A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the conditions for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy.
April 2016. / The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 changed the way the world thinks
about economics as a discipline and brought about awareness of how
economics is taught at universities. In view of an on-going global debate about
the economics curriculum and its teaching, this doctoral study places the
South African context within the global higher education sphere and explores
how introductory economics is taught in first-year at a South African
university. This study explored the teaching of Economics 1 at a mainstream,
globally-ranked public university in South Africa with very similar content
and structure to the Economics 1 curriculum in the West.
The main aim of the doctoral study was to investigate the qualitatively
different ways in which university teachers (lecturers and tutors) teaching
Economics 1 at a South African university conceive of, experience and
understand their teaching and tutoring roles. On the basis of this, three
research questions were asked: (I) What are the qualitatively different ways in
which lecturers at ‘the University’ understand teaching Economics 1?; (II)
What are the qualitatively different ways tutors at ‘the University’ understand
teaching Economics 1?; and (III) What is/are the implication(s) for students’
learning of teaching Economics 1 within the current setting at ‘the University’
through the lenses of relevant conceptual frameworks and the outcome of the
empirical study?
Teaching in higher education, the disciplinary context of economics’
undergraduate teaching and its implications for students’ learning
underpinned the choice of the literature, the three conceptual frameworks and
the research methodology. By asking the three research questions above to
guide the research process, the empirical study used a qualitative methodology
– phenomenography – that aims to explore the qualitatively different ways in
which a group of people experience a specific phenomenon, in this case
teaching Economics 1 in higher education. On the basis of phenomenography
as a conceptual framework in itself, this doctoral study further analysed the
empirical data using two conceptual frameworks - a four-context framework
for teaching in higher education and the concept of semantic gravity, relating
to segmented and cumulative learning, as conceptual lenses.
Two sets of conceptions of teaching emerged on the basis of answering the first
two research questions. A careful, comparative analysis of these two sets
(lecturers’ and tutors’ sets of conceptions of teaching) led to six conceptions of
teaching Economics 1 in higher education as follows: (I) team collaboration to
implement the economics curriculum; (II) having a thorough knowledge of the
content; (III) implementing the curriculum in order for students to pass
assessment; (IV) helping students learn key economics concepts and
representations to facilitate learning; (V) engaging students through their
real-life economics context to acquire economic knowledge; and (VI) helping
students think like economists.
The first three are characterised as being teacher-centred and the later three
as student-centred. Applying the concept of semantic gravity (Maton, 2009), I
argue that the latter two more complete conceptions of teaching imply
cumulative learning in which students are able to acquire higher-order
principles whereby they are able to apply the knowledge acquired through the
teaching of Economics 1 in new contexts. The first four conceptions are seen as
favouring segmented learning. According to this analysis, the fourth
conception, although characterized as student oriented, should be regarded as
favouring segmented learning which is not in line with the aims of higher
education. As for the four-context model of teaching in higher education, the
analysis from the empirical data showed that there is a very strong connection
between the pedagogical and disciplinary contexts in relation to the six
conceptions of teaching emerging from the analysis, though the disciplinary
context is stronger than the pedagogical context.
In summary, three implications can be drawn from this doctoral study on the
basis of the empirical data, literature and conceptual frameworks as the basis
for improving undergraduate economics education. These are as follows: (1)
the need to make the economics curriculum aligned with real-life contexts of
undergraduate students; (2) the need to rethink the economics curriculum in
light of the current global debates within the discipline of economics; and (3)
the need to bring pedagogical development into the team.
Key words/phrases:
Conceptions of Teaching;
Teaching in Higher Education;
Higher Education Research;
Undergraduate Economics Education; and
Phenomenography
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/20757 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Ojo, Emmanuel Oluseun |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (xii, 153 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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