Lindelani Mnguni- PhD
- Professor at University of Pretoria
Lindelani Mnguni
- PhD
- Professor at University of Pretoria
About
44
Publications
41,362
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388
Citations
Introduction
I endeavor to bridge the gap between theoretical scientific knowledge and its practical application in everyday life.
Current projects include:
A. Exploration of strategies for effectively integrating Artificial Intelligence tools and visual models in life science education to enhance content understanding.
B. Investigation of the role of teachers in improving the application of scientific knowledge in HIV prevention and COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among students.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
December 2016 - present
September 2015 - November 2016
January 2008 - September 2013
Education
January 2008 - December 2011
Publications
Publications (44)
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of health literacy, where pre-service Life Sciences teachers can promote safe behavioral practices such as vaccination. However, the health information sources influencing their behavioral intentions toward vaccination are poorly understood. This study examines how different sources imp...
The integration of Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) in biology education offers transformative potential, yet teacher preparedness for AI remains under-researched. This study explores the perceived benefits of AI integration and self-reported Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge ( TPACK ) among pre-service biology teachers from a South African...
South Africa faces significant challenges with science literacy as evidenced by inadequate application of scientific knowledge to everyday challenges, including health crises such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. Addressing these challenges requires adopting a science education framework that integrates scientific knowledge with ethical, societal, and cul...
This paper explores pre-service life sciences teachers’ behavioral intentions toward integrating artificial intelligence into life sciences teaching. Despite the growing influence of AI in education, there is limited understanding of the factors affecting teachers’ willingness to integrate AI into life sciences teaching. These factors could inform...
The adoption of multimedia learning tools, including visual models in biochemistry, has increased considerably over the last few decades. Adopting these tools necessitates the development of visual literacy competencies, such as visuospatial reasoning, for students to learn effectively. The extent to which biochemistry students have the necessary v...
South Africa faces healthcare challenges due to inefficiencies, resource constraints, and disease burden. The AfriMEDS curriculum framework was adopted as part of curriculum reform to facilitate the training of comprehensive healthcare professionals capable of addressing healthcare challenges. However, the curriculum ideologies underlying this fram...
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of a multifaceted public health approach. Promoting health literacy and safe behaviour to reduce disease spread can be an effective social vaccine. However, the role of science teachers as part of a social vaccine is unclear. Similarly, their responses to health crises and the factors affecting such...
Science teachers could play a vital role in promoting health literacy and safe behaviors to limit the spread of communicable diseases. However, there is limited research concerning their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward diseases, such as COVID-19. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework, we employed a non-experimental survey t...
Life Sciences Education has become increasingly important in today's rapidly changing world, as it equips students with the knowledge and skills needed to tackle complex global challenges in various biology fields. With the emergence of Web 3.0 and Artificial Intelligence (AI), numerous opportunities exist to revolutionize Life Sciences Education a...
The democratically elected government of South Africa has enacted several curricular reforms which sought to promote citizenship education. By instituting citizenship education, the government intended to promote student engagement in decision-making, rebuilding, and emancipation of society. The curriculum would facilitate the training of students...
Integrating environmental education into the school curriculum in South Africa remains a concern. Various curriculum and instructional design factors affecting environmental education have been explored. However, the role of curriculum leadership in environmental education is not well understood despite research that shows that curriculum leadershi...
Decades after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm declared environmental education (EE) an essential tool to mitigate environmental challenges, the implementation of EE still faces many obstacles. Accordingly, innovative, and solution-oriented approaches remain vital to enable environment-driven pedagogy in...
Recent research in social sciences and education shows that a significant number of studies are neither reproducible nor repeatable. This compromises the validity, reliability and trustworthiness of these studies, as they violate the prescriptions of the nature of science. This lack of validity, reliability and trustworthiness could be due to poorl...
Continued environmental degradation necessitates innovative strategies to improve society’s attitude towards and understanding of recycling solid waste. Previous research has shown that school-based projects integrated into the school curriculum could effectively enhance learners’ knowledge of recycling and attitudes towards recycling. However, not...
