Abstracts

SAIDE Selected Abstracts

No.6 of 2005

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Distance Education

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Determininants of Student Readiness for Flexible Learning: Some Preliminary Findings by R Gayani Samarawickrema. In: Distance Education vol.26, no.1, May 2005 pp49-66.

An exploratory study using a questionnaire and focus group interviews

was conducted amongst a small sample of first year, first semester,

undergraduate design students from the Faculty of Art and Design at

Monash University, Australia, to determine their readiness for

off-campus, flexible independent learning. The study explores common

problems, similarities and differences among learners from South East

Asia, other international students, and local Australian students.

Findings of the study are presented under five key themes : dependence

on the teacher and the classroom environment; flexible learning and

working alone; structure; communication; and work patterns. The

article details approaches to study of first-year undergraduates

taking a creative unit such as design and concludes by discussing the

possible cultural attributes that have an impact on the learning as

well as related concerns and problems.

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From a Distance: Tutors as a Community of Practice by Callie Grant. In: Education As Change, vol.9, no.1, 2005 pp80-100.

In-service teacher education in South Africa is offered by

universities predominantly through open and distance learning. The

role of the tutor at the interface between the university and the

student becomes critical in this type of programme. Within the mixed

mode Bachelor of Education (Honours) degree at the University of

KwaZulu-Natal, there is an acknowledgement of the need to empower

tutors through staff development initiatives. One such initiative ran

parallel with an Educational leadership module, which aimed to support

tutors in their learning of new education leadership theory. This

article explores tutor participation in a community of practice and

evaluates Lave and Wenger's concepts of "communities of practice" and

"legitimate peripheral participation" for in-service distance

education in South Africa. It uses data gathered from a six month

self-reflective journaling process, as well as a focus group interview.

It argues for the development of communities at a distance to support

tutors in their delivery of mixed mode programmes but highlights the

limitations of the master/apprentice metaphor imbedded in "legitimate

peripheral participation" and extends this to accommodate the South

African context.

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Higher Education

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Employer-University ‘Partnerships’: A Key Problem for Work-Based Learning Programmes by Fiona Reeve and Jim Gallacher. In: Journal of Education and Work, vol.18, no.2, June 2005 pp219-233.

This paper focuses on the development of work-based learning

programmes within higher education in the UK. It explores how

`partnership' with employers came to be seen as a central aspect of

this new form of provision. However, we suggest that this emphasis on

partnership has been problematic. The authors focus, in particular, on three

areas of concern. Firstly, the limited evidence that employers wish to

engage in these sorts of relationships with universities. Secondly,

the problems arising from the different cultures of the potential

partners and, in particular, different understandings of `learning'

and `knowledge'. Thirdly, the emergence of the quality assurance

agenda within higher education, which is reducing the influence of

employers in these programmes. They conclude that the emphasis placed on

partnership in the policy and practice literature may well be

hindering the more widespread development of work-based learning in

higher education.

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Implementation of Holistic Model for Quality in Higher Education by Gitachari Srikanthan and John Dalrymple. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.1, April 2005 pp69-81.

The paper attempts to develop an approach to implementation for a

holistic model of quality in higher education. The methodology follows

Senge's model for implementing learning in organisations. According to

Senge the real work of learning takes place within a deep learning

cycle. The generic nature of actions to set in motion the learning

cycle are: guiding ideas, which provide a sense of purpose, theory,

methods and tools to allow people to learn new skills; innovations in

infrastructure to give people an opportunity to pursue their vision.

Such actions are viewed from the perspective of the holistic model.

Guiding principles for a transformational change result from

conversation and consensus building. A number of theoretical

constructs are examined to identify appropriate tools. Infrastructural

mechanisms are identified to give people the resources they need to

build new skills. As the actions are steadfastly maintained, a deep

learning cycle begins to gain momentum.

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Innovations in Teacher Education: International Practices of Quality Assurance ed. by K Rama and Menon Mohan. Bangalore: NAAC/COL. 2004.

