Research Publications (Academic Support)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/211
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Item Can alignment of digital resources with needs produce a new curriculum theory for teaching?(BRILL, 2020-12-14) Khoza, Simon Bheki; Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga; Simon, KhozaTeaching and graduating students have become important responsibilities for academics, helping their universities to fulfil disciplinary, societal, and personal needs. Academics use digital resources to support their teaching processes, in order to increase the student completion rate for their universities, improving the world rankings with funding. Digital resources divided into hardware, software, and theories work well when they are aligned with relevant needs. Therefore, this chapter presents an interpretive case study of eight academics who taught students specialising in Curriculum Development at a university in South Africa. The study explored and understood the alignment of digital resources with human needs involved in the teaching of master of education (MEd) students. Semi-structured interviews, focus-group discussions, and document analysis were used for data generation. Purposive with convenience sampling was used to select the eight most accessible participants. The study revealed that, when digital resources were used for teaching, this created competing perceived and conceived spaces that had to be integrated into lived space. This chapter, consequently, recommends the understanding and the use of the lived space, which is capable of helping individuals to self-actualise and be able to address societal and disciplinary needs.Item Challenges facing women in the mining area of Bojanala district of South Africa(IGI Global, 2021) Mafora, Gaontebale Audrey; Rena, RavinderThis chapter examined the Marikana Massacre and its effects on women of the deceased and those who sustained injuries. It also covers the challenges of the women in the Bojanala District of South Africa. The chapter also addresses the disparities and inequalities experienced by women in the mining industry. Forty women participants were part of the study. The data was gathered through questionnaires, oral interviews, and observations. The analysis revealed that more women were affected by the massacre and has deepened their level of poverty. The government provided interventions, but the findings revealed that the incident has left participants with scars, loss of income, and dissatisfaction. The chapter recommended some possible measures to improve the situation of women because of the Marikana Massacre and poverty in the area.Item Contextual decolonisation of higher education in South Africa(2019-03-01) Kehdinga George Fomunyam; Matola, Noluthando; Moyo, Sibusiso; Govender, Vaneshree; Fomunyam, Kehdinga GeorgeItem Decolonising for higher education excellence(2019-03-01) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga GeorgeItem Decolonising higher education in the changing world(Sun Media, 2019-03-01) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga GeorgeThe decolonisation of higher education is a critical yet highly debatable discourse in the early 21st century where scholars from across the world are moving towards a more congruent and borderless notion of education and responsiveness. The need for decolonisation in higher education, and more so in African higher education, cannot be overemphasised, especially in this era of globalisation and internationalisation where Africa and its education systems are continuously being misconstrued as possessing the same level of capital and political will to engage at a variety of levels. Education and decolonisation in Africa should embrace the notion of the pluriversal in response to the diverse contextual differences and realities permeating the local landscape, which in itself is longing for engagement and interrogation, so as to drive change and developmentItem Decolonising perspectives in the era of globalisation and internationalisation(African Sun Media, 2019-07-01) Jabosung, Kelly Ngesungwo; Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Doh, Nubia Walters; Fru, Raymond NkwentiConceived within a context of transdisciplinarity and pluriversalism, and in rigorous response to the Eurocentric, globalising and nationalising structures of power that undergird and inhabit contemporary praxis in higher education -Item The history of the Southern African Association for institutional research(SUN PRESS, 2016-10) Chetty, Yuraisha; Bleazard, David; Naicker, Rajan; Visser, HermanItem Institutional research in higher education in South Africa: looking ahead(SUN PRESS, 2016-10) Webber, Karen; Muller, Nicole Jacqueline; Botha, JanItem Institutional Research in South African Higher Education: Framing the Contexts and Practices(SUN MeDIA Stellenbosch, 2016) Botha, Jan; Muller, Nicole Jacqueline; Webber, KarenItem Institutional research units in higher education institutions in South Africa(SUN PRESS, 2016-10) Muller, Nicole Jacqueline; Langa, Sipho; Dlamini, PhiliswaItem Integrating strategic human resource management practices for effective knowledge risk management in public enterprises(IGI Global, 2024-02-23) Phaladi, Malefetjane Phineas; Mhlongo, Patrick Mbongwa; Omarsaib, Mousin; Mpungose, BongekileKnowledge loss risk is a serious and complex issue facing public enterprises around the world. The purpose of the chapter was to explore and present a global picture integrating strategic human resource management (SHRM) practices into knowledge management (KM) for the effective management of knowledge loss risk in public enterprises. In order to explore strategic human resource management practices and knowledge risk management in the extant literature, the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method was selected as a methodology to guide the data collection and analysis of the study. The research findings infer and point to very limited research in the global literature linking SHRM practices to KM for effective knowledge risk management. Such a relationship in research and practice remains blurry, despite the fact that the role of HRM in tacit knowledge risk management is inevitable. The findings of this chapter provide a valuable framework indicating distinct areas of interest that require further exploration in the current literature.Item Introduction : theorising curriculum approaches and praxis(BRILL, 2020-01-01) Khoza, Simon Bheki; Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga; Simon, KhozaCurriculum studies is at the core of the educational endeavour: it informs what happens in every educational institution. As a result of the criticality or primacy of the curriculum, every educational practitioner appears to claim expertise in curriculum matters, and in the direction the field of curriculum studies should take. The curriculum practitioner, especially in Africa, has been given little or no space to theorise, orienting the future of the field in Africa. Instead, European and American curriculum theorisers have been allowed to exert a marked influence on the nature and direction of African theoretical and