With the increase in student enrolments in higher education, which has resulted in changes to student profiles, academic development has become important in terms of students' success. This article is a report on a qualitative study that used in-depth interviews to investigate the perceptions of Engineering students and staff to academic…

This paper addresses the question: What is the value of an educational excursion for first year students enrolled in a 4 year pre-service professional teacher education degree at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa? The excursion is an integral part of a first year module that focuses on the personal and professional development of…

The study presents a framework for investigating the powerful resources within learners' educational biographies, which, from their own accounts, appear to influence their engagement with teaching and learning practices. The research framework stresses the material, social and cultural influences on a learner's biography and the need for…

Many under-prepared university students do not know how to study (Martin and Arendale 1993) because they have not yet developed the abstract reasoning skills that allow them to learn new ideas simply by reading a text or listening to a lecture. This article draws from selected findings from a PhD study currently being undertaken at a university in…