Browsing by Author "Pym, June"
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- ItemOpen AccessDoes belonging matter? Exploring the role of social connectedness as a critical factor in students' transition to higher education(Psychology in Society, 2011) Pym, June; Goodman, Suki; Patsika, NatashaWidening access to Higher Education throughout the world has meant an increase in the number of students who do not necessarily have the types of capital that universities require. This means an increasing need to engage with the issues that separate students from connecting with their modes and places of learning. This paper describes a successful Academic Development programme that is focused on equity students in the Commerce Faculty at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). The programme actively promotes academic and affective factors that will contribute toward affirming students' identity and developing a learning community. The paper reports on the results of a research project that combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate how fostering social connectedness impacts on the transition of students to higher education and their academic performance.
- ItemOpen AccessFrom fixing to possibility: changing a learning model for undergraduate students(Unisa Press, 2013) Pym, JuneThis article engages with the work of an equity initiative, the Academic Development (AD) programme in the Education Development Unit (Commerce) at the University of Cape Town. The programme focuses on providing access, improving graduation rates and creating a 'value-added' experience, rather than a deficit model approach. The article concentrates on understanding how and why the model has evolved over time with an increasing awareness that the notion of 'disadvantage' needs a more critical engagement and stereotype threat is real issue in any separate programme. The challenge is to draw on students as a resource in the teaching and learning process and develop a way of working collectively and reflectively to help shift both teaching practices and students' level of engagement and reflection. This necessitates shifting away from the notion of a 'one size fits all' approach and moving away from 'preparing' the students to a joint undertaking of transforming both the teaching and learning environment, addressing the great diversity of strengths and challenges that the students bring to higher education. The article is a qualitative exploration of the key issues that guide this work, as well as outlining what this focus means in practice.
- ItemOpen AccessHarnessing agency: towards a learning model for undergraduate students(Taylor & Francis, 2013) Pym, June; Kapp, RochelleThis article describes a successful academic development programme in a Commerce faculty at a relatively elite, historically white university in South Africa. The writers argue that the programme has managed to achieve good results in recent years by moving away from deficit models of academic development for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The article draws on five years of data to illustrate how students' home discourses have influenced their negotiations of institutional discourses. It is argued that many of the students have shown considerable agency in gaining admission to university despite their social backgrounds, but experience a crisis of confidence and self-esteem in the new environment. The article describes how the new model of academic development has responded to this context by providing a more flexible approach to the curriculum, which attempts to harness students' agency as well as foster a sense of belonging to a learning community. Also described are the range of interventions that have been put in place specifically to develop a culture of learning and to promote social connectedness, identity and agency.
- ItemOpen AccessInitiating a new information systems course: a case study in educational innovation(Kennesaw State University, 2008) Eccles, Michael; Pym, June; Johnston, KevinIf South Africa is to transform its educational landscape, access to higher education is crucial. However, if equity of access is not coupled with equity of success, participation, and relevance, access can become problematic. The Information Systems Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, has been concerned for a number of years about both the relevance and coherence of its first year Information Systems course. In 2007, the Department re-conceptualized this course. This case study looks at the background to the problems and motivation for the change and the proposed changes and course redesign, as well as the limitations and anticipated future work.
- ItemOpen AccessA study of academic resilience amongst first generation university students in South Africa(2013) Meinert, Leigh; Luckett, Kathy; Pym, JuneThis study adopts a sociological approach to the issue of academic resilience amongst first generation university students in a developing world context. As suggested in the opening quotation above, this study aims to generate insight in to the structural conditions of first generation students who have accessed higher education and to better define the “overwhelming odds†that are frequently deemed to be against them. More importantly perhaps, this study seeks to generate understanding about the manner in which these agents engage with their structural conditions and, in so doing, succeed in overcoming the effects of their natal conditions, or not. Margaret Archer’s (2003) theory of “modes of reflexivity†, the nexus between structure and agency, is utilised as the conceptual framework for this study. This research project is therefore guided by the following 2 primary questions that, together with their related sub-questions, are motivated in more detail in Chapter 2 (refer to Section 2.8). All research questions will be featured in italics throughout this report. 1. How do first generation university students in a developing world context engage with their socio-cultural conditions? 1b) What are the distinctive aspects of the socio-cultural conditions of students in a developing world context? 2. Are some modes of reflexivity more conducive to academic resilience in undergraduate studies than others? 2b) What kinds of interventions can be put in place to serve first generation university entrants better?
- ItemOpen AccessSuccessful students’ negotiation of township schooling in contemporary South Africa(University of the Free State, 2014-09) Kapp, Rochelle; Badenhorst, Elmi; Bangeni, Bongi; Craig, Tracy S; Janse van Rensburg, Vicki; le Roux, Kate; Prince, Robert; Pym, June; van Pletzen, ErmienThis article draws on data from a larger longitudinal qualitative case study which is tracking the progress of students over the course of their undergraduate degrees at a South African university. For this paper, we used background questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 62 first-year students from working-class, township schools who were first registered for Extended Degree Programmes in 2009. The article draws on post-structuralist theory on learning and identity to describe and analyse the participants’ perspectives on how they negotiated their high school contexts. We analyse the subject positions in which participants invested, as well as how they negotiated their way through social networks and used resources. Our data illustrate the ways in which students had to carry the burden of negotiating their way through home, school and neighbourhood spaces that were generally not conducive to learning. Nevertheless, participants consciously positioned themselves as agents. They were resilient, motivated and took highly strategic adult decisions about their learning. We argue that a focus on how successful students negotiate their environments challenges the pathologising paradigm of “disadvantage” that characterises research and debates in higher education. It also offers an additional lens for admissions processes and for providing appropriate intervention strategies in the tertiary setting.