A meta-Analysis of Teaching and Learning

6Cross-Case Analysis

6.1Introduction

This section on the report will now move into an analysis of all five case studies. Following the analytical framework set up in Section 3, the cross-case analysis will explore the levels of culture, structure and agency and the interplay between mechanisms emerging from all three levels. Before proceeding to the analysis at this level, however, it is necessary to provide an overall description at the level of the actual.

6.2The Actual at the Five Research Intensive Universities

As described in Section 2 above, in critical/social realist accounts, the level of the actual relates to the level of events – to what actually happens. Each of the case studies in Section 5 above has provided a glimpse into the level of the actual at each of the five research-intensive universities. Although there are differences across the five universities, the following observations can be made of the group:

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  With the exception of the University of the Witwatersrand, enrolments of South African black students at the other four institutions in the study are not representative of the demography of the country as a whole. This is in spite of the huge take up of places in higher education by the black majority in the years since the 1994 democratic election (see, for example, Cooper & Subotsky, 2001).
  
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  Enrolments of black students need to be analysed according to i) level of study and ii) CESM category. While it is not possible to make overall generalisations across the group of universities studied, it is possible to note that there is a tendency for black students to be enrolled in the Humanities and Social Sciences and Education and at undergraduate levels and even diploma levels. Large numbers of black students are also enrolled in distance programmes where they are offered.
  
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  The success and graduation rates of black students do not match those of their white peers across the board.
  
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  Although some of the universities in the study meet benchmarks set by the Department of Education in respect of graduation rates, some fall below them in spite of the fact that all have relatively high entrance requirements. Institutions are therefore taking students from the very top of the matriculant pool. This is also the case for students who enter the institution via alternative admissions routes and who are placed on foundation or extended programmes. Such students would mostly gain places on three year programmes at other institutions with lower admissions criteria.
  

At the level of the actual, therefore, what we have is a description of institutions which are not performing well in respect to either equity or efficiency when the outcomes of teaching and learning are considered.

The following cross-case analysis of mechanisms emerging from the domains of culture, structure and agency at the level of the real in the five universities, attempts to provide an explanation for these events.

6.3Culture

This section of the Report focuses on the identification and analysis of sets of discourses (or, in critical/social realist terms, ‘mechanisms’) which lead to the emergence of events at the level of the actual through their interplay with mechanisms emerging from other domains.

6.3.1 Privileging Research

Arguably the most powerful set of discourses at all five institutions in the study relate to an understanding of their own status as producers of knowledge. Institutions variously describe themselves as ‘research-led’, ‘research-oriented’, ‘research-focused’ and ‘research-driven’ and this fundamental construction of their purpose then leads to the emergence of a number of effects including a light touch with respect to the management of quality in teaching and learning and of academic staff themselves. In spite (or, perhaps, because) of the privileging of research in institutional vision and mission statements and of mechanisms intended to drive the research function, there is little evidence in any of the documentation studied for the purposes of this research of engagement with any sort of deep engagement with the idea of what being ‘research-led’, ‘research-oriented’, ‘research-driven’ and so on might mean for teaching and learning.

Understandings of the terms ‘research-led’, ‘research-oriented’ and so on in the documentation studied relate to i) the infusion of research findings into the curriculum ii) the possibility of students being taught by ‘research-active staff members and iii) the use of research on teaching and learning to improve teaching and learning. Each of these understandings is problematic. The idea that being ‘research-led’ involves the infusion of research findings into the curriculum invites questions about the extent to which this is possible, certainly at undergraduate levels in institutions where the majority of enrolments at undergraduate level. The construction of ‘research-led’ teaching and learning as involving the availability of research active staff to teach has also been called into question in 5.2 above. Not only would an institution need to clarify what constituted ‘research active’ status, but it would also need to develop mechanisms to ensure that the experience of being taught by an active researcher was more than a mere likelihood. In respect of this understanding, there is also a need to question the extent to which the mere status of being ‘research active’ can inform and enhance teaching. An active researcher might be good at research and might not be good, or even interested, in teaching. Even if s/he is good at teaching, the relationship of the good teacher to the good researcher still needs. to be interrogated.

As the case studies in Section 5 also show, the understanding that research on teaching and learning can be used to enhance those same activities is also questionable because of the interplay between mechanisms arising from the domains of culture, structure and agency. There is evidence, in the cases studied, of structures/collective agents having produced research which has the potential to improve teaching and learning and of other mechanisms then working against the possibility of this research being applied in practice. The use of a definition of being ‘research-led’ in relation to teaching and learning which drew on this understanding to drive institutional practice would therefore require the conscious attempts to manage other mechanisms.

