Loading...
Journal Article
The nexus between teaching practice and PGCE student-teachers: the perceptions of subject mentors on pre-teachers' readiness for teaching career
Keywords: Mentors Perceptions Student teachers Teaching practice Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)
Faculty: Faculty of Education
Attachments [1]
Issue Date: 2021
Language: English
More Detail
Abstract: Teaching practice is critical to teacher education, as it provides the pre-service teachers with practical experience of professional responsibilities and classroom practices, which are basic foundations for their choice of teaching as a profession or career. It is mandatory for pre-service teachers to experience teaching practice as a requirement in teacher education to acquire practical teaching competence in schools. Students in teaching practice are required to be mentored by their subject teachers in the schools. Thus, this study investigates subject mentors’ perceptions of Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students’ teaching practice lived experiences to determine their readiness for professional classroom practices. Competence and readiness to teach are inseparable because the latter demonstrates the skills that pre-service teachers display when delivering certain aspects of their teaching. Hence, teaching is incomplete without teaching practice. Five subject mentors who were mentoring PGCE student teachers were purposively selected and engaged in semi-structured interviews for the data collection for this study. Content analysis was used to identify themes and analyze the data. The findings revealed, among others, that PGCE student teachers do not have adequate pedagogical content knowledge. Based on the findings, the study, therefore, recommends that the training for PGCE students has to be increased from one year to two years to acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills.
Citation: Mkhasibe, R.G., Mncube, D.W. and Ajani, O.A. 2021. The nexus between teaching practice and PGCE student-teachers: the perceptions of subject mentors on pre-teachers' readiness for teaching career. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 9(9), pp.1617-1627.
Other: https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2021.090902
Journal Title: Universal Journal of Educational Research
Journal Issue / Part Number: 9 / 9
Peer reviewed: Yes
International Conference: issn
Keynote / Plenary: issn
In Proceedings: issn
ISSN: 2332-3213 (online)
Other: https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2021.090902
Publisher: Horizon Research Publishing
Related items (Items from the same collection.)
Now showing 1 - 20 of 607
- 2021| Horizon Research Pub...Teaching practice is critical to teacher education, as it provides the pre-service teachers with practical experience of professional responsibilities and classroom practices, which are basic foundations for their choice of teaching as a profession or career. It is mandatory for pre-service teachers to experience teaching practice as a requirement in teacher education to acquire practical teaching competence in schools. Students in teaching practice are required to be mentored by their subject teachers in the schools. Thus, this study investigates subject mentors’ perceptions of Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students’ teaching practice lived experiences to determine their readiness for professional classroom practices. Competence and readiness to teach are inseparable because the latter demonstrates the skills that pre-service teachers display when delivering certain aspects of their teaching. Hence, teaching is incomplete without teaching practice. Five subject mentors who were mentoring PGCE student teachers were purposively selected and engaged in semi-structured interviews for the data collection for this study. Content analysis was used to identify themes and analyze the data. The findings revealed, among others, that PGCE student teachers do not have adequate pedagogical content knowledge. Based on the findings, the study, therefore, recommends that the training for PGCE students has to be increased from one year to two years to acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills.
- 1
- 1
- 0
- 2022| Springer NatureIn Nigeria and South Africa, women often have less voice and are less visible given cultural norms and related gender stereotypes. It is important to understand parents’ gender roles in the context of caregiving for children with autism spectrum disorder because inequality in caregiving roles may influence the health of children with autism and that of their parents. We explored the lived caregiving experiences of male and female parents with autistic children in Nigeria (n = 15) and South Africa (n = 10) using structured and unstructured questionnaire. Results showed that women often experienced stress in relationship to multiple and substantial caregiving roles while men commonly limited their caregiving roles based on a patriarchal ideology related to their culture.
- 1
- 2
- 0
- Rain-fed agriculture in North-West (NW) Ethiopia is seasonally modulated, and our objective is to isolate past and future trends that influence crop growth. Statistical methods are applied to gauge-interpolated, reanalysis, and satellite data to evaluate changes in the annual cycle and long-term trends. The June to September wet season has lengthened due to the earlier arrival and later departure of rains. Meteorological composites relate this spreading to local southerly winds and a dry-south/wet-north humidity dipole. At the regional scale, an axis of convection over the Rift Valley (35E) is formed by westerly waves on 15S and an anticyclone over Asia 30N. Coupled Model Intercomparsion Project (CMIP5) Hadley2 data assimilated by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparision Project (ISIMIP) hydrological models are used to evaluate projected soil moisture and potential evaporation over the 21st century. May and October soil moisture is predicted to increase in the future, but trends are weak. In contrast, the potential evaporation is rising and may put stress on the land and water resources. A lengthening of the growing season could benefit crop yields across the NW Ethiopian highlands.
