Christo Els | North-West University (original) (raw)

Papers by Christo Els

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socioeconomic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framework for the development of socially transformative ICT goals for implementation and validation at the School for Continuing Teacher Education at the

The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 2012

This paper reports on disadvantaged South African practising teachers’ perceptions on computer li... more This paper reports on disadvantaged South African practising teachers’ perceptions on computer literacy competencies while studying to improve their teaching qualifications. During the process of developing a learning technology integration framework for the School of Continuing Teacher Education at North-West University, South Africa, an initial exploratory survey identified issues and themes for systemic inquiry, in order to provide substance to the integration framework. The purposive sample related to a criterion-based selection of N=338 teacher-students attending supplementary computer literacy training sessions. Queues from the Technology Acceptance Model supplemented the questions intended to investigate enablers and barriers to learning technology adoption. The pragmatic approach was towards discovering which possible interventions could be introduced to enable adoption of technology in interaction and learning. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling produc...

The National Research Foundation of South Africa for the Second International Technology in Educa... more The National Research Foundation of South Africa for the Second International Technology in Education Survey 2006 grant (ICD2006071400008) and the North-West University

The paper describes playing experiences and features of mathematical mobile game UFractions devel... more The paper describes playing experiences and features of mathematical mobile game UFractions developed for the South African context. We explore the role of culture in learning mathematics, and describe the phenomena of mobile gaming in a real-life developing educational context. Since UFractions applies concrete, tangible manipulatives (math rods) to permit deep understanding of mathematical concepts, we explore which aspects of combining manipulatives and a mobile game influenced the learning of mathematics. A prototype of UFractions was tested in five South African multi-cultural school environments during March 2009. A total of 105 Grade 8 mathematics learners and five teachers participated in the evaluation of the game. UFractions created the opportunity for the participants to learn the concept of fractions, as well as familiarize themselves with the main game characters, Mother Leopard and her cub Senatla, while playing the game. The empirical research indicates positive attit...

South African Journal of Education, 2010

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievem en t (IEA) initiated the... more The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievem en t (IEA) initiated the Second In tern ational Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a large-scale com parative survey on the use of Inf orm ation and Com m unication Technologies (IC Ts) in schools. The goal was to understand the pedagogical use of ICTs in schools in 22 education system s. W e aim to contextualize South Africa's particip ation in SITES 2006 on four levels: (i) the nature and structure of the South African education system , (ii) a review of Sou th Africa's particip ation in SITES 2006, (iii) IC T in frastructure, facilities an d equip m ent, and (iv) teachers' use of ICTs f or teaching and learning. SITES 2006 adm inistered three questionnaires to school princip als, technology coordinators, and m athem atics and science teachers. The final sam ple consisted of 666 m athem atics and 622 science teachers. Although m ost education system s collected d ata via the internet, South Africa was the only country that used only a paper-and-pencil data collection strategy with an average return rate of 90%. South Africa scored low on m ost variables, e.g. IC T infrastructure, facilities, and equip m en t. A large percentage of South African teachers reported their IC T incom petence. South Africa's inability to cross the boundaries of traditional learning towards the developm ent of 21st cen tu ry teaching and learning skills inhib its social and econom ic growth for the developm ent of hum an capital.

This paper addresses the affective human experiences in terms of the emotions of South African te... more This paper addresses the affective human experiences in terms of the emotions of South African teacher-students while attaining computer competencies for teaching and learning, and for ODL. The full mixed method study investigated how computers contribute towards affective experiences of disadvantaged teacher-students. The purposive sample related to a criterion-based selection of N=339 teacher students attending supplementary computer literacy training which not only entailed the attainment of pedagogical knowledge and skills, but also of basic computer literacy skills for teaching and learning. Affective coding methods investigated subjective qualities of human experience. Qualitative emotion coding identified n = 31 emotion codes that categorized n = 1235 instances of computer literacy learning emotions. Quantitized qualitative data were used to quantitatively proof the validity of n = 29 emotion codes, before trustworthy qualitative discussion of findings were reported. A two di...

International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 2012

UFractions (Ubiquitous fractions) is a storytelling mobile game that utilizes fraction rods in so... more UFractions (Ubiquitous fractions) is a storytelling mobile game that utilizes fraction rods in solving real life related math problems. The prototype of UFractions was tested during the period March 2009 to May 2011 in South Africa, Finland, and Mozambique amongst 279 players, ranging in age from 10 to 32, the majority being grade eight students. A multi-method approach, comprising of both qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies, was employed to develop a trans-cultural taxonomy for play motivation in mobile games, as observed in the evaluation of UFractions, i.e., altruism, challenge, cognitive restlessness, curiosity, fantasy, relations, and technology.

Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training, 2021

The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) affirms that the transformation and advancem... more The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) affirms that the transformation and advancement of all industries and society are progressively driven by emergent and rapidly changing technologies. In order to help establish a technologically literate society, it is crucial for lecturers in Technical Engineering to stay abreast of the latest trends and technological advancements in their area of specialisation. This article reports on the findings of a sub-section of a nationwide survey that collected data from lecturers in Technical Engineering at 52 TVET college campuses across South Africa (n = 577) that offer TVET Engineering Study programmes. The purpose of the survey was to profile TVET Engineering Study lecturers’ knowledge and pedagogical practices in engineering programmes across South Africa. The sub-section of the survey specifically probed the participants’ awareness and understanding of discipline-specific technological advancements and digital educational enterpri...

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socio-economic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framewo...

Contemporary Educational Technology

The article first explores open distance learning (ODL) as a delivery mode for professional teach... more The article first explores open distance learning (ODL) as a delivery mode for professional teacher development programs in South Africa by comparing the ODL models of selected universities in developing, developed, and newly industrialized contexts. The article then reports on an empirical investigation conducted about the effect of contact class and vacation school attendance on the academic success of students (n=1310) who wrote examination papers (n=4931) for a variety of modules in four purposefully selected Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programs at the School of Continuing Teacher Education (SCTE) of the NorthWest University in South Africa. Descriptive statistics show the majority of students did not attend any contact classes or vacation schools, while still performing academically above average. Computing Spearman's rank-order correlations (r), no practically significant correlations were found between contact class and vacation school attendance and the academic success of students. However, ANOVA analyses reveal that it was beneficial for students to rather attend three contact sessions, than two or no contact sessions.

Progressio: South African Journal for Open and Distance Learning Practice

Student satisfaction, as a key psychological-affective outcome of tertiary education, is a direct... more Student satisfaction, as a key psychological-affective outcome of tertiary education, is a direct measure of the success of Open Distance Learning (ODL). It is therefore vital for ODL Higher Education Institutions to assess and improve student satisfaction constantly. Existing theories on student satisfaction are mostly derived from deductive research, i.e. from research that considers the existing body of knowledge, followed by an investigation of a specific aspect or component, in order to reach a specific conclusion. We, however, maintain the inductive stance that a research framework for student satisfaction in ODL should be derived from students themselves. Accordingly, we purposively collected qualitative data from N=34 South African postgraduate ODL students, representative of various cultural language groups, with regard to student satisfaction. Supported by Atlas.ti, we composed an integrated dataset comprised of students’ responses to two focus-group interviews, as well as...

A scholarly contribution to educational praxis, 2016

South Africa participated in the Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a ... more South Africa participated in the Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a large scale international survey on the ICT practices of schools around the world. SITES 2006 did not focus on the unique human experiences and practices of teachers regarding ICTs on a contextual qualitative level. The aim of this investigation was to obtain an in-depth context sensitive understanding of ICT pedagogical practices and experiences of Grade 8 Mathematics and Science teachers at eight different types of schools in the NorthWest Province of South Africa. We used the computer assisted data analysis program Atlas.ti™ to analyse interview data and constructed an integrated data set which identified four main categories of data related to the ICT pedagogical practices and experiences of teachers: (i) Context Barriers, (ii) Context Enablers, (ii) ICT Barriers, and (iv) ICT Enablers. We explore these categories through observations, photographs and quotations from the interviews.

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socioeconomic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framework for the development of socially transformative ICT goals for implementation and validation at the School for Continuing Teacher Education at the

The Internet and Higher Education, Jun 1, 2010

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) initiated the S... more The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) initiated the Second International Technology in Educa-tion Study (SITES), a longitudinal large-scale international comparative survey on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in schools. The goal is to understand how ICTs effect teaching and learning in schools. SITES 2006 was the third module in this pro-gram to determine how teachers use ICTs, and to find out how school and education system factors influence teachers’ pedagogical orienta-tion. SITES 2006 administered three questionnaires: one for school principals, one for technology coordinators, and one for mathematics and science teachers, around 400 schools in each of 23 education systems. The main study took place during 2005-2007. This paper describes the South African educational context, provides an overview of the South African participation, speculates on South Africa’s future participation, and provides a comparativ...

