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Background: Engineering culture research to date has described the culture as rigid, chilly, and posing many barriers to entry. However, the COVID-19 pandemic provided an important opportunity to explore how engineering culture responds to a major disruption. Purpose: The purposes of this study are to understand how elements of engineering culture emerged in mechanical engineering students' perceptions of their classroom experiences during the pandemic and how their experiences varied across two national contexts. Method: This qualitative comparative case study examines undergraduate mechanical engineering students' perceptions of their experiences taking courses during the pandemic at two universities--one in the United States and one in South Africa. Semistructured interviews were conducted across both sites with 21 students and contextualized with 3 faculty member interviews. Student interviews were analyzed using an iterative process of deductive coding, inductive coding, and pattern coding. Results: We identified two key themes that characterized participants' experiences during the pandemic: hardness and access to resources. We found that students at both sites experienced two types of hardness--intrinsic and constructed--and were more critical of constructed forms of hardness. We found that the South African university's response to facilitating student access to resources was viewed by students as more effective when compared with the US university. Conclusions: We found that hardness remained a central feature of engineering culture, based on student perceptions, and found that students expressed awareness of resource-related differences. A key distinction emerged between intrinsic and constructed hardness.

The question of whether academic development and higher education research can be considered fields is one of ongoing significance, centred on debates about knowledge-building. This study analyses the published outputs of a highly influential South African scholar, Suellen Shay, to identify the characteristic modes of knowledge generation that she used. The analysis of a dataset of nine key articles shows how Shay's work arose from daily concerns in her work in academic development at the University of Cape Town, but was always located in the context of international debates, and intentionally recruited theoretical tools for defining and addressing research questions. Shay traversed departmental, institutional and national contexts with ease, and a narrative overview of these articles shows an intentional and forward-moving direction in her focus. Finally, we show how this analysis of her work maps onto changing modes in academic development over the first two decades of the twenty-first century.

Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the legacy of apartheid. The present study uses a social realist perspective to analyse the 25-year evolution of an academic development project within an engineering department at a South African university. The findings show that while academic development initially posed a contradictory logic to the department, the response was to reform the nature of this project into one that suited the other commitments of the department: a logic of complementarity. The department's relationships with industry were shown to have played a key role in fostering this form of change.

Self-authorship, describing a synthesis of intellectual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal development, remains an evident but elusive goal of college education. I sought to track self-authorship in a racially diverse group of 30 young South African engineering graduates. In discussing their career trajectories, all individuals demonstrated independence and responsibility. Explicit expressions of self-authorship were identified in 9 individuals, and these were analyzed in more detail. The study confirms the central role of dissonant experiences in producing self-authorship and points to the potential role of a demanding academic program such as engineering. Furthermore, the study also extends the emerging findings regarding the prevalence of self-authorship among graduates of color.

In contemporary times there is a renewed focus on the purposes of university education in science or engineering, especially in emerging economy contexts like South Africa where the massification of higher education is in its early stages. The contributions by Muller ("High Educ" 70(3):409-416, 2015) and Walker ("High Educ" 70(3):417-425,2015) both recognise the crucial importance of expanding epistemological access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but their visions offer different emphases on how to proceed. Muller (2015) argues for the centring of disciplinary knowledge, while for Walker (2015) it is the concerns of society that should be central. In this article we argue that both of these are partial answers. We draw on a longitudinal study with ten South African engineering graduates, who were interviewed both in their third year and then approximately a decade later. Our analysis shows how the engagement with disciplinary knowledge is at the heart of the shaping of "graduateness". Thus we argue for a coming together of the two perspectives in this issue towards a nuanced perspective on graduateness that recognises the significance of disciplinary knowledge but that also holds a space for the development of student agency in higher education.

Curriculum reform is a key topic in the engineering education literature, but much of this discussion proceeds with little engagement with the impact of the local context in which the programme resides. This article thus seeks to understand the influence of local contextual dynamics on curriculum reform in engineering education. The empirical study is a comparative analysis of the context for curriculum reform in three different chemical engineering departments on the African continent, located in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. All three departments are currently engaged in processes of curriculum reform, but the analysis shows how the different contexts in which these efforts are taking place exert strong shaping effects on the processes and outcomes for that reform.

