This article is written with the recognition that, as higher education studies evolve as a multidisciplinary area of inquiry, there is a need to reflect on the theoretical and practical concerns emerging from conducting higher education research. This is especially the case for early-career researchers who enter this relatively new field of study.…

The majority of the world's children live in low- and middle-income countries, yet the majority of early childhood cognitive research is done with a small proportion of high-income countries. These findings cannot be assumed to apply across all contexts. It is therefore necessary to confront entrenched systems of power and privilege in early…

This part-reflective, part-conceptual article focuses on the issue of supervision models and the need to move away from the dominance of the traditional master-apprentice model which continues to persist in many social sciences and humanities contexts. Drawing on communities of practice theory, I critically reflect on my own PhD supervision…

A South African university and a Chinese university embarked on a collaborative research project in 2014. The project was propelled by the introduction of Mandarin as a second additional language in South African schools and Mandarin taught as a foreign language to non-Chinese learners and mixed-blood learners (one parent is ethnic Chinese) in…

There is a constant interplay between the "people" ("agency") and the "parts" ("structure" and "culture"), not only in teaching and learning, but also in postgraduate supervision practices globally. However, in South Africa, the tendency to use "structure" (higher education architecture,…

The use of social networking technologies (SNTs) for academic purposes has created new pedagogy opportunities, especially for well-resourced teaching and learning institutions. This article reports on a study that analysed the use of SNTs for postgraduate research supervision at a South African university classified as previously disadvantaged…

This article examines the management of microdata collections in a university context. It is a cross-country analysis: Collection management at data services in Canada and South Africa are considered. The case studies are of two university sub-contexts: One collection is located in a library; the other at a Faculty-based Data Service. Stages in…

Regulatory bodies such as the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) provide a framework of formal criteria to be addressed by providers of initial teacher education (ITE) but these criteria can be interpreted in many different ways. The Initial Teacher Education Research Project (ITERP) has investigated the preparation of intermediate…

In 2014, through the University of the Free State's (UFS) Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ), three South African universities partnered to collaborate on the pilot phase of a research project focused on understanding whether the Arts could enable social cohesion, as the 2012 National Development Plan (2030) had promoted. All…

Education is increasingly being framed by a competence mindset; the value of knowledge lies much more in competence performativity and innovation than in simply knowing. Reaching such competency in areas such as astronomy and physics has long been known to be challenging. The movement from everyday conceptions of the world around us to a…

This article foregrounds the iterative journey of a group of educational development (ED) practitioners at a research-led university towards an enhanced understanding of the ED opportunities we offer. Reflecting on the intention of our interventions to facilitate academics' professional learning, we developed a framework within which the range of…

Although research assistantships are considered research learning venues in graduate education, there is a scarcity of literature that examines ethical elements attached to the employment of graduate student research assistants or the position of their research supervisors. This article explores the need to implement formal regulations specific to…

The article illustrates how the South Africa-Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), a doctoral research preparation programme for candidates on the African continent, evolved from an aid programme to an exemplary model of innovation, namely SANTRUST, an ownership-driven partnership within the framework of…

Knowledge generation over the decade 1995-2004 in South Africa, and its relationship to the changing nature of socio-economic landscapes, suggests an ever closer relationship between the research produced in higher education, and its social and scientific purposes. These have been identified largely by the State through its regulatory frameworks,…

This article reports, from the insider's perspective, on a research project comprising fifteen academics in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University and fifteen senior officials from one of the four Education Districts in the North West Province. This project has as its research theme, hence aim; "the creation of…