This study sought to determine what university stakeholders see as the role of the division of student affairs in university education. 20 participants were drawn as follows: 5 students; 5 lecturers; 5 administration and senior management staff; and 5 student affairs staff. Recorded open-ended interviews were used as the data collection instrument in this qualitative research using the interpretive social science as a paradigm. Categorisation and coding of data centred on Blimling’s (2001) communities of practice in student affairs. The ‘Other’ category was added to cater for any other responses which did not fall within the espoused four communities of practice in student affairs by Blimling. Thematic and content analysis was employed in addition to the Lacey and Luff’s (2001) stages in the analysis of qualitative data. The study used both the first-order and second-order interpretations in assigning significance. This study revealed that the division of student affairs is perceived as primarily responsible for provision of student services - a non-academic, non-complementary yet supplementary role to the teaching of students in a university. Secondly, student affairs is also perceived as responsible for student development programmes targeting the growth of the ‘person’ in the student amid concerns, though, that this tends to be haphazard hence risks being branded ‘a secondary thing’ that requires less human and material resources. In the main, this study recommends that all units of the university operation must collaborate in so far as the total learning and development of a student into a responsible and meaningful citizen is concerned. As faculty does much of this role in the lecture room, so does the division of student affairs outside the classroom. However, the latter is challenged to develop planned scholarship in an outcomes based education (OBE) fashion. Finally, it is also recommended that universities recognise, reward and award students’ achievement out of class by any means necessary if not by way of another transcript that reveals the student’s learning and development out of class. It has been claimed that more than 90% of what a student learns takes place outside the lecture room. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of guidance and counselling services offered in Zimbabwean universities. A mixed-methods design consisting of quantitative and qualitative approaches was adopted for the study and data were collected through questionnaires and unstructured interviews. The population for this study comprised all the 18 universities in Zimbabwe with approximately 75 000 students and 200 counsellors. The participants in the study comprised eighty (80) students (40 males and 40 females) in their second year of study and upwards and nineteen (19) guidance counsellors (11 females and 8 males). The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Version 20 was used to analyse quantitative data derived from closed-ended questionnaire items. Frequencies and percentages were then derived from the quantitative data. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data from open-ended questionnaire items and interviews. The study revealed that although both students and guidance counsellors expressed positive perceptions of guidance and counselling services offered in their universities, in terms of their potential benefits to students, the majority of students regarded personal-social, career, placement, consultation, assessment, referral and evaluation services ineffective. The majority of guidance counsellors also regarded assessment, follow-up and evaluation services offered in their universities ineffective. The study also showed that the majority of guidance counsellors (63.2%) were not professionally trained. It also emerged from the study that internal evaluation of guidance and counselling services offered in the universities was never taken seriously. The study also showed that Zimbabwean universities were not adequately resourced in terms of guidance and counselling personnel and materials. The study revealed that generally guidance and counselling services offered in Zimbabwean universities were not effective. The study recommended that if Zimbabwean universities and their stakeholders collaborated and instituted a clear guidance and counselling policy which, among other important things, stipulates how guidance and counselling programmes would be run in universities, the effectiveness of guidance and counselling services offered in universities would most likely be enhanced. It was also recommended that if universities employed adequate fulltime professionally qualified guidance counsellors; periodically run training and in-service training workshops for the guidance counsellors and peer guidance counsellors; build proper infrastructure for all guidance and counselling activities; and secure proper assessment tests, the quality of guidance and counselling services offered in universities may be enhanced. The study also recommended that if guidance and counselling personnel were supervised regularly, and guidance and counselling services offered to students evaluated periodically and objectively, the guidance and counselling services offered in universities would be enhanced. This study may be significant to university counsellors, students, stakeholders and researchers in that it shares knowledge about the importance of effective guidance and counselling services offered to students and what constitutes effective guidance and counselling services. / Psychology of Education / Ph. D. (Psychology of Education)