A series of 15 publications over the years 1991-2003 represent research activity into educational development and the professionalisation of learning, teaching and assessment in higher education (HE). This output constitutes an original contribution to knowledge about teaching in higher education within the following three broad areas: - the professional training of teachers in HE, including: the need for such training, the nature and design of that training, its evaluation, and its effectiveness and desirability; - helping students to learn through 'teaching' each other; - the effect assessment has on student approaches to learning, the need for teachers in HE to understand that effect, to develop and identify best practice, and to find ways of using that effect strategically. Progression in each area is dealt with separately, as parallel developments of the main theme over the past 12 years. In the three areas identified above, the research demonstrates: • the need for training and for the professionalisation of teachers in HE, and the potential effectiveness of both initial training courses and of educational development workshops to help bring that about; • that forms of structured peer 'teaching' can have a sustained and transferable benefit to the students' learning; • that a simple, short and inexpensive intervention in the assessment process can effect a significant improvement in student learning which is sustained over time. The research also provides evidence which: a) questions whether the increased emphasis on specifications, descriptors and explicitness is sufficient on its own to establish and maintain standards and transparency of standards; b) demonstrates the need, when descriptors are used in course design, to distinguish clearly between threshold and aspirational outcomes. The publications have also been successful in disseminating good and best practice to a wider practitioner audience.

Published Article / The former Technikon Free State, now the CUT, was concerned about the academic achievements of students and decided to introduce a programme to enhance the outcomes of student learning. The then Technikon initially identified weak performers and advised / compelled them to attend special classes. This programme proved to be unsuccessful due to the potential stigma associated with attending special classes. The Technikon commenced with its first research initiatives to implement supplemental instruction (SI) in 1993. The founders of SI, Profs Diana Martin and Robert Blanc of the University of Kansas City in Missouri, USA, presented demonstrations at joint workshops and also invited attendees to attend SI workshops in the USA. Soon permission was granted to implement SI at this institution in 1993. A new dimension to the concept of SI, namely to record SI lectures for discussion afterwards was added.

Published Article / This article traces the early development and implementation of an extended curriculum in the Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Following Volbrecht and Boughey (2004) and Boughey (2007), it analyses the programme in the context of the development of Academic Development over two decades. The programme represents a conceptual shift from a foundation year model to a more holistic, integrated intervention which extends to the end of the second year. Prompted primarily by pedagogical and academic considerations, it is also a response to increasing emphasis on throughput and success and to the need to increase and enhance efficiency in Higher Education. The tension between the potential benefits of such a curriculum and challenges and constraints impacting on it is discussed in an attempt to develop a curriculum which is sustainable and which will result in higher success rates and the wider transformation of the curriculum.

Student Number : 9207426M - MA research report - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / This report investigates the attitudes of the Engineering students and staff to academic development classes at the Tshwane University of Technology on the Soshanguve campus. This university services students from less privileged communities. Specifically, it is interested in why students feel the need for Academic Development to continue beyond the first year of study. This investigation will be done by means of in-depth interviews with staff and students in the Engineering Faculty and focus group interviews with 1st and 2nd year Engineering students who have completed the academic development programme. The responses of the Engineering lecturers are compared to those of the Academic Development Practitioners, and the 1st year Engineering students’ responses are compared to those of the 2nd years. Data analysis is carried out using thematic content analysis in order to reflect on the particular ways in which the participants construct their understanding of the academic development classes at the Tshwane University of Technology. The results of the interviews with lecturers, Academic Development Practitioners, and 1st and 2nd year Engineering students indicate that there are problems regarding the structure, curriculum and non-accreditation of academic development at the Tshwane University of Technology.

Published Article / The purpose of this paper is to argue that the quality of a Building graduate is not compromised by qualifying through the access programme route. This paper examines the statistics of the 2005 and 2006 access programme and mainstream National Diploma Building cohorts as well as the 2007 mainstream cohort. The study made use of descriptive research comprising quantitative data. The quantitative data was derived from statistics based on student performance that was downloaded from the Management Information System of the University of Johannesburg. The findings revealed that, although the access Building students enter the access programme with results below the minimum entrance requirements for the national diploma, their graduation rate is above or equal to that of their mainstream peers who gained entry directly into the national diploma. Furthermore, many of these students register for post-graduate studies once they start working. This study confirms that students who have received additional support in their first year of study and who have been 'enculturated' into the 'ways of doing' of construction and engineering during a four-year access diploma programme are not inferior to students who have completed a mainstream diploma in 3 years.

This thesis provides an ethnographic account of the lived experiences of faculty development practitioners in Japan. Through participatory observation and ethnographic interviews, it seeks to understand the following research question: 'How do faculty development practitioners make sense of the concept of faculty development as a professional identity and a lived experience in Japan?' The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, MEXT, introduced and recommended institutional ‘fakaruthī diberoppumento (faculty development)’ or ‘FD’ in 1999 and later mandated it in 2008. As a result, universities created the role and position of FD practitioner. Those FD practitioners have been involved in crafting a genre of faculty development that reconcile policy requirements, university’s requirements, and their personal understanding. This leads to a daily struggle between acting as FD practitioner according to external requirements and sustaining or constructing one’s own professional identity and values especially as an academic. By incorporating notions of ‘identity’ and ‘community’, I describe practitioners’ constant negotiation of their position between an academic and a FD practitioner. I have three arguments. First, the title of ‘FD tantōsha’ that is most commonly used in Japan creates a semantic space for negotiations to take place between different types of identities, both practiced and/or idealized. ‘Tantōsha’ literally means the person in charge and it is relatively 7 neutral label to describe the position. Second, alphabetically written ‘FD’ prevents the evolution of the concept. The term ‘FD’ is just a symbolic noun therefore it allows various interpretations but it does not allow evolution of the concept like in the USA and the UK. As an English term, ‘faculty development’ means ‘to develop’ ‘faculty’. As the focus of faculty development shifted, the term also changed, leading to terms such as ‘educational development’. Third, the temporariness of the position prevents practitioners to engage with the community for faculty development practitioners in Japan and in other countries. Therefore interpretation of the concept of faculty development, creation of the common language and knowledge base as a field, and construction of professional identity have yet to be observed.