Yet another understanding of the term ‘research-led’ in relation to teaching has been developed in the international literature (see, for example, Brew, 2008). This understanding relates to opening up possibilities for students to do research even at undergraduate level. Learning, in this understanding, is ‘inquiry based’ and the task of teachers is to create the structures spaces in which students can inquire.

Although this latter definition of being research-led in relation to teaching opens up huge possibilities for teaching and learning and has been taken up in, for example, the Australian higher education system because of this (Brew, 2008), in the context of the ‘social’ model of learning described in Section 2 above, it is possible to develop another, arguably more productive understanding of the term ‘research-led’ in relation to teaching at universities such as those in the study. This more productive understanding is dependent on the elimination of the distinction between knowledge production and knowledge dissemination which also drives the distinction between research and teaching.

The notion of knowledge ‘dissemination’ has particular implications for teaching. Teachers have the knowledge and the purpose of their acts of teaching is its dissemination to students. Teaching is then constructed around a set of discourses involving the idea of ‘getting the knowledge’ across to students. This process of ‘getting the knowledge across’ is, however, complicated by i) the way academic disciplines structure the knowledge itself (Bernstein, 1999) and ii) by the relationship of language to both the knowledge and the way it is structured (Halliday, 1973, 1978, 1994). When the work of scholars such as Bernstein (ibid) and Halliday (ibid) is considered, however, it is possible to turn the idea of teaching as an act of knowledge dissemination on its head and to argue that all acts of teaching at universities such as those in the study are about teaching students how to construct academic knowledge regardless of the level at which the teaching takes place and regardless of the innovation in that teaching. In respect of this latter point, arguably the most traditional teaching at universities such as those in the study is actually focused on teaching students how to construct knowledge although this is largely an unconscious process.

A typical first year sociology class in a faculty of humanities serves to illustrate this claim. Typically, academics teaching at this level lay out of the main theories underpinning the discipline. As they do so, they are mapping disciplinary terrain and, even if they are not conscious of doing this, modelling how the way knowledge is structured in the discipline. Students are then typically required to write an assignment responding to a question, a quotation or some other prompt. What is expected of them as they write this assignment is a series of knowledge claims, each of which is substantiated by reference to the literature, and which then build into an overall argument taking a position in relation to the prompt – a process which is often referred to as ‘giving an opinion’ or as ‘creative and critical thinking’. As they write the assignment, students are effectively taking the first steps in learning how to construct academic knowledge and which may culminate in the ability to write the literature survey in a doctoral dissertation or academic article. The same academic will also produce a series of knowledge claims in her own explication of the theories and will substantiate each of these claims. Once again, she is modelling the construction of academic knowledge albeit unwittingly. Shay’s work on curriculum in a history department at one of the universities in the study (2008d) arguably provides yet another example of the way teaching in an academic department involves the teaching of knowledge construction and not simply ‘knowledge’ itself.

Significant to the claim that teaching at universities such as those in the study is about the teaching of knowledge construction, is that this is largely unconscious and covert. In some disciplinary areas, however, the teaching of knowledge construction is more overt. In a science practical session, for example, students are taught the rules for knowledge construction arising out of a positivist ontology. These rules involve observation, accuracy in experimentation and so on. The laboratory practical report then requires the use of deduction and other cognitive process to come to substantiated conclusions. In spite of this explanation of the activities which take place within them, dominant constructions of laboratory practicals tend to focus on the ‘application’ of knowledge.

If this explanation of teaching at research-led universities is accepted, then it is clear that dominant discourses constructing teaching at the universities in the study serve mask what is actually going on. This masking then impedes what Morrow (1994) terms ‘epistemological access’ for some groups of students. Students whose primary Discourses (Gee, 1990, 2003) share some of the values and assumptions regarding knowledge construction with academic Discourses are better able to access the covert processes which underpin teaching. This point has profound implications for what we might do to improve teaching and for the sort of theories we draw on to explain both our teaching and our students’ learning.

The same set of discourses privileging research in relation to teaching also serves to construct academic staff. At the universities in the study, staff are constructed as scholars who need to have the freedom to explore the fields in which they practice without interference. Related to the privileging of research is the privileging of independent thought and argumentation and the assignment of the right to challenge being managed in respect of teaching and learning. Related to this is a discourse of trust, trust that academics will ‘do the right thing’ because they share the same values and attitudes related to knowledge and what can count as knowledge production and because these values will then guide their practice. The overall effect of these discourses is a reluctance to manage teaching and learning because of a fear of impinging on academic autonomy and collegiality.

