M.Com. (Business Management) / The complex nature of problems that the world is currently facing necessitates the emergence of new ways of producing knowledge relevant for dealing with these challenges. These challenges are multi-faceted and must be broken down into a variety of components as well as serially managed in order to ensure that a suitable plan of action can be formulated. A key aspect of dealing with these complex issues is through the integration of knowledge from a variety of disciplinary sources. Higher education institutions, through research, have the capability to elucidate the necessary disciplinary options from which these issues can be resolved. One approach that can be exploited in academia is transdisciplinary research. Transdisciplinary research integrates the best available knowledge sources and creates a platform from which researchers can create ownership of the problems and provide options for solving them. With this in mind, strategies that enhance transdisciplinary at academic institutions have become essential. One such strategy that can be employed is coopetition. Coopetition is a strategy that combines both cooperation and competition. This strategy is derived from the belief that competitors can benefit from one another if they collaborate and eliminates the traditional mindset that deters competitors from working together. However, before coopetition can be formalised, it is important to identify whether researchers are willing to adopt the behaviour required for it. Thus, this research, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model, aims to identify whether researchers possess the behavioural intent towards the adoption of coopetition, which can foster a culture of transdisciplinary research. The study elaborates on the attitudes, norms and perceived self-efficacy of actively engaged researchers from two higher education institutions (one private, the other public) in South Africa. The attitudes, norms and perceived self-efficacy were then used to compute a behavioural intent score. The analysis occurred on two levels: within the institution, and across institutions. The results revealed that actively engaged researchers at these two institutions possess a moderately high likelihood of engaging in coopetitive relationships despite the extent to which individuals are influenced by norms being low. This study concludes with suggestions of future research with regards to enhancing coopetition and transdisciplinary research.

The in-class learning environments of a traditional and hybrid mathematics course were compared. The hybrid course had half the face-to-face meetings as the traditional course; outside of class, the students in the hybrid section completed asynchronous online assignments that involved watching content-delivery videos. Moving the content delivery outside of the classroom for the hybrid format had an impact on the interactions between the students and the professor inside the classroom. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of verbal discourse determined that the hybrid class format reduced the amount of in-class time devoted to direct instruction and increased the level of student discourse. Students assisted other students, had the freedom to make mistakes, and were able to receive personal guidance from the professor. The professor was able to address student misconceptions on formative assessments in class. Previous studies of the hybrid class model had focused on comparing differences in examination scores, GPAs, and pre- and post-test scores between the traditional and hybrid class model rather than comparing what is occurring inside the classroom. Quantifying what effect the shift from the traditional to the hybrid class model had on discourse inside the classroom is a first step towards confirming how the different methods of content delivery affects the in-class learning environment, and provides insight into certain pedagogic advantages the hybrid format may offer.

Previous research has identified student engagement as an important antecedent to student learning in higher education. Although student engagement is viewed as important for learning, a significant number of college students still report frequently feeling bored in their courses. The use of music as a pedagogical tool is believed to be beneficial for promoting student engagement and student learning in higher education sociology courses, yet it has been suggested that sociology faculty members do not commonly incorporate the technique into their courses. The purpose of this comparative interview study is to explore higher education sociology faculty members' understandings of the use of music as a pedagogical tool, and the perceived importance of student engagement to student learning among higher education sociology faculty members. In this study, it is found that higher education sociology faculty members believe student engagement can lead to increased student learning. It is also found that higher education sociology faculty members generally identify music as an effective pedagogical tool for promoting student engagement and learning in higher education sociology courses. Interestingly, participants believed the use of music as a pedagogical tool to be an uncommon practice in higher education sociology courses in the United States. As part of their efforts to explain their choices to use or not use music as a pedagogical tool, faculty participants described potential barriers that may impact faculty member choices to use music in their higher education sociology courses. Sociology faculty participants in this study agreed that a lack of discussion of pedagogical tools among colleagues and in teaching courses might serve as a potential barrier for the use of music as a pedagogical tool. Higher education sociology faculty participants also identified a lack of knowledge of how to use music as a pedagogical tool as a potential barrier for the use of music in sociology courses. This research suggests that the lack of faculty knowledge of music as a pedagogical tool may be due to the lack of discussion of pedagogical tools both among colleagues and in the teaching courses completed by higher education sociology faculty members. Past research has suggested that sociology faculty members need to create an environment that encourages students to be active and engaged participants in their own learning through building a community of learners. This study suggests that higher education sociology faculty members may successfully build a community of learners through using music as a pedagogical tool in their courses. This study recommends that changes at the departmental level need to occur in order to make it easier for sociology faculty members to gain the knowledge required to use music effectively in their courses. Suggestions for practice and future research are provided.