This research report describes an illuminative evaluation study of the workplace learning component of the Diploma in Animal Health, a vocationally-oriented qualification offered by the University of South Africa (Unisa). In illuminative evaluation, a programme is studied by qualitative methods to gain an in-depth understanding of its "instructional system" – its intended teaching arrangements, as well as its "learning milieu" – the actual sites of learning interaction; this results in a rich description of the programme that allows "matches" and "mismatches" between the instructional system and learning milieu to be uncovered. In this study, this approach was applied to investigate the instructional system through document analysis, and the learning milieu through interviews, observation and a student questionnaire. The data revealed a number of "matches" but also "partial matches". Matches included the immersion of students in an actual work environment where they fully participated in real work activities; this generally allowed them to be work-ready on graduation, as intended. Partial matches included the component's intentions to have a well-functioning co-operative relationship, to have a curriculum that is fully relevant to student workplaces, and to have designated mentors who provide both academic and personal support; all these intentions were only partially achieved in the learning milieu. In uncovering these matches and partial matches the illuminative approach provided in-depth insights into the workplace component that might not have been obtained by using another evaluation methodology.

This study is a qualitative evaluation of the impact of the Certificate for Distance Education Practitioners, a collaborative staff development programme for open and distance learning practitioners in the five southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. It aims to inform the stakeholders of this programme on its impact and to add to the limited research on open and distance learning in Africa. It is the first southern African systematic evaluation of the impact of a staff development collaboration programme delivered through open and distance learning methods. The study evaluates the impact of the programme on the 1997 - 2000 learners and on the organisations where these learners worked. Parlett and Hamilton’s (1975) illuminative evaluation methods were combined with McAnany’s (1975) five criteria impact evaluation model to produce an expanded and innovative design of programme impact evaluation. Postal questionnaires and interviews provided biographical data and direct views of the programme’s participants. Progressive focusing illuminated the key issues emerging from the programme’s delivery and McAnany’s (1975) evaluation criteria were used to analyse and interpret the programme’s impact. One of the key findings from this study is that the conceptions informing the delivery of the Certificate for Distance Education Practitioners are based on notions of openness, flexibility, learner-centredness and collaboration and that the programme’s implementation endeavoured, in varying degrees, to match these notions. The second finding is that the participants regarded the programme highly as a sound introduction to open and distance learning approaches and practices and felt it contributed to the application of learner-centred ideas in their organisations. However, the programme’s low enrolment numbers and progressively declining throughput rates contradicted this high regard and did not match the providers’ original projections. Lack of resources impacted negatively on participants’ application of open and distance learning approaches while organisations’ implementation of new policies and mergers created job insecurity for some participants. As in Perraton and Lentell (2004) other key issues emerging from this study include the absence of enabling staff development policies, lack of recognition, currency and/or reward after completion of the programme, limited marketing, level and national focus of the programme, and management and administration issues. These findings suggest that it is possible to deliver a regional collaboration staff development programme through open and distance methods but that the issues raised in this study need to be addressed to make such programmes sustainable, effective and financially viable.

The objective of educational innovation, wherever it takes place, at school or at national level, is to improve current practices. In its recent attempt to improve the quality of education in Malawi, the national government in 2001 embarked on curriculum reform and adopted an Outcomes Based curriculum which was implemented in 2007. The design features of the Malawi Outcomes Based Education were influenced by South Africa’s Curriculum 2005. Following the implementation of the curriculum reform, the purpose of this study was to investigate the enactment of Expressive Arts, its theme-based design and content, facilitative pedagogy and continuous assessment in a selection of six state primary schools – three urban and three rural in Zomba district where teachers were first trained to teach Expressive Arts. The study is framed by the theory of Illuminative evaluation (Parlett and Hamilton, 1976) and Productive Pedagogies (Lingard et al., 2001). Following a qualitative research design, data were collected through observation and post-observation interviews. Data analysis showed limited productive pedagogies in most lessons. The majority of lessons were characterised by lower intellectual quality, a focus on instrumental knowledge, integration at a superficial level, dominance of communalising practices, gendered practices, prevalence of localising discourses and a pedagogy aimed at national examinations. The overall picture from these findings is that classroom atmosphere in the twelve classrooms gave students limited opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills, values and attitudes required for them to actively participate in the changing Malawian context and to be able to compete successfully in other contexts. It appears that dominant pedagogic practices in the Expressive Arts classroom serve to position learners in parochial orientations and issues. Therefore, there was an obvious discrepancy between the state’s intended curriculum and the teachers’ enacted curriculum. The implications of these findings for Malawi education have been raised. The most salient of these implications include the need for Malawi Institute of Education, the main change agent of primary school curriculum in the country, not only to consider revising the Expressive Arts curriculum but also to focus on the development of teachers in line with their needs for deeper content knowledge and productive pedagogic strategies.

