Mechanisms conditioning the implementation of an integrated quality assurance and enhancement approach at a South African University of Technology
- Authors: Mabote, Ntele Emily
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Quality assurance , Tshwane University of Technology , Transformative learning , Critical realism , Social realism , Quality (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431576 , vital:72787 , DOI 10.21504/10962/431576
- Description: Literature related to quality in higher education argues that achieving an integrated approach which balances improvement and accountability in a single quality assurance (QA) system, is not easy. In response to the literature, I decided to conduct a realist study to identify mechanisms that can enable or constrain the implementation of an integrated approach in a single quality assurance system at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). The scope of my study was limited to teaching and learning as one of the University’s core functions. An integrated approach encouraged a deliberate focus and attention on transformative learning and teaching. The main research question, “what mechanisms enable or constrain the implementation of an integrated approach to quality assurance and enhancement at the Tshwane University of Technology,” underpinned this study. I used Bhaskar’s critical realist philosophy as an underlabourer for the study and Archer’s social realism as an analytical framework to enable me to seek answers to the research questions. The study took the form of a case study at TUT. Data was generated through document analysis and thirty-five semi-structured interviews with agents from across the various levels and campuses of TUT. In keeping with a social realist study, I used Archer’s concept of analytical dualism to analyse structure, culture, and agency separately, and their interplay. My findings indicated that compliance and accountability are related cultural mechanisms and were dominant in the University’s cultural system. This signalled a strong emphasis on quality assurance (QA) rather than quality enhancement (QE). In addition, the findings showed that the University has established sufficient structural and agential enablements to assure the quality of learning and teaching. However, there is a need to integrate transformative cultural mechanisms into the University’s QA system. Furthermore, there were limited structural, cultural, and agential enablements to encourage enhancement. In this regard, I recommended mechanisms that should be in place for an integrated QA and QE approach to be successful at TUT. My main argument is that an institutional context that encourages structural, cultural, and agential QA and QE mechanisms to work in tandem can enable an integrated QA and QE approach. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
- Authors: Mabote, Ntele Emily
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Quality assurance , Tshwane University of Technology , Transformative learning , Critical realism , Social realism , Quality (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431576 , vital:72787 , DOI 10.21504/10962/431576
- Description: Literature related to quality in higher education argues that achieving an integrated approach which balances improvement and accountability in a single quality assurance (QA) system, is not easy. In response to the literature, I decided to conduct a realist study to identify mechanisms that can enable or constrain the implementation of an integrated approach in a single quality assurance system at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). The scope of my study was limited to teaching and learning as one of the University’s core functions. An integrated approach encouraged a deliberate focus and attention on transformative learning and teaching. The main research question, “what mechanisms enable or constrain the implementation of an integrated approach to quality assurance and enhancement at the Tshwane University of Technology,” underpinned this study. I used Bhaskar’s critical realist philosophy as an underlabourer for the study and Archer’s social realism as an analytical framework to enable me to seek answers to the research questions. The study took the form of a case study at TUT. Data was generated through document analysis and thirty-five semi-structured interviews with agents from across the various levels and campuses of TUT. In keeping with a social realist study, I used Archer’s concept of analytical dualism to analyse structure, culture, and agency separately, and their interplay. My findings indicated that compliance and accountability are related cultural mechanisms and were dominant in the University’s cultural system. This signalled a strong emphasis on quality assurance (QA) rather than quality enhancement (QE). In addition, the findings showed that the University has established sufficient structural and agential enablements to assure the quality of learning and teaching. However, there is a need to integrate transformative cultural mechanisms into the University’s QA system. Furthermore, there were limited structural, cultural, and agential enablements to encourage enhancement. In this regard, I recommended mechanisms that should be in place for an integrated QA and QE approach to be successful at TUT. My main argument is that an institutional context that encourages structural, cultural, and agential QA and QE mechanisms to work in tandem can enable an integrated QA and QE approach. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
The morphogenesis of higher education leadership: a social realist exploratory journey
- Authors: Andrews, Ruth
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Educational leadership South Africa , Education, Higher South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Educational change South Africa , Transformational leadership
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/442897 , vital:74051 , DOI 10.21504/10962/442897
- Description: The purpose of the study underpinning this thesis was to explore the tensions experienced by university leaders as they balance politics, power and the academic project whilst pursuing their ultimate concerns in the world. Universities are undergoing constant change, particularly in the present time of hypercomplexity, where the discourses of globalisation and neoliberalism condition higher education institutions and their leaders. This predisposes universities to operate as a market economy rather than as a public good. University leaders are under immense pressure as they seek to reposition themselves and exercise their agency in steering their institutions in a landscape fraught with complexity and contestation about the very nature of the modern university. The study was located in a traditional university in South Africa, which added another layer of complexity given the history of Apartheid and, the use of education as a means of discriminating against the black majority population, and the subsequent attempts by the government to transform the system following the first democratic election of 1994. Bhaskar’s (1989) critical realism and Archer’s (1998, 2000) social realism were used to frame the study theoretically. Bhaskar argues