Lecturers' perceptions on the academic performance of conventional and distance education students at UNISWA: a comparative study
SOURCE: International Journal of Open and Distance Learning
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2013
TITLE AUTHOR(S): C.W.S.Sukati, C.M.Magagula, E.Chandraiah, M.M.Sithole
KEYWORDS: DISTANCE LEARNING, HIGHER EDUCATION, PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT, STUDENTS (COLLEGE), UNIVERSITIES
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 7995
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/2719
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/2719
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2013
TITLE AUTHOR(S): C.W.S.Sukati, C.M.Magagula, E.Chandraiah, M.M.Sithole
KEYWORDS: DISTANCE LEARNING, HIGHER EDUCATION, PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT, STUDENTS (COLLEGE), UNIVERSITIES
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 7995
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/2719
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/2719
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
This study investigates the perceptions of lecturers within the Faculty of Humanities (FOH) at the University of Swaziland concerning the educational performance of students within the Institute of Distance Education (IDE) as compared with their counterparts on the same programme who were learning using conventional face-to-face (CF2F) mode. The humanities programme was chosen because the IDE and CF2F students studying this programme were doing the same courses, sat the same examinations, were taught by the same lecturers, and would graduate with the same qualifications. A questionnaire was administered to all the 24 lecturers in the FOH. Twenty two lecturers returned the completed questionnaire. Findings of the study were that the perceptions of the lecturers were that the IDE students' performance was below that of CF2F students. Reasons given for poorer performance were that IDE students (i) did not get enough face-to-face sessions; (ii) did not read their materials; and (iii) were too young to handle independent study as required in distance learning. Recommendations that were advanced by the lecturers to improve IDE at UNISWA were that IDE should have its own teaching staff, reduce IDE class sizes and more workshops should be held for writers and reviewers of distance learning materials in order to improve the course materials.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Student retention & graduate destination: higher education & labour market access & success
- From racial liberalism to corporate authoritarianism: the Shell affair and the assault on academic freedom in South Africa
- Mathematics literacy of final year students: South African realities
- Chasing credentials and mobility: private higher education in South Africa
- The focus of an undergraduate social science curriculum for Southern Africa: historical consciousness, human rights and social and development issues
- The impact of institutional mergers on information systems and blended learning provision in South African higher education
- Inequalities in higher education and the structure of the labour market
- Doctors in a divided society: the profession and education of medical practitioners in South Africa
- Book review: Musisi, N.B. & Muwanga, N.K. 2003. Makerere University in transition 1993-2000. Oxford: James Currey Publishers, p. 103
- Going global: working with South Africa's universities
- Review: "the African university in the 21st century"
- 'Shutting up the crazies': reflections on feminists, whiteness, intellectuals and black aliens inside and outside the academy
- Changing gender profile of medical schools in South Africa
- Scholars in the marketplace: the dilemmas of neo-liberal reform at Makerere Universtity 1989-2005
- Student poverty in higher education: the impact of higher education dropout on poverty
- Adjustment to university and academic performance among disadvantaged students in South Africa
- Studying ambitions: pathways from grade 12 and the factors that shape them
- Impact of networks, globalisation and their interaction with EU strategies (INGENEUS project): synthesis paper on "HRD policies and MNC subsidiaries"
- Uniformity and disjunction in the school-to-higher-education transition
- Poverty, race and student achievement in seven higher education institutions