An illuminative evaluation of the final year prosthodontic component of the Oral Health Science curriculum (OHSC 501 Component 1) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa was conducted. This evaluation method was employed to illustrate how an evaluation strategy was used to assess classroom practices following institutional curriculum reform. The aim was to use a qualitative evaluation process to assess the impact of the curriculum change at classroom level and to evaluate how a department had reformed its’ teaching and learning strategies within the hybrid problem based learning curriculum that had been implemented. Additionally, it was to evaluate how this curriculum operated in its own terms. From July through October 2007 small group teaching involving problem based learning, led by two faculty from the department of prosthodontics were observed. Six two hour long small group sessions (equivalent to twelve forty minute lessons), were observed and they revealed a variety of pedagogic strategies utilised. The plan, as outlined in the instructional system was held up against the reality through observations of what happened in the classroom. By and large the findings illustrate that much of what was planned was realised, with the more experienced staff member teaching more or less to the plan. However, from the themes that were inductively derived from analysis of the data, it was clear that integration of content knowledge and critical thinking necessary to assist in the comprehensive management of dental patients was not as robust as would be expected from the students at this level during their training. As part of the objectives of the curriculum innovation instituted, content knowledge integration and critical thinking skills are key to the success of the innovation and employing illuminative evaluation methodology afforded the opportunity to delve deeper into these. This finding illustrates the importance of using qualitative evaluation approaches as a mechanism to assess curriculum change efforts.

This study explores what happens as the ideals of a learnership, envisioned in the South African legislation, become real practice in a workplace within the financial services industry. Learnerships are at the centre stage for illuminating the processes of acquiring a vocational qualification, which combines education with work readiness. The constructivist philosophy to this research and its qualitative paradigm resonates well with the postmodernist thinking that knowledge has different purposes strongly linked to performance, demanding education that is value adding. It is through this postmodern lens that the broad theoretical framework for study is located. It encompasses theories of learning and workplace learning, such as Wenger’s (1998) perspectives on communities of practice and Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning circle. Mezirow’s (1981) transformative learning theory adds the dimension of dialogue. The method of illuminative evaluation is used to examine one event in order to explore its contextual insights. Qualitative inquiry has a fundamental people orientation and, for this reason, observation adds depth to the information gathering possibilities of interviews and document analysis. This report is enriched by narratives of people’s perspectives on events. This illuminative evaluation brought out rich and varied insights into the acquisition of knowledge, skills and work identity (values and attitudes), with some surprising and unexpected insights on success and failures. The workplace’s control of the learning process, while impacting extremely positively on the quality of the theoretical learning (which is interesting as education is not its core purpose), compromised in some respects the success of the end product of the learnership, the work readiness and employment possibilities of learners.

