Unconventional times in Higher Education: Lived experiences of South African student support champions during the Covid-19 pandemic
Abstract
The COVID‒19 pandemic necessitated swift changes to remote teaching and learning. This study explored the experiences of student support champions comprising teaching assistants, tutors, mentors, and retention officers) in providing affective and content support via remote modalities to first‒year students. The study focused on insights gained during remote learning. This adaptation to change speaks to resilience thinking, ‘being able to withstand or overcome adversity and unpleasant events and successfully adapt to change and uncertainty’. Learning to be resilient and adaptable to rise above challenges, is simultaneously transformative to create new ways of thinking to deal with current situations. This study resides within the interpretivist paradigm and draws on the subjective experiences and understandings of research participants within a university of technology. Surveys were conducted to garner insights and experiences and were analysed according to emergent themes of challenges, improvements, and future practices. Data revealed that despite the demands placed on student support champions, they managed to cope with their studies and acquired attributes, dispositions, and values beyond the formal curriculum. Thus the study shows that times of complexity present opportunities for resilience and transformation to changing circumstances.
Downloads
References
Adedoyin, Olasile B. and Emrah Soykan,. 2020. “Covid‒19 pandemic and online learning: the challenges and opportunities.” Interactive Learning Environments 1‒13. DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2020.1813180.
Al‒Riyami, Thuraya. 2015. “Main Approaches to Educational Research.” International Journal of Innovation and Research in Educational Sciences 2 (5):412‒416.
Baker, Ted and Reed E Nelson. 2005. “Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage.” Administrative Science Quarterly 50:329‒366.
Bandura, Albert. 2001. “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective.” Annual Review Psychology 52 (1):1–26.
Bobek, Becky. 2002. “Teacher resiliency: A key to career longevity.” Clearing House 75 (4):202‒205.
Council on Higher Education. 2021. Covid 19 crisis – actions aimed at completing the academic year. Tshwane: CHE.
Chiramba, Otilia. 2021. “Integrating resilience in teaching and learning in South African universities in the covid‒19 era: a scoping review.” African perspectives of research in teaching & learning‒ Aportal 5 Special Issue (1):12‒127. issn 2521‒0262 print
Clarke, Victoria and Virginia Braun. 2017. “Thematic analysis.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 12(3): 297‒298. DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613
Eaton, Sarah E. 2020. “Academic Integrity During COVID‒19: Reflections From the University of Calgary.” International Studies in Educational Administration 48 (1):80 ‒85.
Guthrie, Kathy L. and Hllyo McCracken. 2010. “Reflective pedagogy: Making meaning in experiential based online courses.” Journal of Educators Online 7 (2): 1‒21.
Hodges, Charles, Stephanie Moore, Barb Lockee, Torrey Trust and Aaron Bond. 2020. “The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning.” EDUCAUSE Review. 3: 1‒12 https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remoteteaching-and-online-learning
Holdsworth, Sarah, Michelle Turner and Christina M. Scott‒Young. 2018. “… Not drowning, waving. Resilience and university: a student perspective.” Studies in Higher Education. 43 (11):1837–1853. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1284193
Jili, Nokukhanya N, Ede, I. Chuks and Mfundo M. Masuku. 2021. “Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education During Covid‒19: Challenges and Opportunities.” International Journal of Higher Education 10 (5):1‒9.
Kiger, Michelle E, and Lara Varpio. 2020. “Thematic analysis of qualitative data.” AMEE Guide No. 131. Medical Teacher. DOI: 10.1080/0142159X.2020.1755030
Kivunja, Charles, and Ahmed B. Kuyini. 2017. “Understanding and Applying Research Paradigms in Educational Contexts” International Journal of Higher Education 6 (5): 26‒41 http://ijhe.sciedupress.com/
Matarirano, Obert, Onke Gqokonqana and Abor Yeboah. 2021. “Students’ Responses to Multi‒Modal Emergency Remote Learning During COVID‒19 in a South African Higher Institution.” Research in Social Sciences and Technology 6 (2):199‒218. https://doi.org/10.46303/ressat.2021.19
McCarty, Steve. 2021. “Online Education as a Discipline.” Academia Letters Article 434:1‒6.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL434.
Mcewen, Kathryn. 2011. Building Resilience at Work. Australian Academic Press. ProQuest Ebook Central. Available on: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cput/detail.action?docID=928380
South African Government. 2022. About Alert System. https://www.gov.za/covid-19/about/about-alert-system. Accessed on 11 July 2022.
Taylor, Janice L. 2013. “The Power of Resilience: A Theoretical Model to Empower, Encourage and Retain Teachers.” The Qualitative Report 18 (70):1‒25. http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR18/taylor70.pdf
Thanh, Nguyen C., and Tran T.L. Thanh. 2015. “The Interconnection Between Interpretivist Paradigm and Qualitative Methods in Education.” American Journal of Educational Science 1 (2): 24‒27.
Waghid, Zayd, Lawrence Meda and Jane A. Chiroma. 2021. “Assessing cognitive, social and teaching presences during emergency remote teaching at a South African university.” International Journal of Information and Learning Technology 38 (5):413‒ 432. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-01-2021-0006.
Copyright (c) 2025 Desiree Scholtz, Sandra Williams

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0