This is a collection of papers presented to a roundtable on

teacher education hosted by COL and the National Assessment

and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of India in March 2004. The

meeting, "Innovations in Teacher Education: International

Practices of Quality Assurance", brought together senior

professionals and distinguished experts from Australia,

Bangladesh, Canada, India, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

Recognising that the relevance of education is highly

dependent on its quality and not just access, the Roundtable

focused on several aspects of quality assurance. The papers

presented and the experiences and concerns shared by the

participants and distinguished experts have been captured in

this book. It will help those engaged in teacher education

to be innovative in meeting the broad needs of the teacher

education community.

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Teaching & Learning

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Value of Student Engagement for Higher Education Quality Assurance by Hamish Coates. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.1, April 2005 pp25-36.

As the principles and practices of quality assurance are further

implanted in higher education, methodological questions about how to

understand and manage quality become increasingly important. This

paper argues that quality assurance determinations need to take

account of how and to what extent students engage with activities that

are likely to lead to productive learning. The idea of student

engagement is introduced. A critical review of current possibilities

for determining the quality of university education in Australia

exposes limitations of quality assurance systems that fail to take

account of student engagement. The review provides a basis for

suggesting the broad relevance of student engagement to quality

assurance. A sketch is provided for factoring student engagement data

into quality assurance determinations.

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Technology Enhanced Learning

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ICT in French Primary Education, Twenty Years Later: Infusion or Transformation? By Georges-Louis Baron and Michelle Harrari. In: Education and Information Technologies vol.10, no.3, 2005 pp147-156.

Twenty years have elapsed since ICT has been introduced on a large

scale in French primary schools. Since then many developments have

occurred, many of them outside of the technical sphere (for example

decentralization has much progressed), new issues have appeared. This

paper briefly analyzes changes and trends in the field of ICT in

French primary education. It suggests that the development of ICT,

still incomplete, does not seem to have brought much change in the

system. However, new ideas and activities have emerged, that deserve

further research and invite international comparisons. First

contextual elements about France and the situation of primary

education are recalled. Then issues linked with the development of ICT

are analysed, taking into account the situation of both pupils and

teachers.

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Information and Communication Technologies for Development in Africa. Volume 3: Networking Institutions of Learning – SchoolNet ed. by Tina James.

This volume documents the processes used, and institutions created, to

bring computers and connectivity into schools, as a means of enhancing

the use and integration of ICTs in teaching and learning. A range of

project, administrative, and cultural settings are explored as are a

wide variety of technical solutions.

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Learning through Inquiry: Student Difficulties with Online Course-Based Material by RA Ellis, G Marcus and R Taylor. In: Journal of Computer Assisted Learning vol.21, no.4, 2005.

This study investigates the case-based learning experience of 133

undergraduate veterinarian science students. Using qualitative

methodologies from relational Student Learning Research, variation in

the quality of the learning experience was identified, ranging from

coherent, deep, quality experiences of the cases, to experiences that

separated significant aspects, such as the online case histories,

laboratory test results, and annotated images emphasizing symptoms,

from the meaning of the experience. A key outcome of this study was

that a significant percentage of the students surveyed adopted a poor

approach to learning with online resources in a blended experience

even when their overall learning experience was related to cohesive

conceptions of veterinary science, and that the difference was even

more marked for less successful students. The outcomes from the study

suggest that many students are unsure of how to approach the use of

online resources in ways that are likely to maximise benefits for

learning in blended experiences, and that the benefits from case-based

learning such as authenticity and active learning can be threatened if

issues closely associated with qualitative variation arising from

incoherence in the experience are not addressed.

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Online Access and Connectivity of Primary School Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Johannesburg: SAIDE, 2005.

The Open University commissioned SAIDE to undertake this study to

inform the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Project

Consortium of the current (2005), and potential future (2005-2010)

access of teachers to online resources (via any technologies) in a

range of Sub-Saharan countries, particularly Kenya, Nigeria, South

Africa and Tanzania. The study also sought to inform the TESSA

consortium of the sorts of assumptions that can be made about

teachers' access to online professional development resources and

advice.

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Quality Assurance and e-Learning: Reflections from the Front Line by Michael Connolly, Norah Jones, John O’Shea. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.1, April 2005 pp59-67.

