Elizabeth Archer

Food insecurity is a student-success, equity and well-being concern in South African higher education. At historically disadvantaged institutions, the issue is shaped by national patterns of inequality, the transition from school-based nutrition support to more fragmented post-school support, and the limits of using income or funding status alone as a proxy for basic needs. This study examines the prevalence and severity of food insecurity among students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and explores demographic and socio-economic patterns associated with vulnerability. An anonymous online census survey was administered to registered UWC students between March and September 2023. The survey combined demographic questions with the eight-item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). Responses were analysed descriptively and through Rasch-based FIES procedures to examine prevalence, item severity, residual correlations and comparability with the global reference scale. Among 655 valid FIES cases, 66% of respondents were classified as experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity; 49% were classified as severely food insecure. The item hierarchy indicated a progression from anxiety about food access and limited dietary variety to skipped meals, hunger and going a whole day without eating. Descriptive subgroup patterns showed higher mean food insecurity scores among students with no formal income and those relying on government grants, and higher mean scores among African and Coloured students than among Indian and White students. Here, ‘Coloured’ is capitalised and used in its specific South African context to denote a recognised population group and social identity, not in the derogatory sense the word may carry elsewhere. Food insecurity at UWC is not a marginal welfare issue but a basic-needs constraint on learning and participation. Institutional responses should therefore connect food relief, financial aid advising, psychosocial support, data-informed referral systems, and sustainable campus food initiatives, while recognising the structural limits of what a single university can resolve on its own.

Background: Rehabilitation is a central objective of correctional services in South Africa, intended to support behavioural change, reduce recidivism and contribute to successful reintegration. Despite this mandate, concerns regarding persistent recidivism and prison overcrowding remain. Less is known about how incarcerated individuals themselves experience rehabilitation and make sense of it. Aim: To explore how incarcerated individuals describe and make sense of their experiences of rehabilitation within a South African correctional setting. Methods: Forty repeat‐offending men serving custodial sentences at Leeuwkop Correctional Centre, South Africa, and having taken part in some rehabilitation programmes there, agreed to participate in semi‐structured interviews about their experiences of the rehabilitation work. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Findings were partially validated through interviews with eight professional staff members who had been delivering aspects of the rehabilitation work. Themes were subsequently interpreted using the Sense of Coherence framework. Results: Prisoner participants described shifts in self‐perception, including increased self‐awareness, a greater sense of personal responsibility and more future‐oriented perspectives. These experiences broadly fit with the Sense of Coherence components of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Such shifts were not, however, uniform and were often described as tentative and shaped by contextual constraints. Conclusion: Rehabilitation was experienced not only as a behavioural intervention but also as a process of meaning‐making and identity reconstruction. By applying the Sense of Coherence framework as a postanalytic interpretive lens, this study offers a novel way of understanding how incarcerated individuals experience rehabilitation and perhaps internalise key aspects of it. Further longitudinal research is needed to examine the sustainability of these perceived changes over time.

The academic world has undergone significant transformations as we navigated the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The global pandemic has forced academic institutions to rapidly adopt new ways of teaching, learning and conducting research. In this editorial, we present a curated list of articles from various authors, highlighting different facets of the changes experienced in academic institutions. In this issue of our academic journal, we present a collection of articles exploring various aspects of higher education during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. These articles provide valuable insights into the challenges students and educators face and the strategies and solutions developed to address these challenges. The articles are presented under three themes: challenges and opportunities towards an engaged university during COVID-19; student wellbeing and belonging; student-staff participation, technology and praxis.

Assessment and learning analytics both collect, analyse and use student data, albeit different types of data and to some extent, for various purposes. Based on the data collected and analysed, learning analytics allow for decisions to be made not only with regard to evaluating progress in achieving learning outcomes but also evaluative judgments about the quality of learning. Learning analytics fall in the nexus between assessment of and for learning. As such it has the potential to deliver value in the form of (1) understanding student learning, (2) analysing learning behaviour (looking to identify not only factors that may indicate risk of failing, but for opportunities to deepen learning), (3) predicting students-at-risk (or identifying where students have specific learning needs), and (4) prescribing elements to be included to ensure not only the effectiveness of teaching, but also of learning. Learning analytics have underlying default positions that may not only skew their impact but also impact negatively on students in realising their potential. We examine a selection of default positions and point to how these positions/assumptions may adversely affect students’ chances of success, deepening the understanding of learning.

During this age of data proliferation, heavy reliance is placed on data visualisation to support users in making sense of vast quantities of information. Informational Dashboards have become the must have accoutrement for Higher Education institutions with various stakeholders jostling for development priority. Due to the time pressure and user demands, the focus of development process is often on designing for each stakeholder and the visual and navigational aspects. Dashboards are designed to make data visually appealing and easy to relate and understand; unfortunately this may mask data issues and create an impression of rigour where it is not justified. This article proposes that the underlying logic behind current dashboard development is limited in the flexibility, scalability, and responsiveness required in the demanding landscape of Big Data and Analytics and explores an alternative approach to data visualisation and sense making. It suggests that the first step required to address these issues is the development of an enriched database which integrates key indicators from various data sources. The database is designed for problem exploration allowing users freedom in navigating between various data-levels, which can then be overlaid with any user interface for dashboard generation for a multitude of stakeholders. Dashboards merely become tools providing users and indication of types of data available for exploration. A Design Research approach is shown, along with a case study to illustrate the benefits, showcasing various views developed for diverse stakeholders employing this approach, specifically the the Digital Decision Network Application (DigitalDNA) employed at Unisa.

