Implementation of classroom action research in Zimbabwean teacher education colleges: implications for teacher education curriculum
- Authors: Banda, Wilson
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Action research in education , Education -- Research , Curriculum planning
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10604 , vital:35632
- Description: It was the purpose of this study to interrogate the implementation of classroom action research (CAR) in identified Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges to provide the basis for future policy directions and related day-to-day CAR practice. The study leaned on the progressive educationists’ stance that teaching is an intricate profession that has more to it than mere technical skills. Teaching is viewed as a lifelong profession that requires pre-service teachers to be capacitated with CAR skills and competencies to ensure that they systematically, intentionally and critically consider a myriad of learner related psychosocial factors in their tour of duty. In that way teachers are made to appreciate why they should teach the way they teach, without necessarily turning them into some kind of public intellectuals, philosophers or theorists. The study utilised the mixed methods research approach in tune with the adopted pragmatism paradigm. The research paradigm draws on the strengths of both empirical data and the theoretical sentiments drawn from the respondents. The study used the concurrent triangulation design, rooted in the post-positivist research paradigm that integrates concurrent procedures in the collection, analysis and interpretation of research data. It was guided by three theoretical frameworks, namely, the experiential learning theory, the curriculum implementation framework and the living educational theory. The theories have a strong bearing on reflective practice and they acknowledge the subjectivity of truth. The study’s purposive sample comprised of sixty-four teacher educators and seventy-six preservice teachers. Several research instruments were utilised to solicit the requisite CAR implementation quantitative and qualitative data. These were questionnaires, interview schedules, focus group discussions and documents. The Statistical Packages for Social Sciences were used to summarise the solicited data through graphical representations and related frequency tables depicting descriptive statistics such as range, mean and mode. Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis through emerging themes, iv related to the sub-research questions. The study established that although the bulk of the teacher educators had the requisite professional qualifications, maturity and experiential background, more curricular and organisational reconstruction was required to improve on the status quo. For instance, solicited data demonstrated that the lecturers’ appetite for educational research was low. Furthermore, the teacher educators’ CAR skills and competencies were compromised by the research component’s inadequate contact time. In addition, it was instituted that the teachers’ colleges produced student teachers who lacked sound grasp of the CAR process. The mediocrity was attributed to a series of teacher educator and student teacher factors which were exacerbated by several other organisational and administrative impediments. Overall, the study concluded that teacher educators were incapacitated to effectively deliver CAR, owing partly to the nature of teacher educator preparation they got and the watered down professional induction. It further revealed that it was wrong to assume that all lecturers had operational capacity to effectively teach and supervise CAR projects. Furthermore, the study recommended that the teacher educators’ capacity in CAR needs enhancement. Identified CAR implementation strategies need further reconstruction and enforcement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Banda, Wilson
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Action research in education , Education -- Research , Curriculum planning
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10604 , vital:35632
- Description: It was the purpose of this study to interrogate the implementation of classroom action research (CAR) in identified Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges to provide the basis for future policy directions and related day-to-day CAR practice. The study leaned on the progressive educationists’ stance that teaching is an intricate profession that has more to it than mere technical skills. Teaching is viewed as a lifelong profession that requires pre-service teachers to be capacitated with CAR skills and competencies to ensure that they systematically, intentionally and critically consider a myriad of learner related psychosocial factors in their tour of duty. In that way teachers are made to appreciate why they should teach the way they teach, without necessarily turning them into some kind of public intellectuals, philosophers or theorists. The study utilised the mixed methods research approach in tune with the adopted pragmatism paradigm. The research paradigm draws on the strengths of both empirical data and the theoretical sentiments drawn from the respondents. The study used the concurrent triangulation design, rooted in the post-positivist research paradigm that integrates concurrent procedures in the collection, analysis and interpretation of research data. It was guided by three theoretical frameworks, namely, the experiential learning theory, the curriculum implementation framework and the living educational theory. The theories have a strong bearing on reflective practice and they acknowledge the subjectivity of truth. The study’s purposive sample comprised of sixty-four teacher educators and seventy-six preservice teachers. Several research instruments were utilised to solicit the requisite CAR implementation quantitative and qualitative data. These were questionnaires, interview schedules, focus group discussions and documents. The Statistical Packages for Social Sciences were used to summarise the solicited data through graphical representations and related frequency tables depicting descriptive statistics such as range, mean and mode. Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis through emerging themes, iv related to the sub-research questions. The study established that although the bulk of the teacher educators had the requisite professional qualifications, maturity and experiential background, more curricular and organisational reconstruction was required to improve on the status quo. For instance, solicited data demonstrated that the lecturers’ appetite for educational research was low. Furthermore, the teacher educators’ CAR skills and competencies were compromised by the research component’s inadequate contact time. In addition, it was instituted that the teachers’ colleges produced student teachers who lacked sound grasp of the CAR process. The mediocrity was attributed to a series of teacher educator and student teacher factors which were exacerbated by several other organisational and administrative impediments. Overall, the study concluded that teacher educators were incapacitated to effectively deliver CAR, owing partly to the nature of teacher educator preparation they got and the watered down professional induction. It further revealed that it was wrong to assume that all lecturers had operational capacity to effectively teach and supervise CAR projects. Furthermore, the study recommended that the teacher educators’ capacity in CAR needs enhancement. Identified CAR implementation strategies need further reconstruction and enforcement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Research as hope intervention: a visual participatory study with rural South African school children
- Authors: Cherrington, Avivit Miriam
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Affective education -- South Africa , Critical pedagogy -- South Africa , Hope -- Social aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/8350 , vital:26348
- Description: There is a dearth of knowledge on rural South African children’s perspectives of hope, and how their hope can be nurtured, shaped, and strengthened. Guided by a qualitative approach, and located within a critical transformative paradigm, this study explores the following research question: How could visual participatory methodology as ‘research as intervention’ enable rural South African primary school children to explore their conceptualisations of hope, as well as strengthen their hope? To answer this question I pose two sub-questions: Firstly, what are rural primary school children’s conceptualisations of hope? Secondly, how could using visual participatory methodology to explore their hope also strengthen the children’s hope? Hope plays a key role in the lives of people, influencing decisions and behaviour, as well as coping skills and wellbeing. The socio-economic and cultural contexts in which rural South African children find themselves are critical in enabling hope and influencing their psychosocial wellbeing. While international hope research boasts a diversity of theories, there is scarce representation of such research from an African perspective. Unable to turn to an Afrocentric theory of hope this study is framed by two theories from the global-North: Scioli’s (2007) Integrative theory of hope which provides a description of the individual’s hope process, and Prilleltensky and Prilleltensky’s (2007) Framework of psychosocial wellbeing which provides a broader context in which to view this process. Over a period of a year I engaged with twelve purposively selected 9-13 year old Basotho children, beneficiaries of a children’s programme situated in a rural village in the QwaQwa region, Free State, South Africa, to explore their hope. Using visual participatory methodology, data was co-constructed through four visual data generating tools (collage-making, drawing, Mmogo-method®, and photovoice), as well as individual interviews, a group interview, and notes and photographs kept in my research journal. A qualitative thematic analysis was followed, and a literature control conducted to re-contextualise the findings. The results of this study are presented in themes. The first three themes, Hope is having a better life; Hope is community participation and togetherness; and Hope is weakened by others and by one’s environment, combine to represent hope as a multi-layered, multi-dimensional experience towards attaining a better life on a contextual, personal, relational, and collective level. These levels of hope are all inter-related, interdependent, and influenced by cultural factors and the children’s belief system (or worldview). I therefore conclude that, according to these rural South African school children, hope is an internal process of being that develops within the individual, with assistance from external resources, and then extends outwardly through hopeful beliefs, feelings, and behaviours to promote togetherness, care, and respect in one’s community. The last three themes, Strengthened personal hope; Enhanced relational hope; and Mobilised collective