Thesis (MEd) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study looks at the structural and conceptual trends underlying the development of outcomes-based education. Part of the democratisation process of South African education involves the introduction of a system of outcomes-based education (OBE) in South African schools. Proponents of OBE claim that it constitutes a radical break from the previous apartheid education system. For this reason OBE is viewed as a transformational perspective on the curriculum. Viewed against this backdrop OBE strives to guarantee success for all learners; to empower learners in a learner-centred environment thus creating a critical, investigative, creative, problem-solving, communicative future-orientated citizen (Department of Education 1997:10). However, after doing an analysis and an interpretation of the White Paper on Education and Training (1996), it appears as if OBE with its "fixed" outcomes has a tendency to manipulate and control learners. The analysis shows that OBE stifles learners' critical, investigative, creative and problem-solving ability. The study also reveals that as a result of globalisation there is a global discourse on knowledge production which assumes that unless our system of education conforms with this global reality, our education could be considered as being of an inferior quality. The findings of the research suggest that OBE with its fixed outcomes cannot engender transformation on its own. Rational reflection, creativity and imagination need to be imbedded in practices of teaching and learning. By doing this, OBE could offer transformative opportunities for school communities at large. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie poog om die strukturele en konseptuele tendens onderliggend aan die ontwikkeling van UGO (Uitkomsgebaseerde onderwys) te ondersoek. Die bekendstelling van 'n UGO model in skole word gesien as deel van die demokratiseringsproses wat binne die Suid-Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel plaasvind. Ondersteuners van UGO is dit eens dat UGO radikaal wegbeweeg van die apartheidsonderwysstelsel. Om hierdie rede word UGO dus gesien as 'n transformatoriese perspektieftot die kurikulum. Teen hierdie agtergrond streef UGO daama om sukses te waarborg vir alle leerders in 'n leerlinggesentreerde omgewing. Op die manier wil UGO 'n kritiese, ondersoekende, skeppende, probleemoplossende, kommunikatiewe en toekomsgerigte landsburger skep. Nadat daar egter 'n analitiese studie van die Witskrif vir Onderwys en Opleiding (1996) gedoen is wil dit tog voorkom asofUGO eerder daarop gemik is om leerders te manipuleer en te beheer. Trouens, die huidige diskoers oor kennisproduksie aanvaar dat indien 'n land se opvoeding nie die realiteit van globalisasie in ag neem nie word dit as minderwaardig beskou. Die bevindinge van die navorsmg stel voor dat UGO, met sy vaste uitkomste, wemige verandering alleen kan meebring. Daar word dus aan die hand gedoen dat indien rasionaliteit, kreatiwiteit en verbeeldingrykheid deel sou vorm van onderwys en leer dit op so 'n manier uitkomste kan komplementeer en sodoende betekenisvolle transformasie in die onderwys kan bewerkstellig.

Competency-based education is intended to benefit working non-traditional students who have knowledge and skills from prior work experiences, but it also enables self-motivated students to accelerate their time to degree, thereby increasing affordability and efficiency. Competency-based education clarifies what a credentialed student will be able to do and makes assessment more transparent and relevant to those outside of higher education. Competency-based education has arisen in response to the problem defined by the national reform discourses of accountability and affordability. In the first manuscript, History & Objections Repeated: Re-Innovating Competency-Based Education, I review the history of social efficiency reform efforts in American education in order to re-contextualize the “innovation” of competency-based education as a repackage of older ideas to fit the public’s current view of what needs to be fixed in higher education. I discuss the concept of “efficiency” and how it has been interpreted in the past and today with regard to competency-based education and its rejection of an earlier attempt at increasing efficiency in education: the Carnegie credit hour. For the second manuscript, Framing Competency-Based Education in the Discourse of Reform, I analyzed four years of news articles and white papers on competency-based education to reveal the national discourses around competency-based education. I used thematic discourse analysis to identify diagnostic and prognostic narrative frames (Snow & Benford, 1988) that argue for and against competency-based education. These frames were put in the context of the politicized conversation around the current main issues in higher education: access, attainment, accountability, and affordability. Each of these issues provided a foundation of coding the discourse which was then shaped by the context of competency-based education, particularly its positioning as a solution to the Iron Triangle dilemma of decreasing cost while increasing access and quality. The third manuscript, Idea and Implementation: A Case Study of KCTCS’s CBE Learn on Demand, involves an institutional case study of a competency-based education program, Learn on Demand (LOD), within the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with student success coaches, faculty, and staff who are directly involved with the program across seven different colleges, and documents such as marketing materials, presentations, and administrator-written articles were also analyzed as a representation of the official discourse of the program. As institutions start to explore and develop competency-based education programs, the faculty and administrators at those institutions are likely influenced by the intersection of pre-existing organizational and subgroup culture, societal beliefs about the definition and purpose of education, and how innovations may shape the experiences of individuals. Through interviewing individuals, I was able to parse out the impacts of both institutional politics and innovation-related concerns on the success of implementation.

Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Education (Management), Technikon Natal, 1999. / In 1992 the National Education Co-ordinating Committee published a National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) report in which emerging curriculum alternatives for South Africa were discussed. In 1994 the National Department of Education sponsored discussions which led to the introduction of Curriculum 2005, a curriculum based on outcomes (OBE). OBE represents a paradigm shift from a system emphasising syllabus and content to one where prescribed outcomes are of critical importance. Workshops were conducted by the National and Provincial Departments of Education and NGOs to introduce and train Grade 1 teachers in OBE. Some principals reported that they were invited to one-day workshops on OBE. This study is an investigation into the management skills required by Junior Primary school (Foundation Phase) principals in the Amanzimtoti District in the implementation of Curriculum 2005. This is an exploratory study of the role of the principal in the implementation of / M

D.Litt. et Phil.

M.Ed. / Several strategies have been mooted as means of improving teaching and learning in South African schools. The National Department of Education’s Foundations for Learning Campaign, launched in 2008 and the recent announced Schooling 2025 strategy are examples. In this research report I argue that the success of any school improvement plan aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning hinges on the extent to which teachers are able or willing to implement the measures required of them. I argue that changing the way teachers learn to teach by establishing communities of practice and working in collaborative groups in schools, offers a possible panacea. Therefore the aim of this study was to explore the experiences of teachers working in a Collaborative Teaching Strategy (CTS) aimed at improving teachers’ performance in the classroom. This qualitative research project was grounded in an interpretive paradigm and made use of semi-structured individual interviews and a focus group interview to generate data. The constant comparative method of data analysis was used to search for categories and sub-categories of meaning in the data. The findings indicate that while there are significant benefits for teachers working in collaborative groups, there are also several serious constraints. On the positive side, participants in the research experienced the mutual support and the sharing of ideas that emerged from collaborative interactions as affirmation of their expertise and knowledge. In addition, teachers viewed working in collaboration with others as a professional and personal development opportunity. Finding time to collaborate and the emergence of some resistance to collaborative work were identified as constraints. Some teachers felt their individuality and creativity to be restricted by collaborative work. Further, individual personalities impacted negatively on collaboration with tensions emerging between teachers as a result of differing personal experience, expertise, knowledge, authority and values, approaches and benefits about teaching and learning. This resulted in instances of pseudo-collaboration. Also misconceptions about what it means to collaborate about teaching created difficulties for some teachers. The main implication arising from the research project is that availability of time is critical to effective collaboration. In addition, detailed guidance in terms of how and what teachers should be doing during collaborative activities appears necessary. Next, due consideration should be accorded to personality types and working relationships so that collaborative partners and groups can be mindfully structured and provided with training to enable effective work in teams. Equitable workloads and equal access to teaching resources is essential. Finally, mutual respect for each other regardless of experience, expertise, position, belief or opinion is a prerequisite for successful collaboration about the various and varied tasks of teaching.