philosophical underpinnings, especially in relation to curriculum studies. This situation raises fundamental questions about the future of education in Africa in general, and curriculum studies in particular. While Europe and America seem to be experimenting with new philosophical paradigms in curriculum studies, Africa seems to be trailing behind by ten or fifteen years. A case in point is the implementation in South Africa in the late nineties of outcomes-based education (OBE) (a European and American theoretical enterprise), although there was clear evidence that it would not work. Is Africa, therefore, doomed to repeat the mistakes of Europe and America in curriculum studies? Has educa-tion in Africa preconditioned the theoriser only to explore traditions from the global North, rather than experimenting and articulating alternative pathways for education in Africa? Must curriculum theorising in Africa slavishly follow the traditions of theorising laid down by the global North, or can such tradi-tions be used as springboards for the articulation of alternative perspectives, as we strive to develop African curriculum matters?Item Operational use of mobile learning : understanding and retention of curriculum content(2019-09-18) Sunker, Jeremy; Oyetade, Kayode Emmanuel; Fomunyam, Kehdinga GeorgeThis chapter aims to evaluate and explore students’ perceptions of mobile phones in helping with understanding and retention of curriculum content. This aim is achieved within a theoretical framework on the use of mobile learning with understanding and retention. Student learning is influenced by different environmental factors, which impact the adequacy of their understanding and retention of curriculum content. At tertiary education level, the intensity and quality of work become more physically and mentally demanding. Students may find it more difficult to deal with the workload they are presented with. As a result, this may affect the potential level of understanding that can be accomplished in certain subject areas. This study was conducted on undergraduate students studying Information Technology (IT) at a university in Durban, South Africa in 2016. The self-administered questionnaire-based survey was used while transactional distance theory (TDT) is the core theoretical framework that underpins this study. The outcome of students’ perception was analyzed and it was found that the use of mobile phones in teaching and learning improved their understanding and retention of curriculum contentsItem Theorising decolonisation, globalisation and internationalisation in higher education(2019-03-01) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Fomunyam, Kehdinga GeorgeThe higher education landscape in South Africa is complicated with a rich dose of challenges and opportunities. From apartheid South Africa to democratic South Africa, the higher education system has been dramatically influenced by several isomorphic forces that have led to the current educational call for decolonisation, which scholars in the higher education sector are trying to handle. Amongst these forces are colonialism, globalisation and internationalisation. While the nation has moved passed colonialism, its legacies still hold the higher education sector hostage creating the need for decolonisation. Globalisation has a complicated history dating back centuries. Vincent-Lancrin and Kärkkäinen (2009) argue that globalisation is a comparatively new term used to describe an old process that began with our human ancestors moving out of Africa to spread across the globe. They continue that the term has been used differently by different people owing to its different facets. Marginson and Rhoades confirm this by defining globalisation as meaning ‘becoming global.’ They provide an alternative definition by looking at it as ‘the development of increasingly integrated systems and relations beyond the nation’ (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002, p. 288) . Globalisation, therefore, moves towards making nations become more and more entangled with one another.Item Theorising open curriculum charges as pathway to responsiveness in South African higher education(BRILL, 2020-12-14) Fomunyam, Kehdinga George; Khoza, Simon Bheki; Fomunyam, Kehdinga; Simon, BhekiCurriculum discourse in South African higher education has always involved debates around responsiveness and how best to make the curriculum respond to local needs. This was amongst the reasons for the call to decolonise the curriculum. With encounters in education being a function of the curriculum at play, it follows that the curriculum shapes the educational experience, and how prepared students are for the job market, be it to create employment or to seek such. With the rate of unemployment in South Africa increasing, the nation needs graduates who are job creators, not jobseekers. The open curriculum offers an excellent pathway for educational encounters which are not only responsive, but uniquely career-oriented. This chapter adopts Aoki’s conceptualisation of the curriculum as lived experience, making three fundamental arguments. First, the chapter argues that there is a need for the deconstruction of academic curriculum standardisation. Second, the chapter argues for an itinerant curriculum; and lastly, the chapter argues for curriculum encounters propelled by responsive curriculum matters in the South African higher education. The chapter concludes that career pathways have been hindered by poor curriculum choices. Such has been engendered by curriculum standardisation and hegemonic curriculum practices adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. For a higher-education curriculum to be responsive, students, as co-constructors or creators of knowledge, need to be part of the process, driving the change they want to see in their future.Item Theorising responsiveness and potentialities in curriculum studies(BRILL, 2020-12-14) Kehdinga, George Fomunyam; Khoza, Simon BhekiItem Uncovering the journey of building a community : a story of a global network for early-and mid-career women researchers(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2024-08-06) Zheng, Gaoming; Kim, Mee Joo; Qi, Jing; Aarnikoivu, Melina; Bekova, Saule; Meki-Kombe, Charity; Shabdan, Baktygul; Tsephe, LifutsoIn this chapter, we delve into our journey of establishing and nurturing a global network comprising early-and mid-career women researchers in the realm of doctoral education. Formed and sustained amid the backdrop of the pandemic since 2020, our endeavours of community building have acquired unique attributes, rewards and trials. We begin by tracing the evolution of our collective journey and the collaborative process that has shaped this network. This, in turn, will spotlight the driving forces and expectations that underpinned the birth of this international alliance tailored for aspiring mid-career women researchers. We also delve into the fundamental characteristics of the network and consider the benefits it offers to its members. Lastly, we will address the challenges the network faces, particularly regarding its sustainable development in the context of competitive, academic work environments