6.3.2 Accountability and responsiveness

A second set of discourses at the universities in the study centre on a construction of themselves as accountable to South African society and to the continent more generally. These discourses often draw on the research-based discourses analysed above to construct the institutions as national and international resources. Given the dominance of research-based discourses which allow for a more traditional construction of the university, to some extent this second set of discourses remains symbolic particularly in relation to teaching and learning as there is little evidence in the documentation studied of ways in which they have impacted on teaching practices. Where they have impacted is in relation to the provision of alternative access routes and to the development of foundation and extended programmes. Structurally, these programmes then sit apart from the mainstream leaving an ‘articulation gap’ between the mechanism aimed at social responsiveness and accountability and other mechanisms (traditional programmes and teaching) aimed at more traditional goals.

Discourse related to social responsiveness and accountability have also impacted on the design of new programmes and on structures such as academic departments which have sometimes been reorganised into schools because of the need to engage in interdisciplinary work. The extent to which teaching in any of these programmes is different to that in other more traditional offerings is highly questionable, however.

6.3.3 The autonomous ‘other’

A third set of discourses at the universities in the study centre on the construction of students as a-social, a-cultural, autonomous beings and, thus, on the ability to succeed in higher education as dependent on factors inherent to the individual such as ‘motivation’ and ‘potential’. At the same time as students are constructed as autonomous of social context, so too are academic practices which are then understood as being accessible to all. Significant in the context of the study, where i) two institutions have identified the shift from using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction to using both English and Afrikaans as media of instruction as a means of opening themselves up to diverse groups of students and where ii) many black students use English as an additional language, is the fact that academic practices related to language are also constructed as autonomous phenomena. The result of the construction of academic practices as autonomous is that learning too is understood to be culturally and socially neutral.

This is an important point as analyses of institutional culture in both the self evaluation portfolios submitted by institutions and the audit reports prepared by the HEQC tend not to understand learning as a socially embedded and, thus, ‘cultural’ phenomenon. Considerations of, or allusions to, ‘culture’ in the documentation thus tend to exclude teaching and learning. This is in spite of the fact that the notion of a ‘culture of learning’ does appear institutional documentation. When the term ‘culture of learning’ is used, it tends to refer either to i) the development of an environment which is conducive to learning or ii) to exercise of the agency to learn on the part of students and where ii) might be related to i). What is lacking, therefore, is an understanding that teaching and learning are ‘cultural’ practices and operate to exclude some students in the same way as other institutional practices which are more ‘social’ and less ‘intellectual’.

Students at all institutions in the study tend to be constructed as ‘other’ to academic staff and to the ‘institution’. Academic staff are there to teach the students and the institution exists to provide a ‘rich’ environment (where rich often refers to capital resources) in which students can exercise the agency to learn. It would be useful to consider how an understanding of teaching as the teaching of knowledge construction would impact on this process of ‘othering’ since it could imply an understanding of teachers and students as joint participants in a quest to produce knowledge.

In spite of the ‘othering’ of students, difference in the student body is acknowledged but mostly as ‘educational’ or ‘historical disadvantage’. As long ago as 1993, Bradbury was pointing out the political expediency, in the context of apartheid, of labelling the difficulties some students experienced in higher education as due to their status as speakers of English as an additional language. In many respects, the labels of ‘educational’ and ‘historical disadvantage’ function in the same way as they attribute ‘difficulties’ to contexts outside the student and, thus, elide social and cultural ‘difference’. In the struggle against apartheid, the elision of difference was important. Post-apartheid, conceptual tools with the potential to explain differences in practice without attributing any form of inferiority to anyone are available. In spite of this, cultural and social differences continue to not to be taken into account in the face of a dominant construction which sees success as being dependent on innate ‘potential’ which has not been realised, in some cases, because of factors (in the schools) outside the students’ control.

6.3.4 Teaching as best practice

Yet another set of discourses are evident in the documentation in relation to attempts to enhance the quality of teaching and learning at institutional level. These discourses relate to other discourses evident in countries such as the United Kingdom which have consciously tried to improve the quality of teaching and learning at a national level. The discourses, here termed ‘teaching as best practice’, draw on work produced in the field popularly known as the ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’ which, as Haggis (2003) points out, can be problematic because of the way descriptive models developed from research are appropriated and reconstructed, often as ‘truths’ by ‘staff developers’ and subject teachers doing pedagogical research’ (p.91). An example of this phenomenon was provided earlier in Section 2 focusing on the reconstruction of ‘deep approaches’ to learning as ‘deep learning’ or even ‘active learning’.

