The transition in learning trajectories, academic pressures and stressors associated with financial and societal pressure that South African postgraduate university students experience places them at risk of mental health difficulties. For these students, their mental well-being has been further threatened due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the…

This article reports on a qualitative study that evaluated first-year students' lived experiences of attending a 12-week student support programme focused on fostering mindsets. Participants included 545 first year Engineering students enrolled for academic studies at a South African university. All participants completed qualitative narrative…

Background: This paper describes findings from research conducted on students who participated in a service-learning course in South Africa. Objective: The study aimed to understand how participants constructed their experiences of service-learning and to interrogate their emotional investments in these constructions. Method: Data were collected…

The devastation and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to pervade almost every sphere of human existence, albeit arguably increasingly nuanced. As we move into the post-pandemic world, it is essential to reflect on the lessons learned and forge transformed, decolonised ways of knowledge production in higher education. To ensure the…

This study evaluated the effect of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) on hope and well-being among adolescents living in a child and youth care centre (CYCC) in South Africa. Adolescents (n = 29) were allocated to either the experimental or control group through matched sampling. The experimental group engaged in one-hour intervention…

Guided by Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological systems theory Bronfenbrenner (Int Encycl Educ,3(2):37-43) , this study highlights the interplay between learner psycho-social challenges and teacher emotional fatigue, which affect classroom dynamics, and the critical role of systemic support--the role of school social workers (SSWs)--in South Africa.…

This article describes through the lens of self-authorship development the meaning-making processes of South African postgraduate psychology students who are expected to undergo significant growth as they journey towards becoming mental health professionals. Reflective writing tasks and individual interviews of 4 postgraduate students were…

Teachers, specifically those who work in under-resourced contexts, face many challenges within their workplace that negatively affect their experiences of well-being. Although research indicates that if teacher well-being improves, a more enabling climate for teaching and learning is created, little support is available for teachers in this…

Experiential learning is touted as an effective way of imparting research skills. This suggests that master's students undergoing training in research psychology should be exposed to managing projects and supervising interdisciplinary research teams and projects before entering the workplace. The Department of Psychology and Department of Town and…

Expanding access to higher education has taken priority in South Africa. There is a focus on improving entry into learning contexts and subsequent economic and social mobility opportunities by developing attributes in graduates that are in line with employment sector expectations. Work-integrated learning (WIL) processes serve to expose students…

In psychology departments in South Africa, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) is routinely used for quantitative analysis. While SPSS has a user-friendly interface, it does not permit application of some of the more sophisticated analytic approaches and therefore has limited functionality. The programming language R can perform…

In this article I report on how conscious knowledge could be connected with subconscious advice through career construction counselling to resolve the career choice indecision of a postgraduate psychology student. The participant was purposively selected from a number of people attending a course in narrative career counselling. An explanatory,…

Personal epistemology is concerned with people's beliefs or assumptions about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Whilst contributions in this field can be traced back to the 1970s, fundamental questions about the ontology and epistemology of the construct still remain. The current study explored the effects of three characteristics of questions…

Student engagement has been defined as the extent to which students are engaged in activities that higher education research has shown to be linked with high-quality learning outcomes. The ubiquitous influence of the term "student engagement" has been felt throughout the higher education landscape. This is especially true for South…

This study reports on the development of a textbook for a school subject (Grade 8 Afrikaans second language--an official South African language). A framework for the textbook was developed by drawing from Maslow's self-actualisation and Hettler's wellness approaches, and merging these with Seligman's PERMA and the psychosocial system approach, as…