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Faculty of Management Sciences

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/13

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Participation

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    An investigation into the effects of staff participation on the pass rate for an electrical engineering course at a University of Technology
    (2023-04) Moodlier, Sunthrasagren; Haripersad, Rajesh
    The purpose of this study was to test the impact of individual participation and teamwork on the pass rate of first-semester Electrical Engineering students at Durban University of Technology (DUT). South Africa's economic growth remains reliant on critical and scarce skills such as engineering. As a result, any institution of higher learning should make engineering training and education a priority. Collaboration and participation are critical components of any successful educational system. Assimilation of module content, readiness for assessment, perceptions of support from lecturers individually or collectively, and perceptions of the results are all significant variables in this study. A mixed methods approach was used to accomplish the study's objectives. The quantitative method was chosen to design the survey and collect data from all registered first-year students enrolled in the Electrical Engineering 1 laboratory module. A questionnaire was distributed to 344 students enrolled in the Electrical Engineering 1 laboratory module. Qualitative data were gathered through interviews with lecturers on the module at the Department of Electrical Engineering. The study discovered a positive and significant correlation between student pass rates and teamwork and individual participation in service. Additionally, the study discovered that first-year students have favourable attitudes toward the service provided by Electrical Engineering laboratory technicians. This implied that students were more likely to assimilate module content and be prepared for assessment if departmental teamwork was emphasised to increase pass rates. The study recommends a new approach for identifying students who require additional individual attention to improve their academic performance using these variables. Students must be viewed as partners in the lecturers' pedagogical approaches following the collaborative approach, which involves all stakeholders in decision-making for continuous improvement.
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    A rural perspective on the practice and challenges of community participation in post-apartheid South Africa insights from rural Beaufort-West Municipality
    (International Institute for Science, Technology and Education, 2021-04) Davids, Gregory; Prince, T.; Makiva, Msuthukazi; Fagbadebo, Omololu M.
    Post-apartheid South African (SA) government devised legalized platforms for citizen participation to channel their voice towards public policy formulation, implementation, outcome, and its impact. Instead of using these platforms, dissatisfied communities with service delivery resort to social protests and unrest. Indeed, citizens’ voice and participation in government decision-making through social protests, is among the critical elements to democracy and good governance. The study sought to investigate the practice and challenges there are, with regards to community participation at the local level within selected rural communities, in South Africa. The study relied on qualitative research methodology to gather primary data. Extant literature was consulted to collect secondary data so that the phenomenon is greatly understood. The results showed that community participation is practiced as a once-off event instead of being viewed as a process that is comprised of interrelated activities. The study concludes that effective community participation requires continual engagement across the entire policy planning, decision making, and implementation stages. Furthermore, as each public policy phase has its challenges, flexible strategies are required to facilitate community engagement and participation. This, for instance, will increase the degree of decision-making consensus, while by default reduce the level of community dissatisfaction with service delivery, which currently South Africa experiences, through social unrest.
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    Reducing youth participation in xenophobic violence : case study of Durban
    (2021) Nyathi, Cresencia; Sylvia, Kaye; Harris, Geoffrey Thomas
    This thesis focuses on the role played by youth especially Black young men in related xenophobic violence. Drawing on qualitative research sessions involving young men and women who are citizens, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers living in South Africa. The thesis offers four overarching focal points. Firstly, it contextualizes and critiques historical state structures and attitudes which shape the understandings of xenophobia and xenophobic violence in South Africa. Secondly, it analyses everyday experiences triggering young people to take part in violence labelled as xenophobic. Thirdly, it draws from global cases where xenophobia has occurred to understand the xenophobia has occurred to understand the xenophobic phenomenon comprehensively. Fourthly, it adopts the scapegoating theory of prejudice as the basis of the underlying factors triggering the attacks.