- 1
- 2
- 0
- Lipid peroxidation, including its prominent byproducts such as malondialdehyde (MDA) and 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), has long been linked with worsened metabolic health in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). In fact, patients with T2D already display increased levels of lipids in circulation, including low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and triglycerides, which are easily attacked by reactive oxygen molecules to give rise to lipid peroxidation. This process severely depletes intracellular antioxidants to cause excess generation of oxidative stress. This consequence mainly drives poor glycemic control and metabolic complications that are implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease. The current review explores the pathological relevance of elevated lipid peroxidation products in T2D, especially highlighting their potential role as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in disease severity. In addition, we briefly explain the implication of some prominent antioxidant enzymes/factors involved in the blockade of lipid peroxidation, including termination reactions that involve the effect of antioxidants, such as catalase, coenzyme Q10, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase, as well as vitamins C and E.
- 1
- 4
- 0
- This paper analyses the relationship between household debt and income inequality in South Africa for the period 1980–2021. We use two measures of inequality and estimate a vector error correction model (VECM) which includes household debt, inequality, and other macroeconomic variables. To test the robustness of our results, single equation models are used, which estimate household debt as a function of inequality and macroeconomic factors. We employ two measures of inequality, namely Gini coefficient and ratio of top and bottom income earners’ proportion of income. Furthermore, we use both household debt as a percentage of disposable income and household debt service costs as dependent variables in single equation regressions. The study finds a negative and significant relationship between household debt and income inequality in the long run, which contradicts the Rajan hypothesis in the South African case. Rather, we find that inequality in South Africa creates a bias in debt allocation towards high-income earners, whose incomes can easily absorb the extra debt (reduced ratio of debt to disposable income). There are therefore no socio-equity considerations in South African credit markets. We find growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita also has a moderating effect on the relationship between household debt and income inequality. High GDP per capita growth in the presence of high inequality reduces the impact of inequality on household debt and vice-versa. All other control variables take expected signs. These results are robust to changes in the inequality or household debt measures.
- 1
- 2
- 0
- Clouds cover more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface and play a dominant role in the energy and water cycle of our planet. Cirrus clouds are high-level clouds composed mostly of ice crystals and affect the earth’s radiation allocation mainly by absorbing outgoing longwave radiation and by reflecting solar radiation. This study presents the characterization of cirrus clouds observed on 10 and 11 April 2019 using the ground-based University of Zululand (UZ) light detection and ranging (lidar) for the first time. Dense cirrus clouds with an average thickness of ~1.5 km at a height range of 9.5–12 km on 10 and 11 April 2019 were observed by the UZ lidar. The UZ lidar observation on 10 April 2019 agreed with the Cloud–Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observation.
- 1
- 3
- 0
- Recent years have seen the global emergence of populist political formations, leading certain scholars to term our present age the “age of populism” and some politicians, such as Hungary’s current prime minister Viktor Orbán, to proclaim that “the era of liberal democracy is over”. For some, the rise of contemporary populism inherently represents the resurgence of forms of reactionary populist nationalism, ranging from the ‘radical’ to the ‘extreme’ right, and the revitalization of forms of ideology that may be termed ‘neo-fascist’. In light of the revitalization of such political formations, the current special issue serves to critically investigate contemporary forms of far-right populism and fascism in the Global South.
- 1
- 2
- 0
- Recently, several methods have been proposed to regularize a limit of Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet (EGB), leading to nontrivial gravitational dynamics in EGB gravity coupled to non-linear electrodynamics and analyze their thermodynamic properties to calculate precise expressions for the black hole mass, temperature, and entropy. Because of the magnetic charge, the thermodynamic quantities are corrected, and the Hawking–Page phase transition is achievable with diverges of the heat capacity at a larger critical radius in comparison to the counterpart where the temperature is maximum. Thus, we have a black hole with Cauchy and event horizons, and its evaporation leads to a thermodynamically stable extremal black hole remnant with vanishing temperature, and its size is larger than the counterpart. The entropy does not satisfy the usual exact horizon Bekenstein–Hawking area law of general relativity with a logarithmic area correction term.