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socioeconomic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framework for the development of socially transformative ICT goals for implementation and validation at the School for Continuing Teacher Education at the

The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 2012

This paper reports on disadvantaged South African practising teachers’ perceptions on computer li... more This paper reports on disadvantaged South African practising teachers’ perceptions on computer literacy competencies while studying to improve their teaching qualifications. During the process of developing a learning technology integration framework for the School of Continuing Teacher Education at North-West University, South Africa, an initial exploratory survey identified issues and themes for systemic inquiry, in order to provide substance to the integration framework. The purposive sample related to a criterion-based selection of N=338 teacher-students attending supplementary computer literacy training sessions. Queues from the Technology Acceptance Model supplemented the questions intended to investigate enablers and barriers to learning technology adoption. The pragmatic approach was towards discovering which possible interventions could be introduced to enable adoption of technology in interaction and learning. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling produc...

The National Research Foundation of South Africa for the Second International Technology in Educa... more The National Research Foundation of South Africa for the Second International Technology in Education Survey 2006 grant (ICD2006071400008) and the North-West University

The paper describes playing experiences and features of mathematical mobile game UFractions devel... more The paper describes playing experiences and features of mathematical mobile game UFractions developed for the South African context. We explore the role of culture in learning mathematics, and describe the phenomena of mobile gaming in a real-life developing educational context. Since UFractions applies concrete, tangible manipulatives (math rods) to permit deep understanding of mathematical concepts, we explore which aspects of combining manipulatives and a mobile game influenced the learning of mathematics. A prototype of UFractions was tested in five South African multi-cultural school environments during March 2009. A total of 105 Grade 8 mathematics learners and five teachers participated in the evaluation of the game. UFractions created the opportunity for the participants to learn the concept of fractions, as well as familiarize themselves with the main game characters, Mother Leopard and her cub Senatla, while playing the game. The empirical research indicates positive attit...

South African Journal of Education, 2010

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievem en t (IEA) initiated the... more The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievem en t (IEA) initiated the Second In tern ational Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a large-scale com parative survey on the use of Inf orm ation and Com m unication Technologies (IC Ts) in schools. The goal was to understand the pedagogical use of ICTs in schools in 22 education system s. W e aim to contextualize South Africa's particip ation in SITES 2006 on four levels: (i) the nature and structure of the South African education system , (ii) a review of Sou th Africa's particip ation in SITES 2006, (iii) IC T in frastructure, facilities an d equip m ent, and (iv) teachers' use of ICTs f or teaching and learning. SITES 2006 adm inistered three questionnaires to school princip als, technology coordinators, and m athem atics and science teachers. The final sam ple consisted of 666 m athem atics and 622 science teachers. Although m ost education system s collected d ata via the internet, South Africa was the only country that used only a paper-and-pencil data collection strategy with an average return rate of 90%. South Africa scored low on m ost variables, e.g. IC T infrastructure, facilities, and equip m en t. A large percentage of South African teachers reported their IC T incom petence. South Africa's inability to cross the boundaries of traditional learning towards the developm ent of 21st cen tu ry teaching and learning skills inhib its social and econom ic growth for the developm ent of hum an capital.

This paper addresses the affective human experiences in terms of the emotions of South African te... more This paper addresses the affective human experiences in terms of the emotions of South African teacher-students while attaining computer competencies for teaching and learning, and for ODL. The full mixed method study investigated how computers contribute towards affective experiences of disadvantaged teacher-students. The purposive sample related to a criterion-based selection of N=339 teacher students attending supplementary computer literacy training which not only entailed the attainment of pedagogical knowledge and skills, but also of basic computer literacy skills for teaching and learning. Affective coding methods investigated subjective qualities of human experience. Qualitative emotion coding identified n = 31 emotion codes that categorized n = 1235 instances of computer literacy learning emotions. Quantitized qualitative data were used to quantitatively proof the validity of n = 29 emotion codes, before trustworthy qualitative discussion of findings were reported. A two di...

International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 2012

UFractions (Ubiquitous fractions) is a storytelling mobile game that utilizes fraction rods in so... more UFractions (Ubiquitous fractions) is a storytelling mobile game that utilizes fraction rods in solving real life related math problems. The prototype of UFractions was tested during the period March 2009 to May 2011 in South Africa, Finland, and Mozambique amongst 279 players, ranging in age from 10 to 32, the majority being grade eight students. A multi-method approach, comprising of both qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies, was employed to develop a trans-cultural taxonomy for play motivation in mobile games, as observed in the evaluation of UFractions, i.e., altruism, challenge, cognitive restlessness, curiosity, fantasy, relations, and technology.

Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training, 2021

The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) affirms that the transformation and advancem... more The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) affirms that the transformation and advancement of all industries and society are progressively driven by emergent and rapidly changing technologies. In order to help establish a technologically literate society, it is crucial for lecturers in Technical Engineering to stay abreast of the latest trends and technological advancements in their area of specialisation. This article reports on the findings of a sub-section of a nationwide survey that collected data from lecturers in Technical Engineering at 52 TVET college campuses across South Africa (n = 577) that offer TVET Engineering Study programmes. The purpose of the survey was to profile TVET Engineering Study lecturers’ knowledge and pedagogical practices in engineering programmes across South Africa. The sub-section of the survey specifically probed the participants’ awareness and understanding of discipline-specific technological advancements and digital educational enterpri...

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socio-economic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framewo...

Contemporary Educational Technology

The article first explores open distance learning (ODL) as a delivery mode for professional teach... more The article first explores open distance learning (ODL) as a delivery mode for professional teacher development programs in South Africa by comparing the ODL models of selected universities in developing, developed, and newly industrialized contexts. The article then reports on an empirical investigation conducted about the effect of contact class and vacation school attendance on the academic success of students (n=1310) who wrote examination papers (n=4931) for a variety of modules in four purposefully selected Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programs at the School of Continuing Teacher Education (SCTE) of the NorthWest University in South Africa. Descriptive statistics show the majority of students did not attend any contact classes or vacation schools, while still performing academically above average. Computing Spearman's rank-order correlations (r), no practically significant correlations were found between contact class and vacation school attendance and the academic success of students. However, ANOVA analyses reveal that it was beneficial for students to rather attend three contact sessions, than two or no contact sessions.

Progressio: South African Journal for Open and Distance Learning Practice

Student satisfaction, as a key psychological-affective outcome of tertiary education, is a direct... more Student satisfaction, as a key psychological-affective outcome of tertiary education, is a direct measure of the success of Open Distance Learning (ODL). It is therefore vital for ODL Higher Education Institutions to assess and improve student satisfaction constantly. Existing theories on student satisfaction are mostly derived from deductive research, i.e. from research that considers the existing body of knowledge, followed by an investigation of a specific aspect or component, in order to reach a specific conclusion. We, however, maintain the inductive stance that a research framework for student satisfaction in ODL should be derived from students themselves. Accordingly, we purposively collected qualitative data from N=34 South African postgraduate ODL students, representative of various cultural language groups, with regard to student satisfaction. Supported by Atlas.ti, we composed an integrated dataset comprised of students’ responses to two focus-group interviews, as well as...

A scholarly contribution to educational praxis, 2016

South Africa participated in the Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a ... more South Africa participated in the Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES 2006)-a large scale international survey on the ICT practices of schools around the world. SITES 2006 did not focus on the unique human experiences and practices of teachers regarding ICTs on a contextual qualitative level. The aim of this investigation was to obtain an in-depth context sensitive understanding of ICT pedagogical practices and experiences of Grade 8 Mathematics and Science teachers at eight different types of schools in the NorthWest Province of South Africa. We used the computer assisted data analysis program Atlas.ti™ to analyse interview data and constructed an integrated data set which identified four main categories of data related to the ICT pedagogical practices and experiences of teachers: (i) Context Barriers, (ii) Context Enablers, (ii) ICT Barriers, and (iv) ICT Enablers. We explore these categories through observations, photographs and quotations from the interviews.

The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic are... more The digital divide describes the gap among individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas on socioeconomic level, as well as unequal opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs). Castells holds the view that informationalism of shifting global networks creates a volatile and ruthless world. Those who do not contribute to the new world economies are discarded. Consequently, much of Africa is condemned to information black holes as Africa becomes the graveyard of failed ICT development programmes. However, by sharing expertise and goodwill, worldwide university networks of science and technology can reverse the inequities brought about by informationalism. We have a shared academic responsibility to explore feasible research frameworks on the use of ICT in developing contexts. Bronfenbrenner maintains that the ecology of human development is experimental by nature and design. From his Human Ecological Systems Theory we propose a research framework for the development of socially transformative ICT goals for implementation and validation at the School for Continuing Teacher Education at the

The Internet and Higher Education, Jun 1, 2010

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) initiated the S... more The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) initiated the Second International Technology in Educa-tion Study (SITES), a longitudinal large-scale international comparative survey on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in schools. The goal is to understand how ICTs effect teaching and learning in schools. SITES 2006 was the third module in this pro-gram to determine how teachers use ICTs, and to find out how school and education system factors influence teachers’ pedagogical orienta-tion. SITES 2006 administered three questionnaires: one for school principals, one for technology coordinators, and one for mathematics and science teachers, around 400 schools in each of 23 education systems. The main study took place during 2005-2007. This paper describes the South African educational context, provides an overview of the South African participation, speculates on South Africa’s future participation, and provides a comparativ...