Electronic tutors able to respond appropriately to a user's input have been shown to be effective in improving learning in a number of contexts. This study extends this research into the context of conceptual change during in-service science teacher workshops. Quantitative data were collected from 1,049 South African grade 12 physical sciences teachers who attended 54 in-service teacher workshops held by the first author across all South African provinces and hosted by volunteer schools. These teachers completed pre- and post-tests about the force concept. The teachers from each workshop were assigned, by convenience, to one of three treatment groups. The individual group (n = 296) engaged with the software between answering the tests. The plenary group (559) was taught using the tutoring software as an aid. The control group (194) received no electronic tutoring intervention. Participants also answered questions about themselves and their schools. The findings suggest that individual use of the software can be effective in promoting conceptual change in the context of the in-service teacher workshop, especially for those who already have relatively high levels of prior knowledge. However, plenary use of this software, in this context, appears to have limited effectiveness in promoting conceptual change. The patterns of engagement indicate an evolutionary, slow and iterative process of conceptual change, with limited transfer of learning across contexts. The findings suggest that multiple short modules of varying levels of advancement are more advisable than fewer, longer, less varied modules.

Student learning inventories are used by both researchers and educators as tools to identify "at risk" students. This article critically interrogates the results of one of these inventories, the 18-item Approaches to Learning and Studying Inventory. In-depth interviews were held with a purposive sample of 10 first-year engineering students who had completed the inventory. During interviews, students were asked to elaborate on their responses for those items where they gave inconsistent or contradictory responses. The analysis of these data pointed to a range of underlying reasons for apparently contradictory responses to the inventory items. In some instances students were confused by the statement, in some they picked on a particular word instead of the meaning of the statements, and sometimes they gave responses which referred to a particular context. These findings highlight the difficulties in interpreting inventory responses, particularly when used in a culturally diverse classroom. (Contains 2 figures.)

This article explores the use of narrative analysis to provide a methodology for student learning research with a sociocultural orientation. The narrative which is the primary focus of this article is drawn from a study in which a series of individual interviews was conducted with a class of senior engineering students. The interview with a particular student emerged as a "paradigmatic" case, in that it represented a rich example of student success against a background of disadvantage. The analysis presented in the article leads to a questioning of some of the commonly held views on disadvantage in higher education. It is argued that the coping strategies developed in a "disadvantaged" social background could form useful resources for succeeding in higher education, and that the construction of identity could be crucial for mobilising these resources. Questions are consequently raised about the extent to which these aspects of personal growth are supported by the formal curriculum and the professional workplace.

In this paper we propose that learning in engineering involves taking on the discourse of an engineering community, which is intimately bound up with the identity of being a member of that community. This leads to the notion of discursive identity, which emphasises that students' identities are constituted through engaging in discourse. This view of learning implies that success in engineering studies needs to be defined with particular reference to the sorts of identities that students develop and how these relate to identities in the world of work. In order to achieve successful learning in engineering we need to recognise the multiple identities held by our students, provide an authentic range of engineering-related activities through which students can develop engineering identities and make more explicit key aspects of the discourse of engineering of which lecturers are tacitly aware. We include three vignettes to illustrate how some of the authors of this paper (from across three different institutions) have applied this perspective of learning in their teaching practice.

In this paper, we propose that learning in engineering involves taking on the discourse of an engineering community, which is intimately bound up with the identity of being a member of that community. This leads to the notion of discursive identity, which emphasises that students' identities are constituted through engaging in discourse. This view of learning implies that success in engineering studies needs to be defined with particular reference to the sorts of identities that students develop and how these relate to identities in the world of work. In order to achieve successful learning in engineering, we need to recognise the multiple identities held by our students, provide an authentic range of engineering-related activities through which students can develop engineering identities and make more explicit key aspects of the discourse of engineering of which lecturers are tacitly aware. We include three vignettes to illustrate how some of the authors of this paper (from across three different institutions) have applied this perspective of learning in their teaching practice.

More than a decade prior to the official dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, a number of universities launched foundation programmes to assist disadvantaged students. This article focuses on science and engineering foundation programmes, locating them within their political and institutional context and then tracing the evolution of their educational philosophy. But foundation programmes only represent one strategy for dealing with educational disadvantage. It is therefore compared to an alternative model explored in the early 1990s which emphasised the "infusion" of academic development principles into the mainstream. This provides a backdrop for considering the educational effectiveness of the foundation programmes that have recently proliferated as a result of the Department of Education's latest funding strategy. (Contains 3 figures and 6 notes.)

