Zach Simpson

University of Johannesburg | uj · Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment

Reimagining South African Higher Education: Towards a Student-Centred Learning and Teaching Future provides progressive approaches and innovations that challenge readers to rethink student learning, engagement, support, and teaching. The book offers examples of evidence-informed and scholarly approaches to centring students through enhanced learnin...

This study examines the experiences of students from rural backgrounds in higher education in South Africa in order to foster more equitable access and participation. Edward Soja’s notion of spatial justice provides a platform for thinking about rurality and its impact on access and success in HE. Soja’s trialectical account means understanding rur...

The transition to university is complex and plays an essential role in determining students’ success in higher education. In South Africa and other global South contexts, students come from diverse backgrounds, and many have to cross what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls an 'abyssal line'. Students in university in 2020 experienced an abrupt additi...

The notion of “resources” is often framed in an economic sense: money, time, equipment and the like. The authors reconceptualise this notion, situating resources as embedded in curricular frameworks, teacher practice and student experience. This leads them to define resources as “the potential to participate in socio-cultural action” which is illus...

Quantitative literacy is the ability to solve problems using mathematical and statistical information that is represented in various forms, including visual, written and mathematical forms. It is central to many of the disciplines within higher education. In this paper, we examine a particular quantitative literacy event within an undergraduate app...

This paper examines semiotic technologies, both in terms of the resources they harness and the practices developed around their use. It draws on data collected as part of an ethnographic investigation into the meaning-making practices deployed within civil engineering study. The data is used as a case study for examining semiotic technologies as so...

Incidents within the civil engineering profession (structural collapses, collusion, and the like) draw attention to the need for ethical conduct on the part of civil engineering practitioners. This paper explores ethical action in first-year civil engineering study. This is done to discuss the role of universities in the development of civil engine...

Amongst the first of the challenges facing prospective first-year university students is the need to procure funding for their studies. Indeed, demand for funding for students to access higher education far exceeds supply in South Africa. One solution has been the creation of a government loan scheme, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFA...

South Africa faces the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality, as well as looming problems regarding water, energy and food. Science, technology and engineering are able to address some of these challenges but are often inaccessible and unfamiliar to the general public. Research and innovation in these fields needs to be increased, and...

Engineering graduates require high-level cognitive abilities such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation to fulfill their obligations to society. But universities have not always been successful in developing such abilities. This paper questions whether engineering students in a civil engineering degree program at a university in South Africa are be...

If South Africa’s Gauteng Province is to become a more ‘sustainable’, urbanised region, attention needs to be paid to building a transportation network that aligns with sustainable development principles. Currently, public transport passenger levels are low, whilst the geographical area it serves is large and becoming larger. This study analysed th...

Different methodological approaches allow varying access to the objects of inquiry and enable one to ask different kinds of questions. This paper explores the possibilities that emerge through the combination of multimodal social semiotics and autoethnography. We discuss the epistemological and methodological bases for each approach and show the po...

This research describes a pilot project which aimed to introduce CDIO-type (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate), project-based learning through a community-based project in a third year Material Science module. The project formed part of an agriculture research initiative, and relied on interdisciplinary research collaboration between engineering, s...

The question raised by Cheney and Christensen (2001) as to “what a non-Western, non-managerial and non-rationalist form of public relations will look like” (p.182), together with the call made by Gregory (2014) for public relations practitioners (PRPs) to be active social change agents, motivated this paper. The aim of this research is to follow a...

Multimodality in Higher Education showcases new directions in multimodal research and also focuses on teaching multimodal text production and writing pedagogy. It theorizes writing practices and writing pedagogy in Higher Educational contexts from a multimodal perspective.

The expectations placed on students with respect to appropriate academic writing may hinder successful participation in Higher Education. Full participation is further complicated by the fact that each discipline within the University constitutes its own community of practice, with its own set of literacy practices. While Writing Centres aim to hel...

Research conducted by the authors involving Writing Centre consultants and first-year science students at their university revealed that assessment rubrics may not serve as effective assessment mediation tools. This prompted a reflection on the use of rubrics at their university. To this end, a research project was developed, the aim of which was t...

Academic writing is the primary means of assessing university students and feedback (oral or written responses) on writing can contribute significantly to student learning and success (Ferris, 2003; Hyland & Hyland, 2006). This study explores students’ expectations of feedback on draft writing. The research design was two-pronged. The initial quant...

Engineers spend considerable time communicating technical details to various audiences. This requires communicative competence which is linked to the underlying knowledge and skills in the engineering disciplines. The metaphor 'holes in the cheese' is used to describe a particular group of reading and writing competencies which are not yet adequate...

During and prior to professional registration with the Engineering Council of South Africa, engineering graduates are expected to engage in advanced literacy practices which represent a high level of cognitive demand. This process is the final 'gate' through which engineering graduates must pass in order to be acknowledged as professional engineers...

Today’s increasingly complex engineering workplace demands skill in evaluation, reasoning and critical thinking; however, engineering curricula often test lower-order learning at the expense of higher-order reasoning. This paper analyzes the level of cognitive demand in a course on Material Science in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Scienc...

Language is one of the means through which social identities are presented. As an instance of language-in-use, metaphor can be seen as ‘performance’ of social identity. In this paper, I analyse post-graduate student writers’ metaphors for academic writing. In so doing, I offer ‘glimpses’ of these writers’ understandings of academic writing and thei...