M.Ed. (Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Ed. (Science Education) / The nature of science (NOS) remains a problematic construct, which many science teachers do not address in their science teaching. This is owing to an uninformed understanding of the NOS by teachers, who therefore do not include NOS aspects in their science teaching. It is, however, imperative to introduce learners in the Intermediate Phase to NOS elements because it is during this phase that they formally learn science Although there is no specific definition of the NOS, there are guidelines in the framework provided by Chiappetta, Fillman and Sethna on the NOS elements that should be included in science textbooks. The NOS framework for science textbook analysis comprises four themes: Science as a body of knowledge, Science as a way of investigating, Science as a way of thinking and the Interaction among Science, Technology and Society. My study focuses on the analysis of workbooks in the Intermediate Phase Natural Sciences and Technology that were distributed by the South African Department of Basic Education during 2013. These workbooks were distributed as part of the implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) in the Intermediate Phase. The workbooks are a combination of textbook and writing book. These workbooks contain ample information about science concept knowledge and colourful illustrations of real life science phenomena. The NOS units of analysis as stipulated in the NOS framework by Chiappetta et al., were identified for the content analysis of science textbooks, in this case science workbooks. As part of the process of content analysis, a qualified science teacher and I analysed the identified pages in each of the six workbooks from Grades 4 to 6. The overall agreement of codes indicated that the NOS themes are substantially covered in the Natural Sciences workbooks, especially the theme Science as a way of investigating and Science as a body of knowledge. The NOS theme Science as a way of thinking receives more coverage than the NOS theme Interaction among Science, Technology and Society. The latter theme was poorly covered in the identified pages of analysis from the six different workbooks. It is suggested that future writing of science textbooks, especially in the Intermediate Phase, should cover all four NOS themes equally. This could assist Intermediate Phase learners in gaining an informed understanding of the nature of science in order to make educated decisions in the scientific enterprise as adults.

M.Ed. (Education) / This study is an analysis of Grade 9 Natural Sciences textbooks for their representation of the nature of science. The textbooks analysed are CAPS compliant and approved by the Department of Basic Education. Like any other modern education system in a democratic dispensation, the South African education system has undergone several curricular changes post- independence (1994). These changes have been due to, but not limited by, factors pertaining to political and economic reforms. Curricular revisions have spanned a period of almost 20 years, commencing with Curriculum 2005 (C2005) to the current revised Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS). Science curriculum documents subscribe to the tenets of the nature of science (Lederman, 2007). Bell (2008) suggests that science is best defined by its characteristics, otherwise known as the tenets of NOS. Eleven key aspects of NOS that are intricately related to the basic tenets of science derived by Lederman (2007) form the analytical framework used in this study. The aspects are: Empirical; Inferential; Creative; Theory-driven; Tentative; Myth of the scientific method; Scientific theories; Scientific laws; Social dimensions of science; Social and cultural embeddedness of science and Science vs. pseudoscience. These aspects further formed a detailed scoring rubric to record the extent to which NOS is represented in the units of analysis, which comprise complete paragraphs, activities, worked examples, figures with captions, tables with captions, charts with captions, and marginal comments of the sampled topics ...

M.Ed.

M.Ed. / In the light of the foregoing postulation of the problems and issues to be addressed, the present research study was aimed at determining the problems of Grade 1 and 2 facilitators with respect to Curriculum 2005, with a view to developing guidelines which the educational psychologist could follow in support of teachers' efforts to implement and apply Curriculum 2005. The study had as its point of reference an ecosystemic theoretical framework in terms of which the aim, nature and origin of the outcomes-based approach to teaching and learning, as well as the advancement thereof in Western countries, were discussed. In addition, the researcher took a closer look at how the said system impacted on the facilitator's role in the foundation phase, as well as at the paradigm shift with respect to facilitator resistance. The results of the study indicated that facilitators deemed the in-service training, advising, support and guidance of the Department to be bewildering, incongruent and akin to information overload. The majority of facilitators concurred, however, that extensive retraining and experimental practice with respect to the implementation and application of Curriculum 2005 could possibly solve a myriad of problems regarding the implementation of this curriculum. In addition, facilitators seemed to feel a clamant need for continued support and advice from the Department, as well as from the school in its capacity of a system. The future perspective hinged upon both positive and negative sentiments, however. Negative perceptions involved the failure of Curriculum 2005, whilst positive experiences, on the other hand, centred around the suitability of the model for learners' social and cognitive development and their chances of success, since they experience the implementation as a process. In spite of in-service training and the provision of documentation on the new system of education and learning, facilitators still exhibit an alarming ignorance of the philosophy and concepts underpinning OBE — ignorance that could only be explained in terms of the inadequate in-service training offered to facilitators and their lack of motivation as far as self-development is concerned. Recommendations for policy makers are also incorporated in the guidelines