for the understanding of the world as an ‘open system’ in which experiences and events emerge from the tendential interplay of mechanisms at a layer of reality not directly accessible to empirical observation. Archer’s (2000) social realism draws on critical realism to provide a set of tools that allows an exploration of the social world in more detail. This study draws on the tools of analytical dualism, or the temporary separation of structure, culture and agency for analytical purposes, and Archer’s (1998) morphogenetic framework, which allows for the exploration of change, or non-change, over time. The overarching goal of the study was to explore how leaders at one South African university were enabled and constrained as they exercised their agency in the pursuit of projects they had identified to address their ultimate concerns about the world more generally and higher education in particular. However, the study also sought to explore the construct of leadership itself in a specific context by using Archer’s (2007, 2012) theoretical work on reflexivity. The study drew on in-depth interviews with senior leaders at the institution, including two vice-chancellors. The interviews were subjected to analysis, and the inferential tools of abduction and retroduction were used to identify the interplay of mechanisms located at the level of the Real, the deepest layer of reality posited by Bhaskar (1978), which led to the events and experiences reported by leaders. A literature review was used to identify additional theories that were used in the processes of abduction and retroduction. The study revealed that change, or rather non-change, is often concealed in cultural rhetoric veiled in leadership practices in acts assimilating past ideology and codified rules and practices with new codified rules and practices. Leaders often draw on powerful relational networks as they reflexively exercise their agency, and these networks can also work to constrain change. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
- Authors: Andrews, Ruth
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Educational leadership South Africa , Education, Higher South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Educational change South Africa , Transformational leadership
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/442897 , vital:74051 , DOI 10.21504/10962/442897
- Description: The purpose of the study underpinning this thesis was to explore the tensions experienced by university leaders as they balance politics, power and the academic project whilst pursuing their ultimate concerns in the world. Universities are undergoing constant change, particularly in the present time of hypercomplexity, where the discourses of globalisation and neoliberalism condition higher education institutions and their leaders. This predisposes universities to operate as a market economy rather than as a public good. University leaders are under immense pressure as they seek to reposition themselves and exercise their agency in steering their institutions in a landscape fraught with complexity and contestation about the very nature of the modern university. The study was located in a traditional university in South Africa, which added another layer of complexity given the history of Apartheid and, the use of education as a means of discriminating against the black majority population, and the subsequent attempts by the government to transform the system following the first democratic election of 1994. Bhaskar’s (1989) critical realism and Archer’s (1998, 2000) social realism were used to frame the study theoretically. Bhaskar argues for the understanding of the world as an ‘open system’ in which experiences and events emerge from the tendential interplay of mechanisms at a layer of reality not directly accessible to empirical observation. Archer’s (2000) social realism draws on critical realism to provide a set of tools that allows an exploration of the social world in more detail. This study draws on the tools of analytical dualism, or the temporary separation of structure, culture and agency for analytical purposes, and Archer’s (1998) morphogenetic framework, which allows for the exploration of change, or non-change, over time. The overarching goal of the study was to explore how leaders at one South African university were enabled and constrained as they exercised their agency in the pursuit of projects they had identified to address their ultimate concerns about the world more generally and higher education in particular. However, the study also sought to explore the construct of leadership itself in a specific context by using Archer’s (2007, 2012) theoretical work on reflexivity. The study drew on in-depth interviews with senior leaders at the institution, including two vice-chancellors. The interviews were subjected to analysis, and the inferential tools of abduction and retroduction were used to identify the interplay of mechanisms located at the level of the Real, the deepest layer of reality posited by Bhaskar (1978), which led to the events and experiences reported by leaders. A literature review was used to identify additional theories that were used in the processes of abduction and retroduction. The study revealed that change, or rather non-change, is often concealed in cultural rhetoric veiled in leadership practices in acts assimilating past ideology and codified rules and practices with new codified rules and practices. Leaders often draw on powerful relational networks as they reflexively exercise their agency, and these networks can also work to constrain change. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
An exploration into the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of quality assurance in higher education: the case of a small comprehensive university in South Africa
- Authors: Masehela, Langutani Meriam
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: University of Venda -- Evaluation , Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Auditing , Quality assurance -- South Africa , Quality assurance -- Standards -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Educational accountability -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Standards -- South Africa , Educational evaluation -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020312
