This article reports on regularities observed in learners' preconceptions of reflective symmetry. Literature suggests that the very existence of such regularities indicates a gap between what learners know and what they need to know. Such a gap inhibits further understanding and application, and hence needed to be investigated. A total of 235…

This study explored the relationship between teachers' content knowledge and their pedagogical skills, and reports on that relationship in the teaching of Assembly Drawing (AD) in a South African context. Given that Engineering Graphics Design (EGD) learners perform poorly in the AD section of the matriculation examination, we need to understand…

The voices of school children who are orphaned and vulnerable are more often than not missing from conversations about their care and support at school. In a rural ecology this is even more so the case. This article draws on a study with school children in rural KwaZulu-Natal and explores their constructions of care and support in the age of HIV…

Good study behaviour after school hours is an important way of improving learners' chances of success. Learners, once they reach high school, particularly require support that will assist them to study effectively outside the classroom. South African schools are under pressure to improve results in mathematics but besides the homework that schools…

This paper reports a study on South African learners' knowledge about scientific inquiry using the Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI) Questionnaire. The sample consisted of 105 grade 11 learners from 7 schools across the socio-economic spectrum in a South African city. A rubric for scoring the VASI Questionnaire was developed and refined during…

This article explores the extent to which an intervention programme helped learners from two contrasting educational settings manage career-related transitions. Forty-two learners from two schools were selected, using convenience and purposive sampling, to take part in an intervention programme. Two comparison groups comprised of 45 learners from…

The purpose of this study was to explore and compare the proficiency of Grade 11 Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy (ML) learners in solving two problems based on the temperature conversion formula. The first was a result-unknown problem that asks for the result of a formula for a given input. The second was a start-unknown problem in which the…

Within the South African school curriculum, the section on graphical functional relationships consists of signs which include symbols, notation and imagery. In a previous article we explored the role visualisation played in the way learners understood mathematical concepts. That paper reported on the learners' fixation with the physical features…

This paper reports on the introduction and use of e-learning technologies to help students study a school subject. The research intervention is located within a relatively resourced school in South Africa with students largely coming from one racial group. The choice of the school enabled the researchers to focus on investigating the effects of…

South Africa has had a number of curriculum reforms since 1994 which have been based on both political and education grounds. However, there is a dearth of knowledge about the nature of the envisioned graduates, especially with respect to social challenges. This can be addressed by exploring the curriculum ideology which outlines the vision of…

There is a general perception that the South African curriculum statements for mathematics create polarity between the 'old' and the 'new', which does not benefit both the teachers and the learners. The new curricula demand a radical shift from the traditional teacher-led approaches that teachers are familiar with, yet does not provide a model of…

School-based sexuality education remains a key response to the HIV epidemic. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study, this study explores how young people engage with sexuality and HIV- and AIDS-related education as it is delivered through the Life Orientation (LO) learning area in South Africa, in order to understand the dynamics that…

The paper explores conceptions of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI) held by five teachers who were purposively and conveniently sampled. Teachers' conceptions of the NOSI were determined using a Probes questionnaire. To confirm teachers' responses, a semi-structured interview was conducted with each teacher. The Probes questionnaire was…

In Life Sciences education internationally, including South Africa, the study of animal and organ morphology has traditionally involved dissections since the early nineteenth century. The major purpose of this study was to investigate how the engagement of learners with animal organ dissections may influence the development of problem-solving…

The high unemployment rate in South Africa compels potential entrepreneurs to start their own businesses in order to survive. Often this is with little or no formal training or education in entrepreneurship. Since problem recognition and problem-solving are amongst the most crucial competencies required for a successful entrepreneurial career,…