This study investigated how well chemical engineering graduates perceive they were prepared for work in industry. To this end, sixteen interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of recent University of Cape Town chemical engineering graduates. Qualitative analysis of the interview data showed that graduates felt that overall, they were well prepared for work in industry. They perceived their strengths to be their technical background, problem solving skills, formal communication skills and life-long learning abilities. The following areas of weakness were also identified: work in multi-disciplinary teams, leadership, practical preparation and management skills. The use of interviews for data collection is a significant departure from the methods used in other studies in this area. The rich and contextual data gathered from the interviews justified this choice and contributed to the identification of issues not previously mentioned in the literature. For example, an unexpected finding of the study was that there was a clear link between the technical and non-technical attributes of engineering graduates, a result which has clear implications for the design of undergraduate engineering programmes. (Contains 2 figures.)

It has been proposed that situated cognition theory, in which learning is conceptualized as induction into a community of practice through the activity of legitimate peripheral participation, offers an appropriate theoretical perspective for examining issues of gender in science education. This study critically engages with this proposal by means of an investigation of the vacation work experiences of a group of South African final-year civil and chemical engineering students. Issues of race and gender appeared prominently and spontaneously in focus group and interview data. An analysis of these data using the situated cognition framework allowed for a deeper understanding of these issues and their impact on learning. It was found that access to legitimate peripheral participation was critical for good learning outcomes (associated with positive identity formation) while denial of this access (as sometimes experienced by black and female students) appeared to be related to less effective learning and poor feelings of self-worth.

Concerns a second-year chemical engineering course in which recommendations such as reducing content coverage, promoting active learning in the classroom, and using assessment methods that require students to demonstrate a high level of understanding and ability were adopted. Presents an in-depth investigation into the influence of the course environment on students' approaches to learning. (MM)

