Faculty of Education

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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11837/224
The Faculty of Education collection serves as a central repository for preserving and providing access to the academic contributions of students and staff. This collection includes theses and dissertations, peer-reviewed research outputs, and past examination question papers. By making these resources available, the Faculty supports knowledge sharing, enhances teaching and learning, and contributes to the advancement of educational research. The repository ensures long-term preservation of scholarly work while promoting accessibility for current and future researchers, educators, and students.

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Browsing Faculty of Education by Author "Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Innovation and Technology: A Panacea to Teaching and Learning Challenges during the Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
    (OpenED Network, 2022-03-15) Adu, Kemi O.; Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa ; Duku, Ntombozuko ; Adu, Emmanuel O.
    Innovation and technology brought by the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) have become an urgent reality to all teachers because of the need for a virtual classroom. In South Africa, over 13 million students in almost 25,000 schools have been affected by the COVID-19 lockdown. Most school teachers were not trained for online teaching, which was the only safe method of teaching during the lockdown period. This study, therefore, investigated how innovation and technology were utilised to mitigate the virtual classroom problems during the COVID-19 lockdown. This study employed a qualitative research approach using interviews to collect data based on the phenomenological research design. The sample for this study consisted of 12 lecturers purposively drawn from one university in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Thematic content analysis was performed on the data. The findings revealed that a majority of the participants have poor pedagogical skills especially those related to using technologies such as Blackboard, Microsoft Teams, and V-Drive on computers for online teaching engagements during the COVID-19 lockdown; strategies utilised by the participants for their teaching activities during the lockdown included Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp voice notes, email attachments for sending bulky teaching materials to students, and other Computer-instructional resources. Thus, this study recommends an urgent need for capacity development workshops to equip lecturers with computer and ICT skills, knowledge, and strategies for online teaching delivery and increased provision of adequate learning and teaching facilities in all public educational institutions, including those in the rural areas.
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    Platformisation of Education: An Analysis of South African Universities’ Learning Management Systems
    (OpenED Network, 2022-06-24) Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa ; Adu, Emmanuel O.
    Several studies have focused attention on the crisis of the COVID19 pandemic and the impact on the traditional face-to-face teaching and learning activities across the globe. There is, however, little research regarding the platformisation of education with the aid of the learning management systems (LMSs) in the contexts of South African universities. With a thematic content analysis of the extant literature and a systematic review of universities’ websites, this study explored and unearthed various LMS platforms which public universities in South Africa adopted and utilized before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the lockdown period. The findings revealed that the majority (46%) of South Africa’s public universities used the Blackboard LMS while another 34 percent of the 26 universities used the Moodle LMS. The rest of the public universities in South Africa used one of the following LMS platforms: the Vula, Efundi, ClickUp, RUConnected, Sakai, SunLearn, Canvas, and D2LBrightspace. Furthermore, the study found that a few South African universities had moved from one LMS platform to another, especially during the period of lockdown precipitated by the pandemic; beginning from the year 2020. The LMS platforms serve the pedagogical needs of the universities in terms of facilitation of online interaction between instructors and students, dissemination of course materials, announcements, submissions, assessments, and grading of student assignments electronically. It is recommended that future studies should investigate the challenging factors responsible for the switch from one LMS platform to another across the public universities in South Africa.
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    Prospects of Blended Learning for the Post-COVID-19 Higher Education: The Instructors’ Perspectives at a University in South Africa
    (Noyam, 2022-10-31) Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa ; Adu, Emmanuel
    The study explored the prospects of the blended learning approach for postCOVID-19 higher education from the perspectives of instructors at a university in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The study was qualitative and adopted the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) design. Using the purposive sampling method, a sample of twenty-eight academics was drawn from one university. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and thematically analysed. The findings revealed that blended learning has prospects for higher education in the post-COVID-19 context; such as accommodating vulnerable students without access to the internet and devices, increasing use of technologies for teaching and learning, facilitation of teaching and learning at any time and place, and solving problems of classroom overcrowding, increasing opportunities for higher education enrolment, breaking communication barriers between university instructors and students, and solving problems of truancy and absence of students and lecturers during the face-to-face lecture hours. In light of these findings, this study concluded that the prospects of blended learning should be harnessed for higher education in the post-COVID-19 context. The present study also considered some recommendations for making the blended learning approach effective in attaining higher education goals. These included increasing investment in the use of technologies for teaching and learning; and ensuring that there is continuous training of instructors in the use of emerging technologies for educational purposes while government at all levels continues to support HEIs for the implementation of the BL delivery system
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    Teaching in a Pandemic: An Exploratory Study into University Instructors’ Perceptions of Workfrom-Home Opportunities and Challenges during the COVID-19 Lockdown in South Africa
    (Society for Research and Knowledge Management, 2022-07-28) Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa ; Adu, Kemi Olajumoke; Adu, Emmanuel Olusola ; Duku, Ntombozuko
    Recent studies have investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, organisations, and education in South Africa. However, research on the work-from-home opportunities and challenges during the COVID-19 lockdown is still scarce in the context of South Africa. This study, therefore, explored university instructors’ perceptions of work-from-home opportunities and challenges in South Africa. Thstudy, guided by the SWOT analysis as the theoretical framework, was located within the qualitative research paradigm. It leveraged a sample of ten academics drawn from the Faculty of Education at a rural-based university using a purposive sampling technique. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview and analysis was thematically performed. The findings revealed that WFH arrangements offered opportunities for working from home without incurring the cost of travelling, saved commuting time, provided new ways of teaching and learning with evolving digital platforms, and allowed for prioritising of time for self-development and relaxation. WFH challenges included social isolation, disconnection from colleagues, fatigue from performing monotonous routines daily, inadequate data, and poor internet connectivity. Thus, the study recommends the provision of internet facility support and technological training of academic staff of universities on innovative and pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning for blended and/or online teaching in preparation for any similar disruption of education in the future.
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    Utilisation of ICT Tools for School Governance amid COVID-19 Crisis in South Africa
    (Society for Research and Knowledge Management, 2023-05) Duku, Ntombozuko; Badaru, Kazeem Ajasa ; Adu, Kemi O.; Mkhomi, Moses Sipho; Adu, Emmanuel O.; Mavuso, Mzuyanda Percival
    Teaching and learning activities in South African schools are a focus of several research on the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) resources during the COVID-19 crisis. However, more studies are required to examine how the school principals and the parent members of the School Governing Bodies (SGBs) used the ICT tools to undertake communication on school governance activities during the COVID-19 lockdown. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis in South African schools, this study examined the use of ICT technologies for decision making communications relating to issues of school governance between the principals and the SGBs. Utilizing a quantitative research methodology, information was gathered from 126 school principals who were chosen at random from the Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) in East London, South Africa. The data analysis method employed was descriptive statistics. The findings showed that the majority of SGB parent members had basic ICT skills, could read and write, used ICT tools like smartphones, voice calls, and SMS messaging, which enabled them to interact with school principals and take part in decision-making related to school governance activities during the COVID-19 crisis. The participants described some of the difficulties associated with their choice of ICT tools, including broken smart phones, a lack of expertise with WhatsApp and Telegram, and slow message answers. The study concludes that the SGBs need to align their school policies with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and adopt more ICT platforms for effective communications, governance, teaching, and learning activities in the new normal. It also recommends that, school principals and other SGB members still need to be trained and retrained for the use of ICT tools for efficient virtual or online participation in meetings; and there is also a need to equip SGB members with digital devices such as tablets, laptops, smartphones, and internet data subscriptions to encourage their participation in meetings from homes, offices or any other locations outside of school premises.