- Description: At an international level, demands for accountability in respect of the quality of teaching and learning in higher education are increasing. This is also the case in South Africa. The response to these demands has taken the form of the introduction of quality assurance systems to higher education. In South Africa, a formal national external quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system in 2001 as a result of the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Committee. The Higher Education Quality Committee is a standing committee of the South African Council on Higher Education. Like other quality assurance agencies across the world, the Higher Education Quality Committee has the responsibility for i) auditing institutions of higher education and ii) accrediting learning programmes. The first cycle of institutional audits ran from 2004 until 2011. As quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system and the first cycle of institutional audits began, universities in South Africa developed policies and procedures intended to assure quality in three areas of their core functioning: research, teaching and learning and community engagement. The University of Venda, which is the focus of the study on which this thesis is based, was no exception. As a practitioner in the Centre for Higher Education Teaching and Learning at The University of Venda, it was my observation that the policies and procedures intended to assure quality in teaching and learning were not always implemented by academic staff members. This was in spite of poor student performance data which raised questions about the quality of the teaching and learning processes in place. The study underpinning this thesis was designed to explore this phenomenon. More specifically, it aimed to identify the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of policies and procedures in two Schools in the University: the School of Health Sciences and the School of Human and Social Sciences. In order to explore these conditions, I adopted Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism as an under-labouring philosophy for the study. Critical realism posits a view of reality comprising three strata, none of which can be reducible to the other. The first of these strata is termed the level of the Empirical and consists of the experiences and observations which become apparent to us through the senses. The second layer, the Actual, consists of events from which these experiences and observations emerge. Underpinning both of these layers is a further layer, the Real, which is not accessible by empirical means and which consists of structures and mechanisms which generate both events at the level of the Actual and experiences and observation at the level of the Empirical. The design of my study sought to reach this deepest layer of reality to identify these mechanisms. Bhaskar’s critical realism is philosophy which needs to be operationalized using substantive, or explanatory, theory. For this purpose, I drew on Margaret Archer’s social realism. The design on my study drew on case study methodology and involved in-depth interviews with members of the two Schools which each formed cases within the more overarching case of the University itself. In addition to these interviews, I analysed a range of institutional documents related to the assurance of quality in teaching and learning. The exploration of enabling and constraining conditions at the level of the Real allow me to make a series of recommendations in the final Chapter of my thesis intended to enhance the quality assurance system introduced to the University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Masehela, Langutani Meriam
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: University of Venda -- Evaluation , Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Auditing , Quality assurance -- South Africa , Quality assurance -- Standards -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Evaluation , Educational accountability -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Standards -- South Africa , Educational evaluation -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1334 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020312
- Description: At an international level, demands for accountability in respect of the quality of teaching and learning in higher education are increasing. This is also the case in South Africa. The response to these demands has taken the form of the introduction of quality assurance systems to higher education. In South Africa, a formal national external quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system in 2001 as a result of the establishment of the Higher Education Quality Committee. The Higher Education Quality Committee is a standing committee of the South African Council on Higher Education. Like other quality assurance agencies across the world, the Higher Education Quality Committee has the responsibility for i) auditing institutions of higher education and ii) accrediting learning programmes. The first cycle of institutional audits ran from 2004 until 2011. As quality assurance was introduced to the higher education system and the first cycle of institutional audits began, universities in South Africa developed policies and procedures intended to assure quality in three areas of their core functioning: research, teaching and learning and community engagement. The University of Venda, which is the focus of the study on which this thesis is based, was no exception. As a practitioner in the Centre for Higher Education Teaching and Learning at The University of Venda, it was my observation that the policies and procedures intended to assure quality in teaching and learning were not always implemented by academic staff members. This was in spite of poor student performance data which raised questions about the quality of the teaching and learning processes in place. The study underpinning this thesis was designed to explore this phenomenon. More specifically, it aimed to identify the conditions enabling and constraining the implementation of policies and procedures in two Schools in the University: the School of Health Sciences and the School of Human and Social Sciences. In order to explore these conditions, I adopted Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism as an under-labouring philosophy for the study. Critical realism posits a view of reality comprising three strata, none of which can be reducible to the other. The first of these strata is termed the level of the Empirical and consists of the experiences and observations which become apparent to us through the senses. The second layer, the Actual, consists of events from which these experiences and observations emerge. Underpinning both of these layers is a further layer, the Real, which is not accessible by empirical means and which consists of structures and mechanisms which generate both events at the level of the Actual and experiences and observation at the level of the Empirical. The design of my study sought to reach this deepest layer of reality to identify these mechanisms. Bhaskar’s critical realism is philosophy which needs to be operationalized using substantive, or explanatory, theory. For this purpose, I drew on Margaret Archer’s social realism. The design on my study drew on case study methodology and involved in-depth interviews with members of the two Schools which each formed cases within the more overarching case of the University itself. In addition to these interviews, I analysed a range of institutional documents related to the assurance of quality in teaching and learning. The exploration of enabling and constraining conditions at the level of the Real allow me to make a series of recommendations in the final Chapter of my thesis intended to enhance the quality assurance system introduced to the University.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Conditions enabling or constraining the exercise of agency among new academics in higher education, conducive to the social inclusion of students
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
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