- 1
- 4
- 0
- We obtain exact Bardeen black holes to the regularized 4D Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet (EGB) gravity minimally coupled with the nonlinear electrodynamics (NED). In turn, we analyze the horizon structure to determine the effect of GB parameter on the minimum cutoff values of mass, M0, and magnetic monopole charge, g0, for the existence of a black hole horizon. We obtain an exact expression for thermodynamic quantities, namely, Hawking temperature T+, entropy S+, Helmholtz free energy F+, and specific heat C+ associated with the black hole horizon, and they show significant deviations from the 4D EGB case owing to NED. Interestingly, there exists a critical value of horizon radius, rc+, corresponding to the local maximum of Hawking temperature, at which heat capacity diverges, confirming the second-order phase transition. A discussion on the black holes of alternate regularized 4D EGB gravity belonging to the scalar-tensor theory is appended.
- 1
- 4
- 0
- COVID-19 is a recent major event, adding to planet Earth’s contexts of chaos, crime, injustice, illness, and violence. The HeartMath system has produced research evidence for scientific interventions that alter contexts characterized by chaos and stress, promoting health, coherence, and interconnectedness. This study provides an updated overview of HeartMath as an interdisciplinary, scientific, coherent, integral heart-based healthcare system, operated locally through various initiatives and globally through the Global Coherence Initiative. The HeartMath approach integrates ancient and contemporary, indigenous and mainstream, popular and folk, Eastern, Western, and African forms of healing. The HeartMath interdisciplinary, personal, social, and global vision and mission have considerable theoretical and practical potential for promoting planetary health, education, and development.
- 1
- 3
- 0
- 2022| SAGE PublicationsEffective communication between nurses and patients is an important factor to quality nursing care but ineffective nonverbal communication could take a toll on health care. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence nonverbal communication between nurses and hospitalized older adults could help solve communication problems, thus improve nursing care. A sample of 13 nurses and 4 student nurses from two hospitals in Cameroon participated in the study. Data were collected using participant observations and semi-structured interviews, and analyzed using open coding and constant comparative analysis. Three categories were identified as influencing factors: nurse views of hospitalized older adults, hospitalized older adult-related factors, and nurse intrinsic factors. Effective nurses’ nonverbal communication with hospitalized older adults relies mostly on nurses’ intrinsic factors. Identification and nurturing of the positive nurse intrinsic factors are important to develop effective nonverbal communication skills among nurses.
- 1
- 12
- 0
- This paper aims to explore how branding essentials can foster or derail heritage tourism growth. Brand management capabilities support heritage tourism destinations such as South Africa to achieve competitive advantage in the global tourism marketplace. Heritage tourism destinations in Africa operate within a highly competitive environment as most of them offer identical products and services to their clientele. Unique historical and political backgrounds associated with particular geographical regions foster their heritage tourism growth. Subsequently, in South Africa, different forms of tourism that exist within the heritage tourism niche such as cultural tourism have gained immense popularity as they attract numerous domestic and international tourists to heritage tourism sites. Branding as a composite of numerous essentials including, but not confined to, brand essence, brand image and brand loyalty, is believed to be a key factor that can either stimulate or hinder heritage tourism growth in tourist destinations including South Africa. A conceptual model has been developed in this paper, based on the interlinkages between the key essentials of destination branding and how they influence heritage tourism growth. This paper posits that there is a strong relationship and interrelatedness between destination branding and heritage tourism growth.
- 1
- 9
- 0
- Decolonizing higher education in Africa, a process inclusive of indigenous literacy, is an emancipatory transformative concept that is largely grounded on critical theory, critical theory of education, dependency theory, and Afrikology epistemology. The four theoretical perspectives espouse emancipation, transformation, liberation, empowerment, inclusivity, equality, co-existence and social justice, and, to some degree, are rooted in neo-Marxist radical paradigms and can be used as the theoretical lens for analyzing decolonization and indigenization.
