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Technicians are largely invisible in everyday life, as are their contributions to science and engineering. In this study, I address the issue of technicians' invisibility in engineering education. The laboratory plays a central and distinctive role in engineering education, but the role of laboratory technicians in educational contexts is largely absent from the research literature. Technicians are generally not considered to be instructors, even in programs that qualify technicians. I argue that the roles of laboratory technicians, with regard to the induction of students into technical engineering practice, should be reconsidered, and address the question: What do technicians in undergraduate laboratories do, and what do they know? The walking methodology approach was adapted in order to study interactions between technicians and students in undergraduate laboratories. The findings showed that laboratory technicians inducted, guided and supported students in technical practices. In particular, I identified a pedagogy of practice in which laboratory technicians demonstrated expert artisanal techniques, shared their skillful practice and practical knowledge, and made connections between practice and abstract theoretical knowledge. The study contributes an understanding of how engineering technicians, who occupy laboratory technician roles in academic engineering departments, induct student technicians into technical engineering practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this systematic review of the research literature on engineering employability, curricular and pedagogical arrangements that prepare graduates for work in the twenty-first century were identified. The research question guiding the review was: Which curricular and pedagogical arrangements promote engineering students' employability? The particular focus of the study was on how authors prioritised engineering knowledge and professional skills. The review drew on a theoretical framework that differentiated between engineering knowledge and professional skills to explain how employability could be included in engineering programmes. Data was obtained from research studies over the period 2007–2017. We found an interdependent relationship between engineering knowledge and professional skills that enabled engineering graduates to attain employability. The com of engineering problems require students to master engineering knowledge, while the ability to work with others across contexts requires professional skills. Both are necessary for deep understanding of engineering principles and a focus on real world problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kaizen -based work-readiness training originated in Japan and is based on the 'lean' production methods taught in Toyota factories in Japan and abroad. Kaizen -based training is rooted in the Kaizen principles of respect for others, the elimination of waste, continuous improvement, collaboration as the key to productivity and innovation as incremental in work processes. The Employability Improvement Programme (EIP), an initiative between the South African Department of Higher Education and Training, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and South African Universities of Technology, is a Kaizen -based short training programme that was introduced in 2011 with the intention to enhance South African University of Technology students' work-readiness. The research question guiding the study is: how could a short Kaizen -based intervention contribute to South African University of Technology students' work-readiness? The data for the study comprise curriculum documents, teaching and learning media, video footage and interviews with participants of the Kaizen events over the period 2016–2018. The study found that the EIP supported students' acquisition of interpersonal skills and personal dispositions towards work-readiness, but skills that were related to workplace relations in context, professional values and a sense of a broader contribution to society were largely absent. The study recommends that longer term, more integrated and better contextualised forms of training are necessary in attaining work-readiness in the complex South African work context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A powerful set of projections has constructed post-apartheid higher education in South Africa. Among these is the expectation that technikons (institutions similar to the British polytechnics) would become universities of technology, with a mission to drive the technology of national reconstruction and development. In this paper, one of the new universities of technology serves as a case study to explore organizational structure and to highlight the ethics of university management and leadership. Building a new university provides the opportunity to place ethics "upfront", rather than as an afterthought, by constructing an organizational framework that makes ethical issues integral to management and decision-making processes. In imagining the structure of a university of technology, the authors were inspired by future scripting methods developed by Bastiaan De Laat, and by Duncan Den Boer, Arie Rip and Sandra Speller. The research process firstly involved the identification of themes related to values and ethics through an analysis of the environment. These themes were incorporated into three scenarios of possible futures for this new university type. Using these scenarios, the ethical issues that emerged (according to how the university of technology might choose to organise itself), are compared with the original themes. Conclusions are then drawn with regard to management structures that are hierarchical and entrench compliance, or that are traditionally collegiate and expertise-based, or that might enable mutual appreciation and allow for leaders to emerge within any functional space at a university of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enrolments in STEM disciplines at universities are increasing globally, attributed to the greater life opportunities open to students as a result of a STEM education. But while institutional access to STEM programmes is widening, the retention and success of STEM undergraduate students remains a challenge. Pedagogies that support student success are well known; what we know less about is how university teachers acquire pedagogical competence. This is the focus of this critical review of the literature that offers a theorised critique of educational development in STEM contexts. We studied the research literature with a view to uncovering the principles that inform professional development in STEM disciplines and fields. The key finding of this critical review is how little