Staff member

Research focus

Ms Antoinette Botha

Ms Wendy Carvalho-Malekane

 

Wendy Carvalho-Malekane’s research interests include the following: the development of curricular community engagement within higher education; exploring the racial identity of biracial people in South Africa; issues of racial identity, multiracial and multicultural identities; and interracial relationships within a South African context.

Dr Sonja Coetzee

 

Sonja Coetzee’s research interests include teacher career resilience and the development of teacher professionalism. She is passionate about teacher training and how student teachers can learn from their own and other’s life-histories to build their own competence as beginner teachers.

Dr Lizette de Jager


 

Dr De Jager is a lecturer in the Department of Humanities Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria and holds a doctorate in Curriculum and instructional design and development with a focus on misunderstandings in instructional communication. 
Her research interests and activities include the following:
Applied linguistics, specifically inter-cultural and cross-cultural pragmatics; English Language and Literature; Methodology and classroom practice; Instructional Design. She is particularly interested in the rich linguistic and cultural range that learners bring to the multilingual classroom. Her research highlights the fact that beginner teachers cannot be assumed to be adequately proficient in English, which requires focused attention in teacher education programmes and policy documents. Further interests include e-learning and technology in the language classroom. She is also the Faculty's coordinator for the BEd Methodologies, hosting 2 workshops a year for training and development purposes as well as sharing of best practice ideas among colleagues.
She is currently involved in a joint research project with the CSIR on sourcing and evaluating useful apps for teaching and learning English.

Dr Pieter du Toit

 

Dr Pieter du Toit is a senior lecturer in the Department of Humanities Education, Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.  He is programme coordinator of the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE) and the MEd (Educator Professional Development). For more than twenty years he has been involved in academic staff development.  His interests are, inter alia, action research, learning styles, professional development and education innovation across faculties. He held a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Antwerp in Belgium during 2004 and 2005. At the latter as well as the Iowa State University and the University of Oklahoma he acted as guest lecturer. He is a member of the executive committee of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) and former vice-president of SAARDHE (South African Association for Research and Development in Higher Education) that merged with HELTASA. He is a registered HBDI practitioner with the Ned Herrmann Group in the USA that focuses on whole brain® learning. He served for two years on the executive committee of the Action Research, Action Learning and Process Management (ALARPM) Association, Australia and acted as editor of two editions of the ALARPM journal. Two special issues of the South African Journal of Higher Education were published under his editorship. More than 25 students completed their Master’s or PhD studies under his supervision. He has published widely on an array of aspects regarding teaching and learning in higher education in journals and scholarly books and presented on it at numerous national and international conferences – three times on invitation. He is the co-author of a scholarly book, Whole brain® learning in higher education: Practice-based evidence, that was recently published by an international publishing house. Current research projects include transforming of a programme on Information Literacy for university students in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Science, another on professional development of academic staff involved in the BCMP programme for Clinical Associates in the Faculty of Health Sciences and the professional development of academic staff in the Department of Taxation in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. He actively took part in collaboration initiatives between the University and the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique in terms of academic staff development with a focus on action research and education innovation. He participated in an action research initiative of the MacQuarie University, Sydney, Australia on peer mentoring in collaboration with the La Trobe University, Lund University and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Dr Alta Engelbrecht

 

Alta Engelbrecht researches the influence of ideology on representation of identities in Afrikaans text books. Based on the assumption that textbooks serve as a mirror of the social and political order, the research for her PhD (awarded in 2009) was aimed at determining the extent to which Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans language textbook series foster cultural stereotyping of the 'other’. She co-authored a methodology textbook for students: Vuvuzela-Afrikaans: Taalonderrig wat nie geïgnoreer kan word nie (2011). Her research interests also include teacher/learner interaction and its long-term effects.

Prof Rinelle Evans

 

Prof Rinelle Evans is an associate professor in the Department of Humanities Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria and holds a doctorate in curriculum and instructional design with special reference to instructional communication via television technology. She is also an NRF rated researcher. Prof Evans is an active member of various professional organisations and currently serves on the executive committee of the South African Association for Language Teaching.