This paper describes the experience of one university in quality

assuring higher education courses that were to be delivered by

e-learning, or blended learning. The form of blended learning relies

upon the use of staff from partner institutions who may not have been

employed primarily solely to deliver higher education courses, be it by

face-to-face or e-delivery. The paper examines approaches to quality

assurance, transformation and enhancement used at the university. It

describes a four phase, or dimension, model of quality assurance

specifically designed to ensure that the quality of the new forms of

delivery was as robust and rigorous as that of the more traditional

face-to-face delivery methods. Finally, the paper reflects upon the

efficacy of the new approach to quality assurance and comments upon

the changes that have been provoked by these new approaches to

learning and assurance.

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Student Barriers to Online Learning: A Factor Analytic Study by Lin Y Muilenburg and Zane L Berge. In: Distance Education vol.26, no.1, May 2005 pp29-48.

This article reports on a large-scale (n=1 056), exploratory factor

analysis study that determined the underlying constructs that comprise

student barriers to online learning. The eight factors found were

(a)administrative issues, (b)social interaction, (c)academic skills,

(d)technical skills, (e)learner motivation, (f)time and support for

studies, (g)cost and access to the Internet, and (h)technical

problems. Independent variables that significantly affected student

ratings of these barrier factors included: gender, age, ethnicity,

type of learning institution, self-rating of online learning skills,

effectiveness of learning online, online learning enjoyment,

prejudicial treatment in traditional classes, and the number of online

courses completed.

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Use of Online Continuous Assessment at Post Graduate Level by Nathalie Hyde-Clark. In: Education As Change vol.9, no.1, 2005 pp3-18.

Existing formative assessment practices in postgraduate courses, such

as the exclusive use of essays, may encourage students to adopt

undesirable learning habits as they focus on the limited range of

knowledge required to complete one or two tasks. In order to create a

greater and improved learning experience, it may be necessary to

address these practices and alter them so that students submit work on

a more regular basis, testing understanding and application across the

content of the course. This paper discusses the introduction of

continuous assessment at the Honours level, through the use of online

material and electronic feedback.

SAIDE Selected Abstracts

No. 7 of 2005

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Instructional Design

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Design Criteria for Work-Based Learning: Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction Expanded by Betty Collis and Anoush Margaryan. In: British Journal of Educational Technology, vol.36, no.5, 2005 pp725-738.

In multinational corporations, new models of learning are developing.

A particular model with direct applications for challenges facing

distributed workforces is one that combines the strengths of formal and

informal learning while focusing on participants' work-based tasks. An

operationalisation of this model in the context of the ongoing

professional development of the engineers, geologists, and other

technical specialists in a multinational oil company (Shell EP) is

described. important for the quality control and continual improvement

of the implementation of the model is a set of criteria for the design

and evaluation of courses reflecting its work-based learning approach.

Merrill's First Principles of Instruction (2002) form a starting point

for such a model, but need to be expanded to reflect the particular

needs of the Shell EP context. This article presents the expansion of

Merrill's First Principles as the Merrill+ design and evaluation

criteria for courses with work-based activities for technical

professionals and demonstrates how the criteria can be applied through

a selection of some results of evaluations of more than 60 of the

Shell EP courses using a course-scan methodology based on the

Merrill+criteria. Implications of use of the Merrill+criteria for

design and evaluation are discussed.

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Higher Education

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A Good Practice Guide for Quality Management of Research by Higher Education Quality Committee. Pretoria: CHE, 2005.

This guide sets out basic definitions of, and a model for, quality

management of research at an institutional level. It has been

developed as a resource for higher education institutions, to be used

at various stages in the development of internal quality management

systems for research. Its purpose is to focus on the policies,

structures and data that can facilitate the support, development,

enhancement, monitoring and review of the quality of their research

and research education activities.

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Enhancing Teaching Quality Through Peer Review of Teaching by Laurie Lomas and Gill Nicholls. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.2, July 2005 pp137-149.

