Over the past thirty years we have witnessed a proliferation of educational methods/methodologies aimed at helping us to make sense of the world--to provide clarity about the meaning of social reality. However, although these methods/methodologies are useful frameworks, they do not capture fully the untidy realities of the real world. The…

At the risk of seeming to make exaggerated claims for visual methodologies, what I set out to do is lay bare some of the key elements of working with the visual as a set of methodologies and practices. In particular, I address educational research in South Africa at a time when questions of the social responsibility of the academic researcher…

"Studying Diversity in Teacher Education" is a collaborative effort by experts seeking to elucidate one of the most important issues facing education today. First, the volume examines historically persistent, yet unresolved issues in teacher education and presents research that is currently being done to address these issues. Second, it…

Many universities with a strong research tradition have courses or modules examining the tradition's philosophies and methodologies to prepare their students to undertake research programmes. Recently, however, authors have called for wider debate concerning how these courses are taught and this paper aims to make a contribution to this debate.…

This article reports on an analysis of person attributes of e-learning practitioners at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). Findings from a study of the latent structure of an e-learning practitioner construct, are presented to illuminate the characteristics and personal profiles of the e-learning practitioners at TUT. Rich sources of…

The aim of this article is to report on the strategies which were used to teach research design to Masters students, as part of my professional development as higher education practitioner. The focus is on exploring the use of cooperative learning as a vehicle to facilitate the acquiring of knowledge and skills in terms of research methodology.…

The curriculum should be paramount in the academic field since the university uses curricula to put its ideas into effect. The curriculum field and community engagement are both comprehensive at universities but research on curricular community engagement (CCE) is imperative. Curriculum theory was used as a theoretical framework for this article,…

The new South African curriculum known as Curriculum 2005 (to depict the year of its full implementation) requires that teachers integrate school science with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). Curriculum 2005 has generated heated debates at various levels since its inception in 1997. This study focuses on the effectiveness or otherwise of a…

The child has an elevated position within national policy in South Africa. This concern for children has been translated in varying degrees into policy, particularly in relation to child labour. Internationally there is concern that forms of child work should not impede the development of the child, particularly in health and education. Research…

Researching the epidemiology and estimating the prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and other fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) for mainstream populations anywhere in the world has presented a challenge to researchers. Three major approaches have been used in the past: surveillance and record review systems, clinic-based studies, and…

Worldwide there seems to be an interest in enhancing the student learning experience through particularly interactive learning, which is an educational philosophy that places the student at the centre of the learning process. Such an approach acknowledges the educational contexts from which students come. What is even more important is the fact…

Reexamines assumptions about the displacement mechanism, which states that television displaces other activities. Considers strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies used to test the displacement hypothesis. Examines data from an eight-year panel study of the introduction of television to South Africa. Uses a variety of methodologies to…

Reports on an investigation of the status of procedural knowledge in chemistry among students entering into bridging programs at two South African universities. Findings show that students overall tend to repeat in order to get a recurring reading. Very few students were able to use a line of best fit for a set of graphical data. Discusses…

One way of making the capability approach (CA) operational uses fuzzy poverty measures. In this paper, we present a new approach to applying these measures in the South African context using responses to a questionnaire on "The Essentials of Life" in conjunction with a methodology for dealing with the vagueness of poverty. Our results…

Due to a poor module evaluation, mediocre student grades and a difficult teaching experience in lectures, the Data Analysis section of a first year core module, Research Methods for Social Sciences (RMSS), offered at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, was completely revised. In order to review the effectiveness of these changes in…