School science subjects may be informed by curriculum ideologies such as discipline-centered, service-centered, student-centered, or citizen-centered ideologies. The distinct characteristics of each ideology complicate the extent to which science subjects could integrate different curriculum ideologies. Consequently, the present research explored h...
Using external representations (ERs) to foster content understanding in biology education has increased as they allow for the visualization of abstract biological phenomena. However, the extent to which students have visualization skills required to learn from ERs effectively remains an open question. The current quantitative quasi-experimental res...
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education curriculum and instructional design continuously undergo reforms that aim to prepare learners for the challenges of the 21st century (Hoeg & Bencze, 2017; Pietarinen et al., 2017). In particular, STEM education has adopted strategies that integrate modern technologies in teaching an...
Visuo-semiotic models, such as Lewis structures and ball & stick models, are widely used to enhance students’ learning. However, there is limited research about the impact of these models on specific visuo-semiotic reasoning skills. In the current research, we aimed to determine the extent to which physical molecular models could enhance specific v...
This Commentary is a response to a Commentary published in the May/June 2020 issue:
Nattrass N. Why are black South African students less likely to consider studying biological sciences? S Afr J Sci. 2020;116(5/6), Art. #7864, 2 pages. https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2020/7864
Responses to the Commentary in the May/June 2020 issue have been publish...
South Africa and Indonesia are currently implementing revised school curricula, which are informed by various socio-scientific, political, and economic imperatives related to global educational reform. Teacher preparedness to implement these curriculum reforms could be affected by their teaching philosophies and preferred curriculum ideologies. The...
Background: Research suggests that the South African school curriculum, including subjects such as Life Sciences, may be failing to address students’ socio-scientific challenges such as HIV/AIDS. This could be due to the curriculum ideology that foregrounds content presented in the school subjects and related instructional designs. Given the increa...
Social accountability has been accepted as a framework, through which the needs of communities are prioritized in all education systems. However, there are considerable differences in the needs of communities in resource restrained communities compared with well resources communities. Consequently, there is a need for a specific theoretical framewo...
Science is generally expected to respond to students and societal needs by adopting student and social accountability principles. Therefore, school science curricula are revised regularly to address emerging socio-economic, political, and scientific issues. Similarly, the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement of South Africa was intro...
A number of factors have been cited as responsible for the poor performance in maths and science in South Africa including teacher and learner motivation, availability of resources, teacher training and socioeconomic status of learners and schools. What is puzzling however is that compared to Mathematics and Physics, Biology learners have constantl...
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa in 2016 was highest since 2006 in spite of numerous programs, which are aimed at reducing risk behaviour, eliminating stigma and promoting disclosure about HIV infections. The South African government has mandated the integration of HIV/AIDS education in the biology curriculum. Previous research however sh...
South Africa has had several curriculum reforms since the commencement of a democratic dispensation, which were aimed at redressing the inequalities and injustices of the apartheid regime by introducing citizenship education. In the present research, the researcher investigated the curriculum ideology of two science subjects, Natural Sciences and L...
South Africa has adopted the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement curriculum, which is aimed at promoting citizenship education. However, the extent to which teachers subscribe to the same ideology has yet to be investigated. The current study explored the curriculum ideology recommended by teachers in Life Sciences, in order to determine the...
The use of visual models in teaching, learning and research has increased. Consequently, students have to develop various new competencies including visual literacy in order to learn efficiently. However, visual literacy among biochemistry students is not well documented. Using quantitative research methodology, the current research was aimed at de...
In spite of integrating HIV/AIDS education in South African curricula the prevalence of HIV in 2016 was the highest since 2002. HIV infection rate is particularly high among schoolgirls compared with boys. Using a closed-ended questionnaire, this quantitative survey research compared Biology and non-Biology schoolgirls’ (n=291) behavioural intentio...