Academic Development Programmes (ADPs), or Extended Curriculum Programmes (ECPs), continue to play a central role in increasing access to previously marginalised students in higher education in South Africa. Using Archer's morphogenetic approach, this study examines how a group of ADP students "made their way" through their engineering undergraduate studies. Twelve students in their fourth year of study were interviewed three times and selected university documents were analysed. The authors found that the fragmented curriculum, shortened consolidation and examination periods, and unfavourable examination timetables potentially constrained the students' aspirations. In addition, the mainstream students and lecturers' ideas about ADP students worsened their experience of marginalisation and exception. We also found that students experienced the mainly black student enrolment of the ADP as racial discrimination. The findings indicate that students found themselves in enormously constrained circumstances, but they also exhibited what Archer calls "corporate agency" and different "modes of reflexivity" to overcome some of these constraints. We argue that the establishment of Academic Development Programmes as separate from mainstream curricula, while enabling access to some extent, may have unintended consequences of also constraining the students for whom they are designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread woody encroachment is a prominent concern for savanna systems as it is often accompanied by losses in productivity and biodiversity. Extensive ecosystem‐level work has advanced our understanding of its causes and consequences. However, there is still debate over whether local management can override regional and global drivers of woody encroachment, and it remains largely unknown how encroachment influences woody community assemblages. Here, we examined species‐level changes in woody plant distributions and size structure from the late 1980s to the late 2000s based on spatially intensive ground‐based surveys across Kruger National Park, South Africa. This study region spans broad gradients in rainfall, soil texture, fire frequency, elephant density, and other topographic variables. Species‐level changes in frequency of occurrence and size class proportion reflected widespread woody encroachment primarily by Dichrostachys cinerea and Combretum apiculatum, and a loss of large trees mostly of Sclerocarya birrea and Acacia nigrescens. Environmental variables determining woody species distributions across Kruger varied among species but did not change substantially between two sampling times, indicating that woody encroachers were thickening within their existing ranges. Overall, more areas across Kruger were found to have an increased number of common woody species through time, which indicated an increase in stem density. These areas were generally associated with decreasing fire frequency and rainfall but increasing elephant density. Our results suggest that woody encroachment is a widespread but highly variable trend across landscapes in Kruger National Park and potentially reflects an erosion of local heterogeneity in woody community assemblages. Many savanna managers, including in Kruger, aim to manage for heterogeneity in order to promote biodiversity, where homogenization of vegetation structure counters this specific goal. Increasing fire frequency has some potential as a local intervention. However, many common species increased in commonness even under near‐constant disturbance conditions, which likely limits the potential for managing woody encroachment in the face of drivers beyond the scope of local control. Regular field sampling coupled with targeted fire management will enable more accurate monitoring of the rate of encroachment intensification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent Council on Higher Education (CHE 2013a) report has highlighted the poor graduation throughputs in South African undergraduate programmes. Academic development constitutes the current university response to these challenges and to date much work has focused on the establishment of foundation programmes. The present case study - centred on the chemical engineering programme at the University of Cape Town (UCT, South Africa) - offers an analysis of the possibilities for academic development in the mainstream programme. Quantitative longitudinal analyses of cohort graduate throughput showed significant improvements over two decades, both in aggregate and in demographic breakdown. A survey of academic staff in the programme pointed to the significant impact of the establishment, in the early 1990s, of a post focusing on academic development. These findings also gave evidence of a departmental culture centred on critical debate and innovation in the undergraduate programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study that used statistical analysis to estimate the impact of the first-year academic development (AD) courses offered by three diverse AD programmes (in the commerce, engineering and science faculties) at the same South African Higher Education Institution (HEI). Specifically, in measuring impact the study compares the graduation performance of AD students relative to mainstream students. The study used a larger sample and a more comprehensive multivariate specification to identify the determinants of academic performance than previous studies. The study found that the AD programmes, as they were constituted during the period under investigation (1999-2003), did not improve the graduation rate achieved by AD students relative to their mainstream peers. Therefore, the study raises the question as to whether the type of AD programme investigated can alone provide the solution to the problems faced by the South African HEI community in its efforts to meet the increased demand for graduates from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 20 years into the new democracy, student success at South African universities continues to be differentiated along racial lines. The tendency has been to define the problem in terms of student deficit. This article suggests that this is a limited view of a complex problem. The study reported on investigated the case of a South African university's Department of Chemical Engineering and its historical struggle with the success of black students. The study explored students' progression through a design course and the associated pedagogical realities. Using a social realist approach, the study showed that the higher education environment is a complex of necessary contradictions which create a situational logic for agents. In the process of navigating the inconsistencies of a system in which academic development and quality assurance work against each other, it seems that black students get caught in the middle, with deleterious consequences for the country's transformative agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Globally, men and women face markedly different risks of obesity. In all but of handful of (primarily Western European) countries, obesity is much more prevalent among women than men. We examine several potential explanations for this phenomenon. We analyze differences between men and women in reports and effects of potential underlying causes of obesity—childhood and adult poverty, depression, and attitudes about obesity. We evaluate the evidence for each explanation using data collected in an urban African township in the Cape Town metropolitan area. Three factors explain the greater obesity rates we find among women. Women who were nutritionally deprived as children are significantly more likely to be obese as adults, while men who were deprived as children face no greater risk. In addition, women of higher adult socioeconomic status are significantly more likely to be obese, which is not true for men. These two factors – childhood circumstances and adult SES – can fully explain the difference in obesity rates between men and women that we find in our sample. More speculatively, in South Africa, women''s perceptions of an ‘ideal’ female body are larger than men''s perceptions of the ‘ideal’ male body, and individuals with larger ‘ideal’ body images are significantly more likely to be obese. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article profiles chemical engineering educator Duncan Fraser of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. The educator cites experiences that took his innate enthusiasm for teaching to a new level, one of which was participating in a series of teaching workshops run by the UCT Medical School in the early 1980s. A brief personal background of the professor is also provided. It adds that his intellectual inspiration comes from collaborating with students.

Discusses a study of junior chemical engineering students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa wherein a distillation simulation was carried out to determine its effectiveness. Examination of simulations as a learning tool; Features that facilitate simulation learning; Information on a conceptual test which was developed to gauge students' understanding of distillation before they undertook the simulation exercise.

This study investigates the vacation work experiences of a group of final-year civil and chemical engineering students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Situated cognition theory, with its conceptualization of learning as induction into a community of practice through the activity of legitimate peripheral participation, was used to analyze focus group and interview data. Issues of race and gender appeared prominently and spontaneously in students' accounts of their experiences. Access to legitimate peripheral participation was associated with positive identity formation in the role of engineer-to-be, while denial of this access severely affected learning and feelings of selfworth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]