How Is the Process of Self-Study Transforming Me as a Lecturer and Novice Education/al Researcher in a South African University of Technology?

• In Event: “Starting With Ourselves”: Perspectives From the Transformative Education/al Studies Project

Abstract

This presentation illustrates the transformative influence of self-study on a novice education/al researcher in a South African university of technology as I explore my own pedagogy in an undergraduate English Communication course comprising 69% students who do not speak English as their mother tongue, 75% of whom are first-generation university students. Using self-study as a methodology to critique my practice allows for a re-conceptualization of student learning in order to effect a more engaged learner environment, which echoes the claim of Mitchell, Pithouse & Moletsane (2009, p. 21) that “self-study opens up a space for illuminating significant social questions and making the avenues and tools for social action or intervention more visible and more possible.”

The purpose of my self-study is to develop a greater understanding of how I, as an educator, can learn from reflecting on my practice though an examination of my underlying assumptions. My personal values and the ideologies underpinning my professional work become more explicit through the process of self-study as I develop a deeper and more critical understanding of my academic self-identity and of students’ experiences of my practice. Using an interpretive theoretical paradigm to underpin my study, I attempt to understand and interpret what learning and teaching takes place whilst adopting a socio-cultural perspective to frame the study in relation to teaching for learning practices (Kelly, 2006).

Although the overarching approach to this research is self-study of practice, elements of narrative inquiry are used as a conceptual framework, for journaling of my personal and professional history, allowing reflection on my practice and on the process. In addition, student stories give voice to their lived experiences (Pithouse, 2007). Video, capturing my teaching and taped recordings of student focus groups and discussions with colleagues provide opportunities to examine how ‘others’ experience my pedagogy. Course and lecturer evaluations and an analysis of official documents such as course outlines provide further evidence.

As I become more conscious and critical of my values, my embodied knowledge, gleaned through this reflexive process, moves to public knowledge and the exemplar (Mishler, 1990) that I make public can influence how Communication pedagogy is carried out in other Universities of Technology in South Africa. It might also transform academics’ views of the current and potential role of the academic discipline of Communication. It is my intention that my study will stretch educational boundaries by contesting the realities of students’ experiences of learning in the academy and, in aligning with the aim of self-study research, will “provoke, challenge and illuminate rather than confirm and settle” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p. 21).

Author

• Wendy Anne Rawlinson, Durban University of Technology