This paper examines the introduction of peer review of teaching in a

pre-1992 university in England. The paper first considers the

theoretical dimensions. Peer review of teaching is generally seen as a

quality enhancement rather than a quality assurance instrument and a

powerful means of encouraging the continuing professional development

of individual lecturers. However, the paper identifies that where peer

review of teaching is not seen in these terms, but rather as just one

of many impositions by external agencies, universities face the major

challenge of changing organisational culture and influencing the

assumptions, beliefs, values and behaviours of academic staff. The

second part of the paper discusses a case study of the implementation

and impact of peer review of teaching in a large and very diverse

university. This study highlights the theoretical concepts discussed

and helps to conceptualise the problems associated with formative peer

review of teaching in higher education.

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Evaluation of the South African Model of MBA Accreditation by Douglas Blackmur. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.2, July 2005 pp 87-102.

The South African Council on Higher Education (CHE) withdrew its

accreditation of 15 Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees in

May 2004. CHE's decisions have significant implications for students,

graduates, the labour market, the international credibility of national

higher education quality assurance systems and for international trade

in higher education. CHE regulates fitness of purpose by specifying

major dimensions of the MBA programme mission, as well as regulating

important aspects of teaching and learning, provider governance

structures and procedures, employment matters and research. The CHE

model embraces aspects of MBA provision but it does not require an

independent, scientific analysis of the efficacy of the assessments of

student skills, knowledge and reasoning ability that are conducted by

providers. Neither is it concerned with conceptualising or measuring

labour market judgements of MBA quality. This paper argues that these

are significant deficiencies and that potential students and other

stakeholders in South African MBA programmes will thus be seriously

misled if they rely on the results of the CHE MBA review to make MBA

programme choices, employment, recruitment, remuneration and promotion

decisions or to formulate public policy.

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Quality is Bound Up with Our Values: Evaluating the Quality of Mentoring Programmes (University of the Western Cape) by W McMillan and ME Parker. In: Quality in Higher Education, vol.11, no.2, July 2005 pp151-160.

This paper discusses quality evaluation of health sciences mentoring

programmes. The discussion highlights the way in which perceptions of

what constitutes quality shape evaluative purposes. Potential tensions

between the evaluative purposes of various stakeholders are brought to

the fore. To this end, the discussion explores the ways in which

accountability shapes the evaluative purposes of funders and how the

desire for programme knowledge and development frames the evaluative

purposes of academics. Various approaches to programme evaluation are

examined. The potential of reflective practice as a tool for examining

quality for knowledge and development of programmes is considered. The

paper concludes by presenting a framework for evaluating various

aspects of quality in mentoring programmes.

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Turning the Tide: A Strategic Response to HIV and AIDS in South African Higher Education. HEADS Programme Report: 2002 – 2004 by Dhianaraj Chetty and Barbara Michel. Pretoria: SAUVCA, 2005.

This review is, in part, based on evidence from a recent audit of

responses to HIV and AIDS in higher education, but it also describes

activities and interventions that have taken place over the past four

years as a result of the national SAUVCA/DoE/CT initiative. It shows

significant progress over three years in the provision of prevention

services, treatment, care and support and the establishment of

institutional capacity to manage HIV and AIDS programmatically -

across each institution. It also examines what progress has been made,

albeit more slowly, in the integration of HIV and AIDS in the the

curriculum, research on HIV and AIDS and workplace issues.

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Programme Development

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Developing Learning Programmes for NQF-Registered Qualifications and Unit Standards, Pretoria: South African Qualifications Authority

This manual is for any educator who would like a 'step by step'

approach to developing learning programmes using outcomes, whether the

outcomes are contained within unit standards or full qualifications.

It is not intended to be an academic paper or a policy document. The

focus of the manual is to set out a curriculum development process.

Now that a substantial number of qualifications and unit standards

have been registered and are on the National Learners' Records

Database, providers are faced with the responsibility of planning the

learning and assessment processes that support the achievement of

outcomes and enable the quality assurance of such achievement.

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Technology Enhanced Learning

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Building the Cognitive Bridge: Children, Information Technology and Thinking by Deirdre Cook and John Ralston. In: Education and Information Technologies, vol.10, no.3, 2005 pp207-223.

In the UK, approaches to developing, encouraging and extending

children's thinking are of considerable professional interest.

