About
29
Publications
3,446
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
970
Citations
Publications
Publications (29)
Based on poor performance of students in the higher education science context, this paper questions the current focus on content knowledge and, in so doing, examines the role student knowers play in enabling epistemological access. Using Legitimation Code Theory, and drawing on data from interviews, course documents, observations, and critical refl...
Whilst arguing from a social realist perspective that knowledge matters in academic development (AD) curricula, this paper addresses the question of what knowledge types and practices are necessary for enabling epistemological access. It presents a single, in-depth, qualitative case study in which the curriculum of a science AD course is characteri...
Quantitative measures of student performance fail to provide insight into underpinning constraints and enablements to access in science in higher education. This case study of a science foundation course uses Legitimation Code Theory as a theoretical frame and acquisition of recognition and realisation rules as an analytical frame to provide a dept...
Educational literature shows that students from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to persist to completion in higher education than middle-class students. This paper draws theoretically and analytically on Bernstein’s ([1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge; 2000....
Academic development programs in higher education institutions in South Africa are often underpinned by discourses that view students as deficit. Margaret Archer’s social realist ontology offers a means of understanding reflexivities and agency of students in the higher education context. Using narrative data and drawing on Archer’s (2003) theory o...
This article argues for the integration of both scholastic and practice-centred
epistemologies within an Environmental Education (EE) post-graduate curriculum
that is oriented towards sustainability and socio-ecological justice. It is an interpretive
study based on an in-depth analysis of five assignments by four scholars registered
for the M.Ed. E...
Since the emergence of the electronic era, plagiarism has become an increasingly prevalent problem at tertiary institutions. This study investigated the role electronic sources of information played in influencing plagiarism in an essay assignment in a first‐year geography module at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal in South Africa. Despite explicit...
Student plagiarism is a pervasive and increasing problem at all levels of study in tertiary institutions. This study attempted explicitly and implicitly to address issues of plagiarism within the broad context of an academic writing framework in tutorials in a first‐year module at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal in South Africa. Despite these inter...
Strategic and well‐planned use of feedback in the assessment process is key to promoting learning. This paper evaluates the role a two‐stage test process played in guiding and assisting student learning in a second‐year module at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. Having been provided with verbal and written feedback without grades from...
Channel blockage and abandonment in the Okavango Delta has been considered to be caused by either a combination of encroachment of Cyperus papyrus from the channel banks into the channels, or the development of papyrus debris blockages in the lower reaches of major distributary channels. This has been investigated in the present study by measuring...
Plant assemblages rooted within channels, as well as in peat deposits flanking channels, in the northeastern Okavango Delta have been classified and their distribution related to environmental conditions. Within‐channel assemblages appeared to be related to the introduction of sediments from source areas and to differences in channel dimensions (pa...
Due to a poor module evaluation, mediocre student grades and a difficult teaching experience in lectures, the Data Analysis section of a first year core module, Research Methods for Social Sciences (RMSS), offered at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal in South Africa, was completely revised. In order to review the effectiveness of these changes in ter...
The Melville Koppies Ridge in Johannesburg is an area of natural wilderness within the urban environment. The aim of the study was to establish the relationship between vegetation distribution and environmental conditions on the ridge, as well as to determine the impacts of management on vegetation distribution. The ridge has had a long history of...
Islands constitute an important geomorphological component of the permanent swamps of the Okavango alluvial fan. Studies of the topography, soil chemistry, groundwater chemistry and vegetation cover across several islands indicate that many islands form as a result of the subsurface precipitation of calcite and probably amorphous silica, which prod...
Vegetation on islands in the perennial swamps of the Okavango Delta exhibits a marked zonation pattern. Island fringes are generally characterized by a broadleaf evergreen riparian community of Syzigium cordatum, Ficus verruculosa, F. natalensis, F. sycamorus, Phoenix reclinata, Garcinia livingstonei and Diospyros mespiliformis. This gives way towa...
The relationships between vegetation, hydrology, and the landscape‐forming processes of erosion and deposition are examined in channels of the northeastern Okavango Delta, Botswana. Channel development appears to be due to the confinement of rapid water movement by vegetation processes and peat formation in backswamp areas. The channels have sandy...
Computer-processed multispectral SPOT satellite images covering part of the Okavango Delta provide an extremely useful tool for studying this large, remote wetland. In particular, a transformed vegetation index (TVI) was found to be semi-quantitatively related to standing crop in turn, related to resource availability and, hence, indirectly to loca...
Carbon isotope techniques were used to determine the photosynthetic pathway of a number of wetland plant species. The relative cover abundances of C3 and C4 plants were compared along a successional sequence of the Maunachira River system of the Okavango Delta. Plants with a C3 photosynthetic pathway were dominant in early successional stages and C...
Based on phytosociological data, a polythetic divisive classification technique resulted in the delineation of eight broad vegetation types in the back-swamp areas of the Maunachira River System of the Okavango Delta, Botswana. A detrended correspondence analysis indicated that water depth was the major environmental factor influencing the distribu...
Two types of sudds, organic and plant sudds, form in the back-swamp communities of the Maunachira river system in the Okavango Delta. Floating organic sudds, which form as a result of gas production in the benthic detrital aggregate, provide an exposed surface for plant colonization. The sequence of establishment of plants is determined largely by...
The Okavango Delta is a large land-locked alluvial fan located in the northwestern part of the semi-arid Kalahari basin of northern Botswana. The geographic position of the Okavango system is controlled by a southwest extension of the East African rift system; sediment is presently accumulating in a graben defined by northeast-bounding faults. Depo...
The Okavango Delta is a large (18000 km2), low gradient (1:3600), alluvial fan situated in the semi-arid Kalahari basin of northern Botswana. Seasonal floodwaters from tropical Angola disperse on the fan creating both perennial (6000 km2) and seasonal (7000 to 12000 km2) swamps. Ninety-five percent of this water is lost annually by evapotranspirati...
The progressive abandonment and desiccation of the lower Nqoga River system and its associated vegetation‐covered peat deposits, has resulted in the development of subsurface peat fires. These appear to have been burning within the study area for decades and consist of a mosaic of burning fronts, the first of which burns to a depth of up to 15 cm....
Distributary channel switching is a relatively frequent event in the upper reaches of the Okavango Delta-fan, Botswana. This phenomenon was investigated by means of detailed topographic surveys and excavations along an abandoned channel and depth probing along an active channel system. This work has confirmed that channel switching is the result of...
Two varieties of fluvial sandstones are associated with coal seams in the Permian Witbank Coalfield of South Africa. The first comprises lenticular channel-fill sandstone, minor conglomerate and siltstone encased entirely within the coal seam. Medium- to coarse-grained arkosic sandstones are structured by planar cross-bedding and fine upwards into...
Natural revegetation on the asbestos tailings at Msauli Mine is negligible. Lack of available phosphorus, potassium and calcium, extremely alkaline conditions and surface crusting were shown to be the principal limitations to plant establishment. In a series of pot plant experiments the application of soil, substantial quantities of gypsum to reduc...
Thesis (M. Sc.) - University of Witwatersrand, 1987. Bibl.
