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Peter Hewson

South African science and mathematics education doctoral students studying at U.S. universities in 2001 report that their U.S. work has helped them make progress in their research.

A collaborative program was begun in 1997 to develop links between South African and U.S. science and mathematics education researchers on topics of mutual interest. One aspect of the program was the support of doctoral student education. UW-Madison Education Professor Peter Hewson oversees the program from the U.S., which is jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the South African National Research Foundation.

Last year, 10 doctoral students registered at South African universities spent 2 to 4 months at selected universities in the U.S. They report that their experiences helped them progress in their graduate work in three ways: time for intensive study, access to more resources, and opportunities to share their work and receive feedback from their peers.

More time for thought

The doctoral student program in science and mathematics education was conceived to serve several purposes. First, since South African students typically do their doctoral work part-time, the visit to the U.S. aimed to give them an opportunity to focus exclusively on their doctoral research. The idea was that intensive study of this nature would permit them to make significant progress in both conceptualizing and analyzing data for their dissertations. Second, the research capacity of their host institutions in the U.S. provided them with access to significant resources, both human and material, for furthering their research. The program matched students with faculty mentors who shared their research interests and also gave them access to other faculty members, graduate students, courses, library holdings, and the like. Third, the South African students presented their work to audiences with interests and perspectives different from their own, which helped them clarify their own research and provided them with confidence that their work represented a contribution to the field. Additionally, their participation in the academic life of their host institutions and departments helped to enrich and broaden the dialogue and perspectives of their peers.

The South African students took advantage of their host institutions' material resources, such as the journals, books, and online materials available through these institutions' libraries. Students reported that these resources helped them broaden their literature review, learn new methods of data analysis, and clarify issues in their research.

Students also appreciated the opportunity to attend lectures, courses, seminars, workshops, and conferences. Students attended courses on a variety of topics, such as science and mathematics education, discourse analysis, research methods in education, teaching for understanding, professional development, and the history of mathematics.

Students received critiques of their work, both individually from faculty members and collectively from other graduate students. This feedback helped them clarify their thinking and sharpen their research focus, while also providing support, motivation, and encouragement to move forward with their doctoral work. Students reported that the feedback they received was especially affirming when it indicated that the work they were doing was of interest, importance, and relevance to others in their fields of study.

The program also offered the South African students the opportunity to participate in a day-long seminar with graduate students from Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this facet of the program was to enable the students to explore the common ground between Howard's unique history in the U.S. and its research focus on oppression, on the one hand, and the South African students' research topics, on the other. Students affirmed the value of meeting students at Howard University and presenting their dissertation work in the daylong seminar. In particular, they appreciated the opportunity to discover the commonality of educational issues addressed and the diversity of the approaches adopted in studying them.

The next step

So what happens to the students in this program when they return to South Africa? What factors will influence their ability to capitalize on their experience? According to Hewson, the hope is that the students have returned with an enhanced understanding of their research projects, a broadened set of professional contacts, and the personal motivation and initiative to complete their doctorates and move on in the development of their research expertise.

At the same time, it must be recognized that, for the most part, the students will have returned to work environments whose research capacity remains limited. Ongoing responsibilities in students' home institutions could limit their future research contributions. Thus, an important factor in their future development as researchers will be the availability of support, whether provided by their own institutions or by public or private granting agencies.

For more information, contact Peter Hewson at pwhewson@wisc.edu.