Physical and electronic resources, tools and environments are increasingly being integrated within mainstream higher education. As institutions seize the potential of technology enablement, blended learning formats have become popular. For the blended learning format to positively impact the quality of education in the institution its effective integration into existing practice is crucial. The Monash South Africa Foundation Programme, a division of Monash University that provides an alternative pathway into higher education, has its focus firmly on delivering quality academic development yet must successfully navigate the challenges of implementing blended learning as part of an institution wide strategic plan for academic excellence. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the perceptions and attitudes of a teacher in the programme towards blended learning echoed the strategic plan of the institution to use the blended learning approach. A qualitative single case study was developed around one teacher, framed by the context of the institution’s strategic education plan and the programme environment, in order to develop a rich narrative of his experience. Multiple methods of data collection were used to allow for results to be triangulated. The study showed that this teacher’s perceptions and attitudes reflected a positive disposition towards the implementation of blended learning but that the perceived barriers placed the individual’s potential of achieving the institutional goals for incorporating blended learning at risk. The need for effective change management and staff that would champion the innovation was identified. An accumulative narrative of teacher experiences was advocated to develop theories to support further effective blended learning in the programme and the institution and thus enable the institution’s strategic goals of achieving academic excellence at ground level.

Includes bibliographical references / The interplay between structure and agency: How Academic Development Programme students 'make their way' through their undergraduate studies in engineering. This study explores and seeks to explain the ways in which a group of Academic Development Programme (ADP) students 'made their way' through their studies in engineering at the University of Cape Town. Underpinned by Bhaskar's realist philosophy of social science, the study uses Margaret Archer's morphogenetic realist social theory to explore the interaction between the university (social and cultural relations) and the students (agential relations). Data was generated through a series of three interviews with each of 12students in the fourth year of their studies and through an analysis of selected university documents. Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, which allows for the temporal analytical separation of structure, culture and agency, provides methodological and analytical tools to investigate interactions between their respective emergent properties. It posits that structure and culture predate the actions of agents who transform it. As such, structural and cultural emergent properties condition the situations in which agents find themselves. Furthermore, agents' personal emergent properties, such as corporate agency and reflexivity, allow them to deliberate on their courses of actions. Key to this theoretical approach is the notion that structure and culture do not act in a deterministic way; their properties can only become powers when they are activated by agents' projects. With regard to structure, it was found that the combination of a fragmented curriculum, a shortened examination period, and unfavourable examination timetables all served as potential constraints to students' projects. With regard to culture, it was found that the ideas of mainstream students and lecturers about ADP students exacerbated such ADP students' experiences of marginalisation and exception. Moreover, the study found that the mainly black student enrolment of the Academic Support Programme for Engineering in Cape Town (ASPECT) was experienced by students as racial prejudice. While the findings suggest that students thus found themselves in extremely constrained circumstances, they were also found to have exercised corporate agency and different modes of reflexivity to overcome some of their constraining circumstances. Following an analytical process of retroduction, the study suggests that the ADP, although it facilitated students' entry into the university, simultaneously positioned them within a situational logic of constraining contradiction and as such exacerbated their experiences of exception. Moreover, it is argued that, although the university has made major structural changes to accommodate students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds, the ideas that shape the ADP space perpetuate the view that these students have an educational' deficit'. In conclusion, the study suggests that higher education should reconsider the idea of separate programmes, as their inherent situational logic appears to work against some of their fundamental goals, which are to facilitate redress and to widen participation.

This research project investigated how students and mentors in the 2008 Melon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship experienced the benefits and difficulties of the mentoring relationship. With the help of the mentor students appeared to excel both academically and personally. A qualitative research paradigm was used and unstructured interviews were conducted with five mentors and five students in the first cohort of the MMUF at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Mentoring reports completed by mentors were analysed and validated the content of the interviews. Both mentors and mentees confirmed that mentoring was indeed a powerful tool for academic and personal development. They maintained that there was no way that one could develop academically and not develop personally. Mentoring relationships that did not succeed were attributed to no effort on the part of either the student or the mentor. The mentors and mentees agreed that the benefits were mutual; they all learned from each other. Student development was observable and students reported that they were beginning to feel part of a community of scholars.

Magister Educationis - MEd / The purpose of this study is to determine the nature of support services offered to Extended Curriculum Programme students in a South African university. The primary goals of support services in higher education are to support students holistically and reduce barriers to learning in the teaching and learning environment. One of the faculties in a South African university established a support unit to assist with the low throughput level. The academic support unit is housed in the Academic Development Department (ADD) in a faculty. The unit attempts to address the needs of underachieving students in the Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP). The thesis first identifies the challenges the ECP students are experiencing. Then, support services in the university and in the support unit are described. Thereafter, the challenges experienced by the centre of support services in the university and the support unit are illuminated. Qualitative data was gathered through individual interviews with senior management. Then, a focus group discussion with tutors who volunteer in a support unit was facilitated and lastly the staff members employed in the support unit were also interviewed individually. The thesis was able to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to learning the ECP students are experiencing. It became evident that the support services available in the university and the support unit are not sufficient to address the needs of the students. The challenges the support service centre of the university and the support unit are experiencing are twofold. The first is a lack of organisational resources that hinders service delivery, the second is a lack of skills and expertise in attain structures that limits the provision of support services.