focus there is on the STEM disciplines. The majority of studies reviewed did not address the key issue of what makes the STEM disciplines difficult to learn and challenging to teach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper identifies key personal and academic factors in successful transfer to electrical, computer, and mechatronics (ECM) engineering programs. The findings support prior research on engineering transfer shows that successful students accumulate knowledge and behaviors in their sending institution that enable their progress in the receiving institution. Background: Institutional arrangements and processes, inclusive cultures and practices, social integration, and clear academic requirements support the transfer of students who go from two-year colleges and similar to follow engineering programs at four-year institutions. Various personal attributes are also associated with successful transfer. Research Question: What factors enable transferees to succeed in four-year ECM engineering degree programs? Methodology: Student data were obtained from the receiving institution’s registration database and grades administration system. Database queries were used to identify transfer and non-transfer students’ performance. Averages and frequencies of passes, fails, repeats, withdrawals, etc., were calculated and compared. There were limited data on students’ personal challenges and non-academic strengths. Findings: All the students who attained Bachelor of Science degrees in ECM showed persistence and resilience in their journeys toward an engineering qualification, and had achieved high grades in mathematics at the sending institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study epistemological transitions across an intended engineering curriculum and recommend strategies to assist students in attaining the increasingly complex concepts and insights that are necessary for transition to advanced levels of study. We draw on Legitimation Code Theory [Maton, Karl. 2014,Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education. Abingdon: Routledge], in particular the dimensions of sematic gravity and semantic density, to explain these transitions. Data for the study was obtained from a curriculum renewal project that reveals how engineers understand engineering knowledge. We find an interdependent relationship between semantic gravity and semantic density in the intended engineering curriculum. The complexity of the context and the problems that arise from it pose strong cognitive challenges. The semantic gravity wave rises and falls across the engineering curriculum s, enabling both abstraction and a focus on ‘real world’ problems in specialised knowledge fields. Control of the semantic gravity wave is key to the provision of ‘epistemological access’ [Morrow, Wally, ed. (2003) 2009.Bounds of Democracy: Epistemological Access in Higher Education. Reprint, Pretoria: HSRC Press] to engineering knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching portfolios have become increasingly important to university teachers. Portfolio requirements for the appointment or promotion of academic staff recognize that the assessment of teaching practice requires more depth and detail than a candidate's academic CV generally affords. The focus of this study is the electronic teaching portfolios, developed for purposes of promotion, in a vocational higher education context. Data were obtained from candidates' eportfolios, from precourse and end-of-course surveys, as well as from eportfolio assessors' formative and summative feedback. The analysis of the data reveals tensions arising from portfolio building in the particular context of vocational higher education. The nature of the vocational field impacts not only on teaching and learning practice, but on how academic staff choose to present their practice in an eportfolio. The paper argues that the constraints and enablements of context, including the disciplinary context, as well as the possibilities and limitations of agency, will strongly influence the purposes of eportfolio development and the extent to which university teachers can exercise agency in the creation of an eportfolio in a 'high stakes' context. The findings can help university appointments and promotions committees, as well as educational developers, to better understand these enablements and constraints in order to inform policy and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers of technical and professional writing in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Programmes need to understand the particular needs and social contexts of students for whom English is not a first language. The focus of this paper is on technical writing, and the paper presents the findings from four broad areas surveyed in a meta-analysis of research articles on curricular, teaching, learning and assessment practices for university-level English technical communication in multilingual contexts. Communication lecturers in the SET professions are faced with decisions regarding the kind of language forms, topics and purposes to address when teaching, developing materials, or designing assessment tasks for a multilingual technical communication class. It is hoped that this meta-analysis will provide communication lecturers, who work within SET fields, with information for effective and inclusive practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics in higher education institutions are members of disciplinary communities by virtue of their qualifications and research activities, and as teachers of particular disciplines (or professions) they are (or need to become) members of a community of educational practitioners. In this paper, I analyse the ways in which a small group of lecturers in a professional engineering discipline negotiated their academic identities in the process of attaining a Masters degree in Engineering Education. A series of narrative interviews was used to track shifts in the lecturers' identity trajectories during the Masters programme. The findings indicate that academic identities, even within a single engineering discipline, are flexible, multi-layered, and susceptible to different degrees of change. Despite these differences, all participants experienced similar stages in the process of shifting from engineering to engineering educator identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University-workplace partnerships are strategies increasingly called for in higher education. This article reports on collaborative knowledge production between employed professional chemical engineers (registered for higher degrees) and their university-based supervisors (researchers in the field of chemical engineering). The study draws on a language of description, developed