Another significant feature of what have been termed ‘teaching as best practice’ discourses is the privileging of method over theory. Typically, this would involve the promotion of constructs such as problem-based learning, small group work and outcomes-based teaching and assessment. The promotion of method, when this is divorced from engagement with theory and research, can be problematic. Shay (2005) for example, has shown how criterion referenced assessment, much touted in dominant South African discourses as a means of improving assessment practice in higher education, can be far from criterion referenced as assessors draw on a range of contextual information to make judgements which are not captured in the criteria provided to students. In order to make these observations, Shay draws on the work of Bourdieu (1990, 1996, 1998). The danger, then, in much work intended to enhance the quality of teaching and learning work is that practice can rest on unexamined assumptions.

There is certainly evidence that this is the case in some of the documentation studied for the purposes of this research. Policies, ‘Education Principles’ and Teaching and Learning Strategies all draw on what, at worst, may be termed ‘buzz words’ in the literature related to the scholarship of teaching and learning. These same words are introduced almost casually elsewhere in the documents studied in descriptions of institutional values, approaches and strategies.

When the difficulties of getting academic staff to engage with their own professional development as educators and with consideration of issues related to teaching and assessment in curriculum design is considered because of the influence of other dominant discourses, then there is clearly a need to ensure that whatever engagement does take place is not trivialised. This then points to a capacity issue in the field of teaching and learning in South Africa more generally. As this Section of the report will also argue later, even when the capacity for engagement based on theory and research is available at institutional levels, the potential of this capacity to enhance teaching and learning is not maximised because of the interplay of other mechanisms.

6.3.5 eLearning

Also evident in the documentation studied for the purposes of this research is a set of discourses which privilege the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning as cutting edge practice. In two of the universities, large amounts of money have been directed at the development of the use of ICTs as elements of institutional strategy which may be related to growth in student numbers.

A number of problems arise in relation to the use of ICTs in teaching and learning. Although learning platforms such as WebCT and Moodle (its open-source equivalent) can provide rich spaces for engagement with students around their learning, this potential is often not drawn upon and eLearning spaces simply become repositories for lecture notes and reading texts. In the lecture theatre, teaching continues as it always has centring on what Morrow (2007) terms a ‘performance model’ of teaching involving a performance by a single individual in front of a group of students. Investment in ICTs is therefore only maximised if eLearning spaces are built into what Morrow (ibid) terms a ‘managed’ model of teaching. This would mean that the use of ICTs would have to be conceptualised within an overall model of the curriculum and would be used to achieve the goals of that curriculum. Typically, this would involve a rethinking of assessment so that students are given a task which requires independent study and the eLearning platform is used to guide that study through focus group discussions, the use of ‘forums’ and other kinds of sharing. Some lecture based teaching might still take place. Ideally, however, the teacher would become a resource available to students electronically (see, for example, Bezuidenhout, 2008). This sort of practice is a far remove from the way heavy investment in ICTs is being used in relation to assessment at one institution in the study. In the case in question, ICTs merely become a means of increasing the efficiency of multiple choice assessments in the context of the need to assess the learning of large numbers of students.

A second problem in relation to the promotion of the use of ICTs in teaching and learning in a context such as South Africa is related to understandings generated in the field which has become known as New Literacy Studies. Following on the work of researchers such as Street (1984, 1993, 1995, 1996), literacy is acknowledged not as a ‘technology’ involving the encoding and decoding of meaning into and from print but rather as a set of social practices centring on the meanings assigned to different kinds of texts and to the way readers and writers understand their own relationship with those texts and with other people who will read them. This means that engagement with electronic texts is also a socially embedded phenomenon. Although research into engagement with what are termed ‘digital literacies’ in South Africa is beginning (see, for example, Snyder & Prinsloo, 2007) this work is still in its infancy and, in any case, is likely to be set aside in favour of what Street (ibid) terms ‘autonomous’ models of literacy which the ability to read and write as involving a set of acultural, asocial, apolitical ‘skills’. That this latter model of literacy is informing the conceptualising the use of ICTs in teaching and learning is evident in the documentation studied. There is the potential, then, for the investments made in the use of ICTs in teaching and learning not to be maximised. This is a subject worthy of further research.

6.3.6 Conclusion

At the institutions in the study, then, it is possible to identify the existence of a set of dominant discourses constructing teaching, teaching in relation to research, students and teachers. Mostly these discourses are not productive in the critical/social realist sense that, as mechanisms, they are unlikely to lead to desirable change at the level of the actual. When the interplay between these mechanisms emerging from the domain of culture with others emerging from the domains of structure and agency is taken into account, the description of events at the level of the actual becomes more understandable. It is to this interplay that this Report now turns.