hope, show that using visual participatory methodology to engage the participants in an exploration of hope potentially strengthened, enhanced, and mobilised their hope across three inter-related and overlapping levels: Personal, Relational, and Collective. The participants expressed a growing understanding of their hoping process, increased sense of autonomy, and improved coping skills for strengthening their own hope. They also began to refer to themselves as Hope Champions - able to foster hope in others by behaving in a hopeful manner, teaching others about hope, and offering care and support. I therefore conclude that this shifting view of themselves as competent and valuable members of the community mobilised their collective level of hope as they began to formulate ideas of how they could be active citizens in their community, pursuing collective wellbeing for themselves and other members of the community so that everyone could live a better life. The findings have several implications for educational psychologists working with marginalised and vulnerable children’s hope, for fostering hope in school contexts, and for educational hope research with marginalised children in rural South African communities. While this study cannot presume to have achieved long-term social change, it does certainly lay the foundation for proposing that ‘research as intervention’ has promising potential as ‘research as hope-intervention’ in educational contexts. In responding to the research question, I argue that visual participatory research methodology, when focused on hope, is in and of itself a hope-enhancing intervention. Consequently, combining visual participatory methodology with hope-focused explorations enables ‘research as hope-intervention’, facilitating a strengthening of the participants’ hope, and resulting in meaningful personal transformation. I conclude that using ‘research as hope-intervention’ with rural South African children holds many possibilities for mobilising a ‘pedagogy of hope’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Research as hope intervention: a visual participatory study with rural South African school children
- Authors: Cherrington, Avivit Miriam
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Affective education -- South Africa , Critical pedagogy -- South Africa , Hope -- Social aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/8350 , vital:26348
- Description: There is a dearth of knowledge on rural South African children’s perspectives of hope, and how their hope can be nurtured, shaped, and strengthened. Guided by a qualitative approach, and located within a critical transformative paradigm, this study explores the following research question: How could visual participatory methodology as ‘research as intervention’ enable rural South African primary school children to explore their conceptualisations of hope, as well as strengthen their hope? To answer this question I pose two sub-questions: Firstly, what are rural primary school children’s conceptualisations of hope? Secondly, how could using visual participatory methodology to explore their hope also strengthen the children’s hope? Hope plays a key role in the lives of people, influencing decisions and behaviour, as well as coping skills and wellbeing. The socio-economic and cultural contexts in which rural South African children find themselves are critical in enabling hope and influencing their psychosocial wellbeing. While international hope research boasts a diversity of theories, there is scarce representation of such research from an African perspective. Unable to turn to an Afrocentric theory of hope this study is framed by two theories from the global-North: Scioli’s (2007) Integrative theory of hope which provides a description of the individual’s hope process, and Prilleltensky and Prilleltensky’s (2007) Framework of psychosocial wellbeing which provides a broader context in which to view this process. Over a period of a year I engaged with twelve purposively selected 9-13 year old Basotho children, beneficiaries of a children’s programme situated in a rural village in the QwaQwa region, Free State, South Africa, to explore their hope. Using visual participatory methodology, data was co-constructed through four visual data generating tools (collage-making, drawing, Mmogo-method®, and photovoice), as well as individual interviews, a group interview, and notes and photographs kept in my research journal. A qualitative thematic analysis was followed, and a literature control conducted to re-contextualise the findings. The results of this study are presented in themes. The first three themes, Hope is having a better life; Hope is community participation and togetherness; and Hope is weakened by others and by one’s environment, combine to represent hope as a multi-layered, multi-dimensional experience towards attaining a better life on a contextual, personal, relational, and collective level. These levels of hope are all inter-related, interdependent, and influenced by cultural factors and the children’s belief system (or worldview). I therefore conclude that, according to these rural South African school children, hope is an internal process of being that develops within the individual, with assistance from external resources, and then extends outwardly through hopeful beliefs, feelings, and behaviours to promote togetherness, care, and respect in one’s community. The last three themes, Strengthened personal hope; Enhanced relational hope; and Mobilised collective hope, show that using visual participatory methodology to engage the participants