by Basil Bernstein, for understanding knowledge discourses and structures, the movement or 'recontextualisation' of knowledge from one domain to another and the role of knowledge in potential and actual practice. These concepts are used to analyse the ways in which knowledge production in partnerships between academic and professional engineers was enabled or constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African higher education institutions are increasingly under scrutiny to produce knowledge that is more relevant to South Africa’s social and economic needs, more representative of the diversity of its knowledge producers, and more inclusive of the variety of the sites where knowledge is produced. Only a small percentage of South Africans are graduates of universities or technology institutes, and these graduates are not representative of the diversity of the South African population. As a result there is a shortage of skills to address the country’s reconstruction and developmental needs. This places a burden on higher education institutions to expand access to their programmes, and to ensure that their programmes are relevant to the developmental context. Policy makers have found in the Gibbons [Gibbons, M., et al. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London Sage Publishers] thesis on ‘Mode 2 knowledge production’ a rationale for the transformation of higher education through the inclusion of practices which are less abstract, less discipline bound and closer to those processes which characterise the diversity and distribution of knowledge production in the wider society. Nowotny et al. [Nowtony et al. (2001). Re-thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.] have taken Gibbons’ thesis further and have described society itself as becoming increasingly ‘Mode 2’. In a Mode 2 society, differentiation is replaced with integration, and networks of knowledge producers conduct their work in transdisciplinary teams across widely distributed sites. Such ‘transgressivity’ both pushes knowledge production systems forward and distributes and diffuses knowledge more widely throughout society. In this paper, it is argued that there is a need for higher education practitioners to engage critically – and constructively – with the knowledge bases of policy directives to ensure that the new teaching and learning processes and systems adequately prepare students for the complexity and diversity of South African society, and enable them to contribute meaningfully to its reconstruction and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employs narrative analysis to examine the metaphoric plot, story, characters and genres of current policy debates around higher education in South Africa. Debates about the South African university; Ability of narratology to show how the inherited vocabulary of policy debates both facilitates and constrains conceptions of past and future.

Examines English entrance test practices among university departments in South Africa. Basis of tests; Features of personal or experiential discourse; Discourse of literary criticism; Discourse of popular psychology; Discourse of moral prescription.

An editorial is presented on engineering education. Topics include graduates of professional programmes need to be well-prepared for the future careers and for the future contributions to societal and technical development; and research on practice informing engineering education and providing evidence for the choice of curricular modalities, pedagogies, and assessment practices.

This article reports on an investigation into the role of academic identity within collaborative research in higher education in South Africa. The study was informed by the literature on academic identities, collaborative research and communities of practice. It was located within a multi-site study, with involvement of researcher collaborators from eight South African higher education institutions. Eighteen academic development practitioners recorded their perceptions of their participation in one higher education research project. An analysis of the research team members' experiences of participating in the first phase of the research project lent credence to the factors influencing participants' academic identities. The study found that collaborative research provided potential for knowledge generation and personal and professional growth, but noted that in order to enable participation, attention needs to be paid to the interrelationship between researchers' academic individual and collective identities and their sense of expertise in the field of educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an investigation into the incidence of plagiarism in the context of a new university of technology in South Africa. The findings indicate that plagiarism can take many forms, some of which are a result of dishonesty and academic misconduct, while others are related to the educational levels and cultural diversity of the faculty and student body. The paper argues that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to plagiarism is not likely to be effective within a context of development and change, different forms of plagiarism should be clearly identified, and different institutional responses are necessary to address these items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study features the concept of 'context' and how various macro, meso and micro features of the social system play themselves out in any setting. Using South Africa as an example, it explores the features that may constrain or enable professional development, quality teaching and the work of teaching and learning centres at eight universities in varied socio-cultural settings. The article draws on the work of critical realists and their explication of the concepts of structure, culture and agency. The research design was participatory, where members of teaching and learning centres at the eight institutions defined the aims and key questions for the study. They collected the data on which this article is based, namely a series of descriptive and reflective reports. The findings clustered around six themes: history, geography and resources; leadership and administrative processes; beliefs about quality teaching and staff development; recognition and appraisal; and capacity, image and status of the TLC staff. These features play out in unique and unpredictable constellations in each different context, while at the same time, clusters of features adhere together. Whilst there is no one to one, predictive relationship between university type and outcome, there is a sense that socio-economic contextual features are salient and require greater attention than other features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]