Analysing an audit cycle: a critical realist account
- Authors: Boughey, Chrissie , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66741 , vital:28988 , ISSN 1470-3300 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1072148
- Description: Pre-print , This paper reports on the use of a framework developed from Bhaskar's critical realism and Archer's social realism to analyse teaching- and learning-related data produced as a result of the first cycle of institutional audits in the South African higher education system. The use of the framework allows us to see what this cycle of audits did achieve, namely some change in structural systems related to teaching and learning alongside the appointment of key agents. It also allows us to see how the stagnation of sets of ideas about teaching and learning in the domain of culture may mean that an assurance of the quality of learning experiences for all students remained elusive.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Strengthening postgraduate supervision
- Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Clarence-Fincham, Jenny , Boughey, Chrissie , Wels, Harry , Van den Heuvel, Henk
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66645 , vital:28975 , ISBN 9781928357322 , https://doi.10.18820/9781928357323
- Description: Preface: Since 1996 the number of students enrolled for Master’s study in South Africa has more than doubled, while doctoral enrolments have almost tripled (Cloete, Mouton and Sheppard 2015). Such enormous growth has had major implications for supervision, especially in a context where only 39% of academics have doctorates themselves. If South Africa is to come close to the National Development Plan target of 5 000 doctoral graduates per year by 2030, the pressure on supervisors is likely to continue apace. But supervision is of course not simply a matter of applying technical skills to churn out highly competent postgraduate scholars. It is a teaching craft coupled with research acumen and deep personal commitment. This book reflects on how a range of supervisors are making sense of this complex endeavour. The Strengthening Postgraduate Supervision book brings together 15 chapters written by 18 academics from 16 disciplines in 11 institutions. The authors work across all three institutional types found in higher education in South Africa: traditional universities, comprehensive universities and universities of technology. Through this rich array of contributions, supervision is presented never as a ‘best practice’ to be generically implemented but rather as a nuanced pedagogy to be nurtured through critical reflection. The chapters mix theoretical considerations of the postgraduate process and personal narratives of supervision practice. Most of the authors can be described as emerging supervisors, with a few contributions from more experienced supervisors, but all have in common a deep desire to forge inclusive environments that foster meaningful postgraduate research and nurture a new generation of scholars. It is through the sharing of these academics’ concerns and constraints, competencies and celebrations that this book adds to our understanding of postgraduate supervision in South Africa.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017