Academics are actively encouraged to disseminate new knowledge to the scientific community by publishing in scholarly journals. External and internal barriers to writing, however, prevent many authors from writing for publication. This article gives an account of an intervention to provide hands-on coaching to inexperienced academic authors.…

The Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at the University of Limpopo (Medunsa Campus) redesigned their curriculum at the beginning of 2010. The template that was developed shows the horizontal and vertical integration of outcomes. Although the outcomes of the entire process met the requirements of the Health Professions Council…

This study is framed by self-efficacy theory (SET). It aimed to determine successful research students' views of supervisory practices they had experienced. The research design was an embedded design. A questionnaire determined the views of 52 students in one college at Unisa on the support they received for successful experiences; the influence…

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is a process of evaluating an adult learners previous experience, skills, knowledge and informal learning and articulating it towards a formal qualification. Whilst RPL is enshrined in a number of international qualifications frameworks, there are certain barriers which have prevented its application and…

Although much has been written on the need to integrate HIV into tertiary education programmes, very little research has been done in terms of how it should be done. This article will report on the first phase of a larger action research project designed to research, develop and evaluate best practices for the transformation of the curricula of…

Research on women in leadership has received growing attention in recent years. But not enough studies have investigated the way women construct leadership and management of the academic department. This article reports on the findings of an inquiry into the experiences of women heads of academic departments (HoDs) at universities in South Africa…

Increased demands on academics due to the changing work and higher educational environments challenge traditional approaches to postgraduate supervision. Supervisors often tend to follow the apprenticeship approach uncritically. Supervisors therefore need to be aware of alternative approaches to supervision and of the need for structured planning…

To enhance research into revitalising supervisory practices, the aim of this study is to identify approaches of supervisors to mentoring and facilitating doctoral students' progress. Scenarios were created to describe typical situations that supervisors face, namely non-responsive students, dealing with students with low English language…

Postgraduate supervision does not only require academic and research skills from the supervisors--they may also assume a variety of roles to support the postgraduate student from novice to experienced researcher. The role of supervisors in the supervisory process, as well as the views of a purposeful selection of lecturers on the role is the focus…

This article aims to interrogate possible assessment problems arising from a community-based-research mode of research and consider some of the assessment approaches that generate scepticism among some examiners, and endorsement from others. The article explores specific challenges in supervising, accommodating and evaluating diverse candidates…

Without conscious will and engagement in critical reflexivity as a process of growth and learning in research, students remain unaware of their subjective biases and the effect of bias on the inquiry. A qualitative, exploratory, single descriptive case study was used to explore and describe the operationalisation of debriefing interviews and…

Supervision has been identified as an important factor in the success of postgraduate students, even as the most significant variable and a large number of studies have been conducted to identify factors that contribute to supervision success. However the dependent variable in these studies--supervision success--has been an elusive one to define.…

Many postgraduate interdisciplinary research (IDR) candidates in the applied disciplines work across two or more traditional areas of study. Such candidates often spend considerable time on knowledge-building activities outside their home (or undergraduate) disciplines; IDR candidates venture into new fields and are exposed to the cultures and…

An inadequate number of suitably qualified and experienced supervisors, an increase in the number of students, uncertainty regarding the suitability of supervision and academic rigour in dissertations and theses make it difficult to produce quality graduates within the prescribed time-frame as stipulated by the Department of Education. By…

In this article I initiate a debate into the (de)merits of human capital theory and human capability theory and discuss implications of the debate for higher education. Human capital theory holds that economic growth depends on investment in education and that economic growth is the basis for improving the quality of human life. Human capable…