Prof Rinelle Evans’s current research is located within the domain of instructional design and communication with a focus on instructional dissonance. This implies how the learning experience may be hampered by teachers’ inability to border cross linguistically, culturally and conceptually. The gradual deracialisation of SA schools, the concomitant shifting demographics and introduction of apparent democratic policies imply that many teachers who do not speak English as a mother tongue are compelled to teach via this language – an erroneous assumption being that their oral proficiency as well as that of their learners - is adequate. This requires focused attention in policy documents and in teacher education programmes. She breaks new ground in our understanding of how critical it is for teachers to possess full proficiency in the language of instruction as well as cross-cultural and pedagogical competence in order to attend adequately to diverse learners’ sense-making efforts. Instructional dissonance and negative social consequences for learners underline the critical role of language for learning and underscore the importance of recognizing the rich linguistic and cultural repertoire that learners bring to the multilingual classroom. 

She is also part of a project funded by the Australian government and offered in conjunction with the University of Queensland, Brisbane which provides English for Academic Purposes to international students wishing to undertake postgraduate studies through the medium of English.    

Ms Ronel Swart

 

Ronel Swart's research interests and activities include the following: emotional and other effects of mergers in Higher Education on staff and students; comparative content analysis of illustrations in South African History text books and the capacity of critical education to inform the sociology of learning in South African schools. Her research for the past six years focused on critical pedagogy in Environmental Education, the work of Paulo Freire and the South African curriculum (National Curriculum Statement). She is currently working on post-conflict pedagogy as best practice in culture rich classrooms.

Prof Saloshna Vandeyar

Saloshna Vandeyar is an NRF C2 rated scientist and the award-winning scholar of the American Education Research Association (AERA) Division K (Teacher and Teacher Education) mid-career award, April 2011. She is the recipient of the “Best Article Award” from the Comparative International Education Society (2012).  She is also the award-winning scholar on Intercultural Education from the prestigious international BMW Awards in the category: theory, 2007. Her work has also received national recognition as evident from many other awards she has received, the most recent the HELM LEAD Fellowship award: HESA 2013 EASA Research medal from the Education Association of South Africa, January 2011; Winner in the National Science and Technology Forum Award 2007 in the Category H: NRF Sponsored T W Kambule Award: Senior Black Researcher over the last 5 to 10 years;finalist in the category Education of the Shoprite Checkers/SABC 2 Woman of the Year 2006. 

Institutional recognition came in the form of the Laureate Award for Education Innovation (2012); Exceptional Young Researcher’s award from the University of Pretoria (2009); Dean’s Award for International Scholarship (2013); Gold medal for Research, Excellence and Achievement, Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria (2009); Research Perseverance Award (2002), Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria and two Community awards for Excellence in Education and Research (2007/2009).

She was also nominated for the Social Justice award (American Education Research Association) in 2009. She has authored and co-authored several books, journal articles and chapters in books. Her scholarly book, Diversity High: Class, Color, Culture and Character in a South African school was nominated for the Outstanding Book award (AERA) in 2009 and her paper that was published in an international journal was nominated for the Joyce Cain award (2009). Her specialist areas and the foci of her research encompass Race, Identities, Social/Cultural Justice, Diversity Education, Teacher Professionalism as well as Assessment Practices. She serves on the editorial boards of theInternational Journal of Early Child Care and Development; International Journal of Learning for Democracy; International Journal of Health and Education; Perspectives in Education (2004-2006). She is particularly interested in the implications of teacher and student identities in constructing classrooms inclusive of racial, linguistic and ethnic identities and in promoting Intercultural and Peace Education.

Dr Riekie van Aswegen

Riekie van Aswegen conducts research on choral conducting and repertoire in Music Education. Challenges presented by the integrated arts are addressed in the article “Jack of all trades, master of some … or none: Training teachers in Integrated Arts” published in the Australian Journal of Arts Education. She regards folk music as an important field of research and this resulted in an article “Folk music for children’s choirs”, currently peer reviewed for the Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa. Other research interests include Music Education in early childhood and school-based community projects as part of student training and research.

Ms Elmarie Van Wyk

Elmarie van Wyk’s research interests and activities include the fields of: Human Movement Education and Life Orientation, Sport Management and Recreational Studies. Research for the past few years include Motor Development levels of Human Movement Study students.

Ms Yolandi Woest

Yolandi Woest is currently enrolled for a PhD in Curriculum instruction, design and development.  Her research focuses on teacher identity and the role of own teachers in diverse cultural and multi-linguistic settings. She holds a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics and teaches a variety of language and literacy related subjects in the Department. She is currently involved as academic instructor in a joint initiative with Queensland University in the Australian Awards programme.