Teachers and researchers have explored a number of different

strategies. These are categorized in recent Department of Education

and Skills guidance into three broad areas: philosophical, cognitive

intervention, and brain-based learning approaches. Within all these

approaches, spoken language has been identified as essential for

collaborative learning of any kind and in some, information technology

is also seen as a potentially supportive collaborative medium. This

paper takes the form of a case study of children aged 10-11, from two

primary schools and considers the place of diagrammatic software in

supporting children's exploration and representation of ideas. The

case study provides some concrete examples of ways in which the

children made links between their discussion of ideas and their visual

record. Children were recorded as they worked together to produce

their map and as they reported to their peers on its completion. The

study concluded by showing the ease with which all pupils adapted to

the use of the software.

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In Search of a new University Paradigm in a Knowledge Society by Lalita Rajasingham. Ziff Papiere 123, November 2004. Hagen: Fern Universitat.

This monograph that follows on from the author's Ziff Papiere 105

(1997) documents her longitudinal research programme that seeks a new

university paradigm for the emerging knowledge society in an era of

rapid technological change and globalisation. The paper focuses on

knowledge in the future university, and argues that the shift from the

modern university of the nation state to the global university of the

future constitutes a new paradigm, and suggests a framework from which

a curriculum for the global virtual university may be constructed.

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Online Tutorial Support in Open and Distance Learning: Students’ Perceptions by Wei-Yuan Zhang, Kirk Perris and Lesley Yeung. In: British Journal of Educational Technology, vol.36, no.5, 2005 pp789-804.

The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) offers 199 courses with online

features to enhance the distance learning environment. The university

has arranged these courses to provide students with greater

flexibility in interacting with tutors, classmates, and the content

itself. Integral to learner flexibility online is access, valuing

computers and online learning, endorsement, and language proficiency.

The current investigation attempts to explore these issues by

examining the perceptions of OUHK students enrolled in courses with

online tutorial supports. Five major topics were explored including:

(1) accessing the Internet; (2) perceptions of technology; (3)

rationale for using the Internet in course work; (4) learning

strategies used by the tutor online; and (5) perceptions of the online

tutorial support.

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Reach to Teach ICT: Issues and Compromises by Malcolm Hughes. In: Education and Information Technologies, vol.10, no.3, 2005 pp263-276.

This paper outlines some implications for pupils' learning and for

teachers of information and communication technology (ICT) in primary

or elementary education of using complete 'reach and teach' resource

and lesson plan solutions to support a national scheme of work. The

example resources reference in the paper are 'The LCP ICT Resources

Files for Schools', designed to enable teachers to deliver the ICT

National Curriculum requirements for England and are structured to

closely follow the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)

scheme of work. The authors of the LCP ICT Resource Files became aware

that there was a widespread take-up of their materials and that,

therefore, the resources had potentially a substantial impact upon

practice in many schools. Models of curriculum provision are presented

and characteristics of good practice are adduced which the author

recommends to those who write, review or evaluate complete teaching

solutions for ICT.

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The Role of Play in the Pedagogy of ICT by Alex Morgan and Steve Kennewell. In: Education and Information Technologies, vol.10, no.3, 2005 pp177-188.

This paper describes a project carried out in a number of informal

leaning situations. The children involved were relatively

disadvantaged economically, and the majority were not very confident in

using a PC. Most had access to both a games machine and a mobile

phone, however, and rated themselves as very confident with these. The

project aimed to find out how they developed competence in using

unfamiliar hardware and software, and how much they learned from

self-directed study in a loosely structured learning environment. In

order to investigate these issues, groups of children were introduced

to new software tools and left to 'play' with the software in order to

explore the possibilities and discover new features. The children were

observed and their questions answered, and the researcher also

discussed their experiences with them afterwards. Despite their lack

of previous experience with PCs and the particular software used for

the project, the children were generally successful in gaining

specified competencies with the software. Several children reflected

that they were learning in the same way as they had learned to use

mobile phones, although there was no evidence for transfer of specific

techniques. This indicates that the role of higher order learning

skills is important, and evidence emerged that the influence of

self-efficacy may be more important in gaining success than previous

experience with PC technology. This factor is suggested as the focus

for further investigation.