This article introduces the concept of the Assessment Purposes Triangle in order to illustrate the balancing of purposes that needs to be considered in assessment for educational quality. The triangle is a visual aid for stakeholders making value judgements about equitable resource allocation in an environment of scarcity. The article argues that each of the three basic purposes of assessment, Assessment to support learning; Assessment for accountability; Assessment for certification, progress and transfer need to enjoy appropriate attention to support quality education. Accountability and certification, progress and transfer are inherently high stakes due to systemic pressures such as institutional funding, accreditation with various bodies, legislative requirements, national and international competition, and public and media pressure. It is thus likely that resources will be diverted to these purposes from the lower stakes Assessment to support learning. The article illustrates the inherent dangers of over-emphasising certain purposes to the detriment of others in any educational system. It also discusses the power inherent in assessment and argues for a harnessing of this power for quality education through catering for the three basic assessment purposes in an equitable manner. All actors in an educational system should be cognizant of the goals of the education system as a whole when developing and engaging with assessment. The article provides a conceptual tool for stakeholders in educational assessment to engage with these goals when considering the allocation of appropriate resources to each of the assessment purposes.

Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged within the context of open education which is typically characterized by the sharing of knowledge and resources and the exchange of ideas. Unisa as a mega open distance learning (ODL) university has publicly communicated its intention to take part in the use and creation of OER. As global and local university research on OER is limited, this prompted an investigation to gauge the uptake of OER at Unisa, by staff, with the purpose of institutional information gathering for decision making and planning in this area. During 2014, a survey was undertaken for this reason. The survey examined knowledge of OER, Intellectual Property (IP) Rights and Licensing, participation in OER, barriers to OER and OER in the Unisa context with a view to determining the stage at which the institution is in terms of adopting and engaging with the OER initiative. The results indicated that although there is knowledge and understanding of OER, this has not been converted into active participation. It further highlighted the barriers that are prohibiting the operationalization of OER and resulted in recommendations for planning and activities in respect of OER. The constructs investigated and the results thereof might not be generalizable to other contexts, although commonalities are likely. The insights should prove useful to a variety of contexts. The paper illustrates the need for institutions, irrespective of context, to take stock of the impact of initiatives and in this case evaluate how the institution and staff mature through various phases in the uptake of OER in order to guide effective planning, decision making and implementation.

In the context of the hype, promise and perils of Big Data and the currently dominant paradigm of data-driven decision-making, it is important to critically engage with the potential of Big Data for higher education. We do not question the potential of Big Data, but we do raise a number of issues, and present a number of theses to be seriously considered in realising this potential.The University of South Africa (Unisa) is one of the mega ODL institutions in the world with more than 360,000 students and a range of courses and programmes. Unisa already has access to a staggering amount of student data, hosted in disparate sources, and governed by different processes. As the university moves to mainstreaming online learning, the amount of and need for analyses of data are increasing, raising important questions regarding our assumptions, understanding, data sources, systems and processes.This article presents a descriptive case study of the current state of student data at Unisa, as well as explores the impact of existing data sources and analytic approaches. From the analysis it is clear that in order for big(ger) data to be better data, a number of issues need to be addressed. The article concludes by presenting a number of theses that should form the basis for the imperative to optimise the harvesting, analysis and use of student data.

Student success and retention is a primary goal of higher education institutions across the world. The cost of student failure and dropout in higher education is multifaceted including, amongst other things, the loss of revenue, prestige, and stakeholder trust for both institutions and students. Interventions to address this are complex and varied. While the dominant thrust has been to investigate academic and non-academic risk factors thus applying a “risk” lens, equal attention should be given to exploring the characteristics of successful students which expands the focus to include “requirements for success”.Based on a socio-critical model for understanding of student success and retention, the University of South Africa (Unisa) initiated a pilot project to benchmark successful students’ habits and behaviours using a tool employed in business settings, namely Shadowmatch®.The original focus was on finding a theoretically valid measured for habits and behaviours to examine the critical aspect of student agency in the social critical model. Although this was not the focus of the pilot, concerns regarding using a commercial tool in an academic setting overshadowed the process. This paper provides insights into how academic-business collaboration could allow an institution to be more dynamic and flexible in supporting its student population.

There has been an increased emphasis on providing schools with feedback on performance of learners with the aim of improving the quality of education. However, if feedback on learner performance is to be effectively used by schools, then it is important to understand what the informational needs of the schools are and whether schools can access the information. Thus, one research question is posed in this article namely: How can the current presentation of performance data captured in the school reports and feedback sessions be improved? The conceptual framework for the study draws on evaluation studies focusing on the use and usefulness of information. Methodologically, design research using mixed methods was employed. A needs analysis of what information was essential was undertaken. Six primary and secondary schools were purposively sampled to participate in the needs analysis from which the first prototype of the report and feedback sessions was developed. This needs analysis was comprised of interviews. The second phase included a sample of 22 primary and 21 secondary schools. Data for this phase was collected by means of Delphi questionnaires. The data was analysed using content analysis using a variety of coding strategies. One of the significant findings speaks to the view that schools felt the current content was appropriate but that individual school information could be included for the schools requesting additional information.Keywords: use, feedback, design research, nominal group technique, DELPHI questionnaires, reports, feedback sessions, supportDisciplines: education studies, further education studies, information studies