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Education students present research at Faculty’s Annual Postgraduate Research Conference

23 October 2023 | Story André Damons | Photo Rosina Mothiba

“Exploring Grade 12 learners’ substance abuse and its influence on their academic performance”, “The role of the School Management Team in addressing Homophobic Bullying in Xhariep public schools” and “Exploring the use of YouTube videos in the teaching and learning of fractions in Grade 4.”

These were some of the interesting research titles that were presented at this year’s University of the Free State’s (UFS) Faculty of Education Annual Postgraduate Research Conference. The two-day conference, now in its fifth year, took place from 6-7 October with the theme “Changing the Educational Landscape in Africa through ongoing research”. The conference is one of the faculty’s main events supporting its postgraduate students and ensuring time for completion for each one of them.

A total of 145 postgraduate students and 55 staff members attended the conference where the faculty’s postgraduate students get exposure to present their research in front of an academic audience.

Prof Loyiso Jita, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, delivered the keynote address and spoke at length about the graduation rates of master’s and doctoral students in the faculty. He challenged the presenters to hold themselves and each other accountable for progression in their studies and to produce high-quality research that will position them and the university in good stead nationally and internationally.

New teaching approach

In the study “Exploring the use of YouTube videos in the teaching and learning of fractions in Grade 4”, MB Tsoaela (PhD student), explores the teaching and learning of fractions using YouTube videos in Grade 4. In trying to answer the main research question, “How do Grade 4 educators teach fractions utilising YouTube videos?” The researcher states that: “The use of YouTube videos is a very new way of learning in the South African context. This new teaching approach has proven to be exciting for young learners in Grade 4 because it has many options like animations, colourful videos, and pictures. Even though YouTube learning is exciting and fun, its implementation has challenges such as teachers wanting to use a chalkboard. Another challenge is the current load shedding.”

Psychosocial implications of school violence

Another PhD student, MDL Stack, investigated how to design an assessment for Higher Education that ChatGPT is unable to provide an answer that will pass without human intervention in his research paper titled “Investigating an assessment design that prevents students from using ChatGPT as the sole basis to pass assessment in Higher Education at undergraduate level”. He argued that “ChatGPT has presented significant challenges to lecturers when they set assessments at tertiary level.

“There is enormous potential for students to attempt to use ChatGPT to write and pass assessments designed at undergraduate level,” the researcher writes.

Another research paper looked at the psychosocial implications of school violence on teachers in Motheo District public schools in the Free State, arguing that school violence against teachers continues to be a phenomenon that is increasingly disturbing, while having serious implications on South African and global societies. Many teachers suffer social and psychological stress but not much has been done to understand learner-induced violence against teachers.

Exposure for students

Prof Matseliso Mokhele-Makgalwa, the acting Vice-Dean Research and Postgraduate Studies, says the purpose of the conference is to give exposure to master’s and PhD students to present their work in front of an academic audience (staff and students) as well as for them to get comments and feedback from experts and fellow students on their on-going research studies.

“The conference is about sharing the ongoing research being done by our master’s and doctoral students and/or reporting on their preliminary and final outcomes of the students who are about to graduate. By presenting their work, they disseminate key findings, build relations with other students and staff, and create inter- and multi-disciplinary networks for future collaborations,” says Mokhele-Makgalwa.

News Archive

Research project gives insight into the world of the deaf

2005-11-30

Mr Akach in conversation (using sign language) with his assistant Ms Emily Matabane. Photo: Lacea Loader

UFS research project gives insight into the world of the deaf

The Sign Language Division of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies and Language Practice and Sign Language has signed a bilateral research project with the universities of Ghent and Brussels to write a book on sign language.

“We want to compare the Belgium and South African sign languages with each other. The book will be about the deaf telling us about themselves and how they live. It will also focus on the use of story telling techniques and the grammar used by deaf people. We want to see if the hand forms and the grammatical markers and other linguistic features that deaf people from these two countries use are the same or not,” said Mr Philemon Akach, lecturer at the UFS Sign Language Division and coordinator of the research.

According to Mr Akach, the sign language community in South Africa, with about 600 000 deaf people who use South African Sign Language (SASL) as first language, is quite big. “Over and above the deaf people in South Africa, there are also the non-deaf who use SASL, like the children of deaf parents etc. This book can therefore be used to teach people about the deaf culture,” he added.

Another of Mr Akach’s achievements is his election as Vice-President of the newly established World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI). The association was established earlier this month during a conference in Worcester.

Mr Akach has been actively involved with sign language interpretation since 1986 and has been interpreting at the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) since 1987. “My appointment as Vice-President of the WASLI is an emotional one. I have been involved with deaf people for so long and have been trying to create awareness and obtain recognition for sign language, especially in Africa,” said Mr Akach. WASLI is affiliated to the WFD.

According to Mr Akach there was no formal structure in the world to support sign language and sign language interpreters. “Now we have the backup of WASLI and we can convince governments in other African countries and across the world to support deaf people by supporting WASLI and therefore narrow the communication gap between the deaf and the hearing. My main aim as Vice-President is to endeavour for the recognition of sign language and spoken language interpreters as a profession by governments,” he said.

According to Mr Akach the formal training of interpreters is of vital importance. “Anybody who has a deaf person in his/her family and can communicate in sign language can claim that they are an interpreter. This is not true. It is tantamount to think that all mother tongue or first language speakers are interpreters. Likewise students who learn sign language up to whatever level and are fluent in signing, should still join an interpreter’s programme,” he said.

“Sign language interpreting is a profession and should be presented as an academic course alongside other spoken languages. The UFS has been taking the lead with sign language and spoken language interpretation and was the first university on the African continent to introduce sign language as an academic course,” he said.

“Although sign language has always been an unknown language to young people it has become quite popular in recent years. This year we had a total of 160 students at the Sign Language Section of the UFS and the numbers seem to increase steadily every year,” he said.

Mr Akach’s assistant, Ms Emily Matabane, is deaf and they communicate in sign language. Ms Matabane also handles the tutorials with students to give them hands-on experience on how to use sign language.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
30 November 2005

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