Educational Psychology & Special Needs Education

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Browsing Educational Psychology & Special Needs Education by Subject "Academic support"

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    Prevailing and preferred learning practices in university academic support
    (2006) Adams, Jabulile Dorothy; Nzima, D.R.
    The present study examines the prevailing and preferred learning practices in students support programmes. The aims of the study were: • To determine the nature of learning practices that prevail at the University of Zululand. • To determine the learning practices that student prefer. • To determine the students' perception of the prevailing and preferred learning practices. • To find out if such factors as gender, age, year level and faculty influence the students' perceptions of the prevailing and preferred learning practices. In accordance with these aims, an extensive study on models of support was undertaken. Using purposive sampling to select research respondents, data was collected. A questionnaire was administered to students at the University of Zululand. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis was used in order to draw conclusion about the prevailing and the preferred state of learning practices at the University of Zululand. Research findings led to the following conclusions: • The nature of support that prevail at the University of Zululand is biased towards assisting students with academic matters. Personal support is provided. • The results also show that students had their preference in terms of an ideal support structure. • The results revealed that prevailing and preferred learning practices were viewed differently. Sixty six percent of students held a positive perception towards preferred learning practice. • The findings revealed that the variable of year had an influence on the student's perception. • The results show that males and females differed in their perception of prevailing and preferred learning practices. Another interesting finding however, was that both prevailing and preferred learning had no influence on perception. The factor of faculty only influenced the perception of preferred learning practices. • Findings emanating from additional information revealed that students preferred that intervention should involve more than enhancing content. In other words students preferred an intervention programme that would embrace all their needs. On the basis of the findings recommendations for handling issues of student support were put forward.
University of Zululand