Research Articles (Centre for Higher and Adult Education)

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    Research supervision as praxis: A need to speak back in dangerous ways
    (Journal of Praxis in Higher Education, 2023-09-05) Hopwood Nick; Frick Liezel
    Viewing research supervision as praxis offers alternative perspectives on this crucial aspect of academic work. In this paper, we consider the contributions in this Special Issue as counterpoints to dominant discourses on research supervision by drawing on the idea of praxis as morally committed and history-making action. This brings insights from Swedish research into dialogue with literature from across the world, particularly the Global South. We thematize these contributions by highlighting issues of complexity; considering how history, future and positionality shape supervision praxis; challenging narrow production-oriented discourses in favour of creativity as a foundation for supervision as praxis; and reflecting on how a shift from precarity to nuance may enable us to view supervision as praxis as enablement towards a better future. Our consideration of research supervision as praxis necessitates a stance that does not conform to the status quo, thus provoking further debate and action to think, and supervise, in non-routine, future-changing ways. As supervisors, we do not need to be resigned to futures where neoliberal regimes of surveillance, measurement and accountability shape our practices as strongly as they do today. We argue that there is a need to speak back to supervision as praxis in dangerous ways.
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    Complex legacies and future prospects: Conceptualising changes in South African doctoral education
    (Taylor and Francis, 2023-08-21) Tshuma Nompilo; Bitzer Eli
    A number of key drivers are responsible for the major shifts taking place in doctoral education globally, including massification, globalisation, digitalisation and the knowledge economy. While each of these drivers permeates the South African higher education context to some extent, we argue that the country’s complex historical legacies provide a unique background and lens through which key drivers of doctoral education can be framed. Thus, our focus is firstly to outline the complex legacy of apartheid and its implications for the country’s transformation agenda and resulting shifts taking place in the South African higher and doctoral education landscape. Secondly, to account for some future prospects, we draw on the outcomes of the recent (2020/21) national review of doctoral programmes in South Africa. We highlight some recommendations that universities need to attend to via their respective doctoral improvement plans as a possible future agenda for driving and improving doctoral education.
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    Moving beyond the tools : pre-service teachers' views on what they value in a digital literacy short course
    (AOSIS, 2021-06) Strydom, Sonja C.; Wessels, Helena; Anley, Casey
    Background: A digital literacies short course, rooted in a pedagogical model of authentic learning and mapped against the TPACK model, was conceptualised and implemented to enhance the existing digital literacies and technological pedagocial content knowledge of student teachers and to promote an awareness of technology-enhanced curriculum practices. Aim: In aiming to inform course improvement, our study interrogates student teachers’ perceptions of the aspects that they valued in the short course. Methods: Guided by social constructivism and situated within a qualitative paradigm, twenty-four 2nd and 3rd year Bachelor of Education (BEd) students who completed the course participated in three semi-structured focus group interviews whereby data was analysed by means of constant comparison analysis. Results: Findings suggest participants found value in authentic tasks and assignments as well as the process of knowledge creation. They did, however, differ in their views of the purpose and aim of such a course. Conclusion: This study contributes to the gap in South African research and the growing South African interest in preparing teachers in adopting technology-enhanced practices and curriculum changes in schools, and argues that standardised theoretical training courses ignoring psycho-socio-cultural factors and individual differences should be reconsidered.
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    Architects of recovery from alcohol misuse : narrative exploration of coaching employed professionals
    (Oxford Brookes University, 2020-08) Solheim, Thobias; Albertyn, Ruth M.
    Recovery coaching is a lesser-recognised support service to individuals who pursue recovery from addiction. This narrative inquiry research explored the experiences of recovery coaches working with employed professionals in recovery from alcohol misuse. Findings indicate that recovery coaches work in the field of recovery, not addiction and that they were credentialed by their skills as a coach. Recovery coaching may be a useful service to professionals in recovery. Insight into perspectives of coaches regarding goals, processes, challenges and outcomes of recovery provides enhanced understanding of how coaching can facilitate employed professionals to become architects of their own recovery.
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    The vulnerable insider : navigating power, positionality and being in educational technology research
    (Routledge, 2021) Tshuma, Nompilo
    This article reflects on the tensions I encountered as an insider researcher during a qualitative study exploring academics’ integration of educational technology in a South African higher education institution. While critical qualitative approaches acknowledge research participants’ vulnerability to the researcher’s interpretation and presentation of their experiences, this article reflects on researcher vulnerability engendered by my insider status. Through a critical ethnographic lens, I reflexively interrogate the shifting nuances of power, positionality and being in educational technology research with regard to: (1) the struggle to adopt a colonialist methodology in a context still reeling from colonial legacies; (2) sensitively negotiating conflicting role requirements as a researcher, an employee and a PhD student in the same institution; (3) reflecting on the ‘politics of the gaze’ and how my insider status influenced what data I collected and how I perceived it; and (4) grappling with the tensions inherent in attempting to represent the experiences of the Other through my own.