| Autor: |
Msomi, A. M., Bansilal, S. |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
South African Journal of Higher Education; 2018, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p124-139, 16p, 1 Diagram |
| Abstrakt: |
Universities of technology in South Africa have been trying to deliver efficient and flexible education practices to cater for influx of enrolling students in the institutions who come from diverse educational backgrounds. One of the challenges arising from students' poor educational backgrounds is their limited experience in freely available technologies for teaching and learning. Mathematics teaching, particularly, is made more difficult because of the large number of students who have many misconceptions as a result of problems from the basic education that they were part of, for a period of 12 years. Consequently, number of them do not make it to the mainstream education system due to poor performance in first year mathematics. This article reports on the impact that an e-learning platform could have on mathematics first year students when used as a supplement to the traditional methods of teaching. The study utilised quantitative and qualitative methods, with the qualitative data being used to interpret and make sense of the quantitative data. Participants were 35 first year students in the Civil Engineering Department at a university of technology. Data was generated from questionnaires and focus group interviews. It was found that the actual use of the system is dependent not only on student developmental objective to use the system, but external factors also contribute negatively to the actual system use. Some external factors that were identified include poor internet connectivity, insufficient computers and an inflexible timetable. The study recommends that universities of technology should take great care in designing their academic calendars, so that it alleviates instead of tighten the constraints under which students work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Databáze: |
Supplemental Index |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