Scholars recommend an integration of socioscientific issues (SSIs) into science education to ensure that students have sufficient content knowledge and skills for everyday argumentation, decision making and problem solving. Curricula must adopt a social reconstruction ideology to increase awareness of social challenges related to SSIs and the use o...
Curriculum reforms aimed at redressing the inequalities and injustices of the apartheid regime by
introducing citizenship education have been implemented in South Africa by the democratic government. In
the current study the researcher investigated the curriculum ideology of two biology subjects, namely,
Natural Sciences & Technology and Life Sci...
In the field of biochemistry, the use of external representations such as static diagrams and animations
has increased rapidly in recent years. However, their effectiveness as instructional tools can be hindered
if students lack the visual literacy and cognitive skills necessary for processing and interpreting such
representations. We aimed to iden...
The potential of science to transform lives has been highlighted by a number of scholars. This means that
critical socio-scientific issues (SSIs) must be integrated into science curricula. Development of context-specific
scientific knowledge and twenty-first-century learning skills in science education could be used
to address SSIs such as communic...
Debates on the role of scientific knowledge to affect behaviour are continuing. The theory of planned
behaviour suggests that behaviour is influenced by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural
control and not by knowledge. However, a large body of knowledge argues that increased HIV/AIDSrelated
knowledge leads to the adoption of safe...
The use of visual models such as pictures, diagrams and animations in science education is increasing. This is because of the complex nature associated with the concepts in the field. Students, especially entrant students, often report misconceptions and learning difficulties associated with various concepts especially those that exist at a microsc...
HIV/AIDS education should empower students to create knowledge using everyday life experiences. Such knowledge should then be used to construe experience and resolve social problems such as risk behaviour that leads to infection. In South Africa, attempts to reduce the spread of HIV include incorporating HIV/AIDS education in the biology curriculum...
South Africa has had a number of curriculum reforms since 1994 which have been based on both political and education grounds. However, there is a dearth of knowledge about the nature of the envisioned graduates, especially with respect to social challenges. This can be addressed by exploring the curriculum ideology which outlines the vision of subj...
The use of external representations, such as diagrams and animations, for teaching and learning in biochemistry, has rapidly increased over the past decade. Some research has shown that ERs can have a superior learning advantage over text alone, while other studies have indicated that external representations can cause and expose various visual lit...
Questions
Questions (3)
To what extent do academics understand the purpose & function of the university? Here's something to read:
Potter, V. R., Baerreis, D. A., Bryson, R. A., Curvin, J. W., Johansen, G., McLeod, J., ... & Symon, K. R. (1970). Purpose and Function of the University. Science, 167(3925), 1590-1593.
European Journal of....
American Journal of...
Asian Journal of...
Australasian Journal of...
African Journal of...
Is it necessary to regionalize science? What does it achieve?
A theoretical framework is (usually) an integral part of research in social sciences, including education. It is often placed in the introduction section of a research paper. However, should it be placed in the introduction section or methodology section?
Cresswell (2014) suggests that 'research methodology' refers broadly to the philosophical and theoretical perspectives that frame research methods, approaches, and designs. Somekh and Lewin (2005, p. 346) also argue that research methodology is "the collection of methods or rules by which a particular piece of research is undertaken" as well as the "principles, theories, and values that underpin a particular approach to research." Mackenzie and Knipe (2006, p. 5), also state that “methodology is the overall approach to research linked to the paradigm or theoretical framework while the method refers to systematic modes, procedures or tools used for collection and analysis of data.” These views suggest therefore, that a theoretical framework is part of the broader research methodology which should be used to guide, frame, and explain the entire research study. As colleagues at my former university would say, "a theoretical framework is a lens through which the entire study is viewed".
Given these views, where should a theoretical framework be placed? I argue, as demonstrated in a paper submitted recently, that it should be part of the Research Methodology section. This way, researchers can demonstrate coherently how the theoretical framework inform their methods, and approaches, including sampling, data collection and data analysis as well as interpretation of the results.
Alternatively, the question could be: is it wrong (I use the term "wrong" deliberately), to place the theoretical framework in the methodology section?