The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth understanding of how a single private provider conducted an application for re-accreditation in line with the recently revised accreditation framework set out by the Council on Higher Education. This framework aims to promote an integrated approach to accreditation and increased autonomy for higher education institutions with regard to the reaccreditation of programmes. The research unpacked how accreditation was understood and applied within the context of the institution, placing emphasis on understanding the elements that promoted or inhibited quality as well as the tensions and contradictions that arose within this process. The driving question addressed by this research was: How does management within a South African private higher education institution engage with the re-accreditation process? Literature revealed that there is limited research on understanding quality assurance in private higher education in South Africa, and specifically on accreditation. Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) was considered the most effective lens to interpret the findings of this study, as research indicates that it is for teasing out the historical and cultural contradictions within as well as between people, tools and the environment within complex educational systems. Multiple data-gathering techniques, including semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant observations and documentation reviews, were conducted. The findings of this study illuminate the critical role of management and their respective interpretations of quality in the shaping of the application for re-accreditation, that balanced quality development and accountability requirements. The study highlighted contradictions and issues that inhibited meaningful engagement with accreditation as well as the enhancement of programme and institutional quality.

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / Life skills are coping skills taught to learners, with the purpose of developing self-reliant and confident people with skills, to cope with important life's challenges in times of change. Where life skill education initiatives are being set up, much time and resources are channelled into training teachers, promoting, disseminating and implementing life skill education. For life skill education to be effective and continue to be relevant, research needs to be undertaken as an integral part of the whole process. This study focuses on the 'Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme'. The aim being to evaluate the success of this programme in empowering teachers to teach life skills. It was found that although life skill education has been found to be an important area in every learner's life, there are obstacles that may affect an effective implementation of life skill education in schools. These obstacles need to be attended to. / ewensvaardighede word aan leerlinge onderrig met die doe! om selfstandigheid en selfversekerdheid te ontwikkel, sodat hulle in staat is om lewenseise te midde van veranderende tye te kan hanteer Wanneer lewensvaardighede-onderrig gelnisieer word, word baie tyd en hulpbronne gekanaliseer in die opleiding van onderwysers, asook in die promovering, verspreiding en implementering van sodanige onderwys. Vir lewensvaardighede-onderrig om effektief te wees en relevant te bly, moet navorsing 'n integrale dee! van die hele prose vorm. Hierdie studie is gerig op die "Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme". Die doe! was om vas te stel tot watter mate hierdie program bydra tot die bemagtiging van onderwysers in die onderrig van lewensvaardighede. Die bevinding was dat alhoewel erkenning gegee word aan die belangrikheid van lewensvaardighede-onderrig, daar tog struikelblokke is wat effektiewe implementering in skole kan belemmer Hierdie struikelblokke moet aangespreek word. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / Life skills are coping skills taught to learners, with the purpose of developing self-reliant and confident people with skills, to cope with important life's challenges in times of change. Where life skill education initiatives are being set up, much time and resources are channelled into training teachers, promoting, disseminating and implementing life skill education. For life skill education to be effective and continue to be relevant, research needs to be undertaken as an integral part of the whole process. This study focuses on the 'Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme'. The aim being to evaluate the success of this programme in empowering teachers to teach life skills. It was found that although life skill education has been found to be an important area in every learner's life, there are obstacles that may affect an effective implementation of life skill education in schools. These obstacles need to be attended to. / ewensvaardighede word aan leerlinge onderrig met die doe! om selfstandigheid en selfversekerdheid te ontwikkel, sodat hulle in staat is om lewenseise te midde van veranderende tye te kan hanteer Wanneer lewensvaardighede-onderrig gelnisieer word, word baie tyd en hulpbronne gekanaliseer in die opleiding van onderwysers, asook in die promovering, verspreiding en implementering van sodanige onderwys. Vir lewensvaardighede-onderrig om effektief te wees en relevant te bly, moet navorsing 'n integrale dee! van die hele prose vorm. Hierdie studie is gerig op die "Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme". Die doe! was om vas te stel tot watter mate hierdie program bydra tot die bemagtiging van onderwysers in die onderrig van lewensvaardighede. Die bevinding was dat alhoewel erkenning gegee word aan die belangrikheid van lewensvaardighede-onderrig, daar tog struikelblokke is wat effektiewe implementering in skole kan belemmer Hierdie struikelblokke moet aangespreek word. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.