Foregrounding Care in Online Student Engagement in a South African E-learning University

CYCLES	1 MARCH 2021 TO OCTOBER 2021	2 JULY 2022 TO JANUARY 2023	3 FEBRUARY 2023 TO APRIL 2023
STAGE 1	Data gathering – Meet-and-greet discussion forum posted – Data analysed to plan for the next stage	Data gathering – Meet-and-greet discussion forum posted with ‘care’ foregrounded – Data analysed to plan for the next stage	Data gathering – Welcome message on the LMS had ‘care’ foregrounded – Data analysed to plan for the next stage
STAGE 2	Planning for data collection – Compile post-evaluation questions emanating from meet-and-greet discussion forum	Planning for data collection – Introduced ‘caring’ through my responses to the students – Compiled interview questions for lecturers – Students invited to evaluate the module	Planning for data collection – Started a meet-and greet forum – Integrated a discussion forum into Assessment 01 on student expectations – Conducted a virtual class where Noddings ‘care’ principles were shared with students and lecturers
STAGE 3	Data collection – Data collected from students’ responses to post-evaluation questions	Data collection – Data collected from the students’ discussion forum – Conducted interviews with lecturers – Student module evaluations	Data collection – Data collected from the students’ discussion forum – Data from students’ expectations of the module (pre-evaluations) – Evaluations of the virtual class
STAGE 4	Organising and managing data – Open coding – Emerging themes and categories identified from the students’ responses	Organising and managing data – Open coding – Emerging themes and categories identified from the students’ responses and lecturer responses to interview questions	Organising and managing data – Open coding – Emerging themes and categories identified from the students’ comments in the discussion forum, expectations from the module, and evaluation of the virtual class

Table 2

Table of participants.

PARTICIPANTS	NUMBER	DATA COLLECTION
Students	5	Pre-evaluation
	5	Post-evaluation
	5	Virtual class student evaluation
	30	Discussion forum
Lecturers	4	Semi-structured interviews

Appendix B

Lecturer Interview Respondents’ Profiles (n = 4).

LABEL	GENDER	AGE RANGE (IN YEARS)	HIGHEST QUALIFICATION
Lm1	Male	40–50	Doctorate
Lf1	Female	40–50	Doctorate
Lf2	Female	30–39	Masters degree
Lf3	Female	30–39	Honours degree

Appendix C

Student Pre-and Post Evaluation Respondents’ Profiles (n = 5).

LABEL	GENDER	AGE RANGE (IN YEARS)
Sm1	Male	>30
Sm2	Male	20–29
Sf1	Female	20–29
Sf2	Female	20–29
Sf3	Female	20–29

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.15.4.576 | Journal eISSN: 2304-070X

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Language: English

Page range: 288 - 302

Submitted on: Jul 22, 2023

Accepted on: Sep 27, 2023

Published on: Nov 21, 2023

Published by: International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

Care,

© 2023 Thembeka Shange, published by International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 15 (2023): Issue 4