- 1
- 10
- 0
- Institutional repositories (IRs) have received substantial consideration from various researchers across disciplines and around the world. Universities have considered prioritising the IR’s functionality by putting in place various measures to make IRs more efficient. This paper focuses on issues of institutional repositories and digital preservation in South Africa. The study drew from the secondary source of information in the African context and around the globe to have a sound argument that is more systematic towards IRs. The paper shows that in the past, various studies have focused on the field of preservation of cultural heritage in general. The gap identified by literature was that there was very little provision of reliable long-term digital repositories in Africa. The literature further revealed that most institutions of higher learning in South Africa are now migrating to have full implementation of digital preservation for their IRs. It is recommended that digital preservation strategies should be embedded in institutional repositories in South Africa.
- 1
- 14
- 0
- Worldwide midwifery has been regarded as a female domain until recently where female and male student nurses are trained to become midwives/accoucheurs. Most women are still reluctant to receive maternal healthcare from student accoucheurs. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the perceptions of women regarding student accoucheurs’ involvement in maternal health care in the Free State Province. A descriptive, exploratory, qualitative research design was undertaken. The study was conducted in the Free State Province. Three regional hospitals, two district hospitals and five Primary Health Care clinics were purposefully selected to make a total of 10 maternal health care institutions that were used as data collection sites. Data was collected using one on one semi-structured interviews with 30 women in the post-partum period, 18 years of age and above, attending for post-natal health care services at the Free State maternal health care institutions. Data was organised and stored using ATLAS.ti program and analysed using Tesch’s open coding approach. The majority of the participants did not approve of student accoucheurs’ involvement in maternal health care. The perceptions of the participants were influenced by cultural beliefs, values, socio-economic factors and social interactions. The study findings cannot be generalized to the other provinces because the study was contextualized to the Free State Province. This study highlights the importance of understanding and consideration of cultural diversity in the provision of health care services.
- 1
- 7
- 0
- Increasing demand for sustainable energy has boosted the exploration of inexpensive and efficient catalysts. Transition metal sulfides have been proven as efficient electrocatalysts for energy storage or energy generation applications. Herein, cubic phase α-MnS and transition metal (Cu2+, Fe3+, and Ni2+) doped MnS nanoparticles were synthesized via the hot injection method from their piperazinyl dithiocarbamate complexes, respectively. The morphology of pristine and TM-doped MnS nanoparticles was studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, while optical and structural properties were studied using UV–visible spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (p-XRD), respectively. p-XRD analysis confirmed the successful incorporation of dopants into MnS lattice structure and suitability of heterocyclic dithiocarbamate complexes for phase/composition controlled synthesis of nanomaterials. The effect of doping on electrocatalytic properties was also investigated. The MnS-based electrodes doped with Ni and Fe presented satisfactory specific capacitances of 840 and 900 F/g at 2 mV/s scan rate. In addition, the testing for electrocatalysis for the water-splitting process demonstrated that Ni–MnS had a superior performance for HER with a η of 132 mV at 10 mA/cm2 and Tafel slope of 44 mV/dec. On the other hand, Fe–MnS showed better performance towards OER with a η of 280 mV at 10 mA/cm2 and a Tafel slope of 60 mV/dec.
- 1
- 8
- 0
- The shadow banking system is an alternative source of finance to formal banking channels and has expanded rapidly in the past two decades. This expansion has had a two-dimensional impact on economies: a threat to financial stability, and an increase in credit extended to firms. In this paper, we analyse whether the growth of shadow banking has had any effect on the financial stability of emerging market economies or not. We use a Global VAR Model and report impact elasticities and impulse response functions. Our results show strong cross-country financial linkages through the shadow banking sector among emerging economies and also between emerging economies and the global economy. We suggest a pro-active and targeted approach to regulation where transmission of financial disturbances in one country can be nipped before they can impact other countries.
- 1
- 7
- 0
- The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of online learning and self-directed learning to motivate and engage students. Therefore, this study sought to determine how online learning fostered self-directed learning at a South African university during this period. Higher education institutions worldwide had to shut down indefinitely following guidance from health experts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since education is regarded as a pillar of development for all countries, some means had to be found to keep teaching and learning going irrespective of the ongoing health crisis. Hence, online learning made it possible for university students to continue learning during the emergency university closure. This was a period of reckoning, however, as many students began experiencing challenges related to poor internet connectivity and accessing digital learning devices. Despite these challenges, the solution was to reach out to all students to ensure that they were not excluded from the learning process. The sudden transition to online learning meant that students could no longer follow a well-coordinated, structured learning schedule that was guided and supervised on campus; rather, online learning meant they had to become more independent in their learning. Independent learning encourages students to be proactive and independent, a philosophy aligned to self-directed learning (SDL). This study explored the experiences of third-year student teachers in navigating SDL through online learning platforms. The study was underpinned by self-directed learning theory and adopted a qualitative case study research design, generating data from ten student teachers using a Zoom app focus group discussion. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis framework. The study found that although SDL is appropriate because it promotes learning independently, the majority of student teachers encountered several challenges when adopting online learning, catching them off guard because they were not formally introduced to it.