in an exploration of hope potentially strengthened, enhanced, and mobilised their hope across three inter-related and overlapping levels: Personal, Relational, and Collective. The participants expressed a growing understanding of their hoping process, increased sense of autonomy, and improved coping skills for strengthening their own hope. They also began to refer to themselves as Hope Champions - able to foster hope in others by behaving in a hopeful manner, teaching others about hope, and offering care and support. I therefore conclude that this shifting view of themselves as competent and valuable members of the community mobilised their collective level of hope as they began to formulate ideas of how they could be active citizens in their community, pursuing collective wellbeing for themselves and other members of the community so that everyone could live a better life. The findings have several implications for educational psychologists working with marginalised and vulnerable children’s hope, for fostering hope in school contexts, and for educational hope research with marginalised children in rural South African communities. While this study cannot presume to have achieved long-term social change, it does certainly lay the foundation for proposing that ‘research as intervention’ has promising potential as ‘research as hope-intervention’ in educational contexts. In responding to the research question, I argue that visual participatory research methodology, when focused on hope, is in and of itself a hope-enhancing intervention. Consequently, combining visual participatory methodology with hope-focused explorations enables ‘research as hope-intervention’, facilitating a strengthening of the participants’ hope, and resulting in meaningful personal transformation. I conclude that using ‘research as hope-intervention’ with rural South African children holds many possibilities for mobilising a ‘pedagogy of hope’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Teachers' experiences of teacher-led professional development programs :an exploratory study of two clusters in the Mthatha district
- Authors: Zide, Lulama
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10394 , vital:35444
- Description: Professional growth of teachers is not new, but in recent years, the way in which it is structured and delivered has been reconceptualised. As part of the education reform process, many nations are investing in teacher education as a major engine for driving the changes in the classrooms to ensure learners’ academic success. South Africa is no exclusion to this trend of education reforms, hence, the founding of many professional growth initiatives. Most of these initiatives are aimed at Science and Maths teachers. This was mostly because the majority of Science and Maths teachers in South Africa are considered either under-qualified or not qualified to teach the subject. Yet, despite the efforts and enthusiasm, very little seems to have shifted in the teachers’ practices. Much of the literature still shows that even clusters are not effective in changing the situation completely. Using a qualitative case study design, the researcher explored teachers’ views on their clustering experience, and the benefits such participation and experience brings to their classroom instruction. The major findings of the study show that teachers find clustering as a tool that enriches their teaching, thus, both the content knowledge as well as their pedagogical strategies. The findings also show a consensus of teachers who need the cluster programs done continuously. The researcher concludes that teachers are still not happy with the professional development that is offered to them, and therefore recommends that such programs be offered according to teacher’s need.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Zide, Lulama
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10394 , vital:35444
- Description: Professional growth of teachers is not new, but in recent years, the way in which it is structured and delivered has been reconceptualised. As part of the education reform process, many nations are investing in teacher education as a major engine for driving the changes in the classrooms to ensure learners’ academic success. South Africa is no exclusion to this trend of education reforms, hence, the founding of many professional growth initiatives. Most of these initiatives are aimed at Science and Maths teachers. This was mostly because the majority of Science and Maths teachers in South Africa are considered either under-qualified or not qualified to teach the subject. Yet, despite the efforts and enthusiasm, very little seems to have shifted in the teachers’ practices. Much of the literature still shows that even clusters are not effective in changing the situation completely. Using a qualitative case study design, the researcher explored teachers’ views on their clustering experience, and the benefits such participation and experience brings to their classroom instruction. The major findings of the study show that teachers find clustering as a tool that enriches their teaching, thus, both the content knowledge as well as their pedagogical strategies. The findings also show a consensus of teachers who need the cluster programs done continuously. The researcher concludes that teachers are still not happy with the professional development that is offered to them, and therefore recommends that such programs be offered according to teacher’s need.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
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