAL analysis, including adjusted categories and the author’s own feedback typologies. Two major arguments emerge: the feedback provided amounts to a set of ritualised discourse practices and its effects can be likened to the product of the children’s game of Head-body-tail. Consequently, feedback conventions are opaque and, potentially, impede epistemological access. They further entrench five sets of ideologies: (1) Students must master basic English literacy before they are coached in more complex issues such as argumentation; an assumption which leads to differential socialisation. (2) There is a single set of literacy practices that is rewarded. (3) Students have different levels of authorial authority depending on their language abilities. (4) ‘Middle students’ may benefit the most from feedback. (5) Specific comments are preferred over general ones. Analysis of feedback, furthermore, shows that markers’ frames of reference shape their pedagogy and that draft and final versions of work may be framed differently by markers. These findings require a response and, in order to facilitate epistemological access, suggestions are made for improved marker training based on the problematisation of the ritual involved in marking students’ work in this university foundation programme. , Thesis (MA)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics, 2012
Full Text:

Quick View

Exploration of challenges in bringing traditional medicine into SA’s healthcare system, using medicinal plants for treatment of waterborne diarrhoeal diseases as a case study

- Keche, Priscilla

Authors: Keche, Priscilla
Date: 2019
Subjects: Traditional medicine -- South Africa , Waterborne infection -- South Africa , Diarrhea -- South Africa , Healers -- South Africa , Medical care -- Quality control , Medicinal plants -- South Africa , Diarrhea in children -- South Africa , World Health Organization
Language: English
Type: thesis , text , Thesis , Masters , MSc
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118035 , vital:34588
Description: Thesis (MSc)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Biotechnology Innovation Centre (RUBIC), 2019.
Full Text:

Quick View

A social realist study of employability development in engineering education

- Nudelman, Gabrielle

Authors: Nudelman, Gabrielle
Date: 2018
Language: English
Type: thesis , text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62884 , vital:28307
Description: This qualitative case study of a course pairing offered to final-year electrical engineering students at the University of Cape Town in 2015 was undertaken in order to better understand the ways in which participation in undergraduate courses can prepare engineering students for the workplace. The course pairing consisted of New Venture Planning and Professional Communication Studies. While the former aimed to expose students to the knowledge relating to starting a new business, the latter focused on teaching students how to create written and oral texts to support such an endeavour. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as a theoretical underlabourer, the study develops understandings regarding the generative mechanisms at work during the two courses. In support of this, the study posits an understanding of employability that moves beyond the acquisition of discrete workplace skills. Rather, employability is conceptualised as discursive transformation, with students being deemed “work-ready” when they develop discursive identities as engineers. Data generation took place by means of focus group and individual interviews, ethnographic observation and documentary research. Margaret Archer’s social realist tools – in particular, analytical dualism and the morphogenetic framework were used to trace the students’ transformations over the course pairing. It was argued that those students who developed discursive identities of engineers were those who, in Archer’s terms, emerged as social actors at the end of the course pairing. Two characteristics of the courses were found to enable this transformation: those parts that promoted deepened understanding of what the role of “engineer” entailed and the parts that provided spaces for students to develop their own personal identities. The findings of the study indicated that discursive identities as engineers were more likely to be developed through the group work and spaces for reflection engendered by the courses than as a result of the formal curriculum. The implications of the research are that, while a focus on employability in engineering education is valid and productive, this needs to be supported by opportunities for authentic learning experiences which afford students the opportunity to engage in learning that promotes real-life application of knowledge. , Thesis (PhD)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Education, Education, 2018
Full Text:

Quick View

Showing items 1 - 20 of 57