- 1
- 12
- 0
- Purpose – In this paper, we refer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2016, where the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) was coined by Klaus Schwab, with the reference that it would be building on “the Third, the digital revolution” and would be “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”. While acknowledging that the 4IR will impact on everything, everywhere, including research and libraries, we conceptualize 4IR, and we compare current academic library services/trends in South Africa with 4IR requirements, through the analysis of 26 public university library websites. Design/methodology/approach – Besides conceptualization of 4IR, a content analysis of websites of 26 public universities’ libraries in South Africa was achieved followed up with verification of the data by respective libraries through a preliminary research report circulated to them by email. 23 areas were identified as the trends in academic libraries, which included free Wi-Fi in the libraries; 24/7 study areas and access to library resources on and off campus; research commons; makerspace; borrowing ICTs (e.g. laptops); e resources; e-catalogues; research data services (RDS; RDM, IR); open scholarship; information literacy and reference/bibliographic tools, library as a publisher, among others. Data obtained were captured in Excel and analyzed by the research questions. Findings – The 4IR concept does not occur often in literature, in relation to academic libraries, but it is implied. The findings show that the libraries are responding well to the revolution through their services, with remarkable innovation and creativity on display. There was a 64% presence of the analyzed trends/services in the libraries, with emerging trends/services such as library as a publisher (4%), robotics/AI (4%), makerspace (8%), RDS (27%), borrowing of ICTs/devices (19%) and user experience (19%) scoring low, while information literacy and digital scholarship (e.g. IR) (88%), e-catalogue and e-resources (92%), group study area (85%) and off campus access (77%) scoring above 75%. The scatter of the trends/services among the university libraries is noted for knowledge sharing of best practice. Research limitations/implications – In order to improve accordance with trends, academic libraries have to be better resourced, accessed and used, as well as improve web visibility. The study expects library services to be responsive, resourced and accessible anytime and anywhere, and it provides a conceptual framework and a benchmark for further research and exploration in the country, region and perhaps elsewhere. Practical implications – The study can be used for benchmarking current and future academic library services in Africa. The conceptual framework provides an agenda for theoretical discussions and deliberations. Social implications – The trends, framework and 4IR representations in the study can inform theory and practice in LIS, particularly in Africa. Originality/value – Linking 4IR to current and future library services provides a tool for academic libraries services benchmarking and development and provides a conceptual framework for theoretical and practical debates and implementation. The study is quite current and appropriate for the ongoing discussions of 4IR implications to academic libraries.
- 1
- 9
- 0
- Background: Institutionalisation of mental healthcare users was a prevalent treatment approach in the apartheid era in South Africa. The introduction of community-based mental healthcare is aimed at improving mental healthcare services. The integration into primary healthcare improves access to mental health services. This integration is implemented by professional nurses working in the primary healthcare clinics. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore and describe experiences of professional nurses regarding integration of mental health into primary healthcare at the iLembe district of KwaZulu-Natal. Setting: This study was conducted at a public hospital in the iLembe health district of KwaZulu-Natal province. Methods: An explorative, descriptive and contextual qualitative research study was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 professional nurses. Data were transcribed verbatim, organised into codes and finally analysed thematically using Tesch’s method of data analysis. Results: This study revealed that majority of participants experienced and faced challenges regarding integration of mental health into primary healthcare. Professional nurses stated that they require support from the management and training to equip themselves with knowledge and skills to render effective mental healthcare services. Conclusion: The integration of mental healthcare into primary healthcare is pivotal to ensure easy and accessible mental healthcare services to its users. This strategy requires planning and implementations of available policies and guidelines regarding mental healthcare. Furthermore, adequate funding is required to secure human and material resources to aid the integration of mental healthcare into primary healthcare.
- 1
- 10
- 0
Select desired time period