The perceptions of second year social work students on University of Johannesburg’s academic support structures

M.A. (Social Work)Abstract: Literature indicates that student-dropout is an international phenomenon and South Africa is not an exception, especially with its socio-historical reality of colonialism and apartheid. The country has a lot to learn from the global experience in terms of various interventions applied to mitigate the challenge of low throughput ratios in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The dropout rates are especially prevalent in the first year of undergraduate studies and are associated with students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are largely black. This has an impact on their throughput, which invariably affects also the transformation agenda of racial representation at HEIs. There have been interventions at national level to assist academically struggling students navigate their transition into the demands of HEIs. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceptions of second-year social work students on the academic support structures available at the University of Johannesburg. The study focused on the Writing Centre as it was the most utilised academic service by academically struggling students. The Writing Centre is a wing of the Academic Development Centre (ADC) in the University of Johannesburg. The study adopted an exploratory qualitative design with some quasi-evaluative elements to investigate the perceptions of second-year Social Work students on the UJADC writing centre. The researcher used a narrative approach in conducting a focus group discussion. The study participants were drawn from the second-year Social Work theory class of 2017 at UJ. From this cohort the researcher only selected eight participants who had utilised some of the services offered by the UJADC Writing Centre. The researcher divided the eight participants into two groups and conducted two focus group discussions, to collect rich data on participants’ qualitative experiences. Data was analysed by employing the thematic data analysis technique which involves six steps of analysing. Findings indicate that the students value the Writing Centre as a useful academic service by improving their writing skills and assisting them in the transition from high school to university. The study also found out that there is some stigma attached to visiting the centre for help, as those seeking services are often viewed by their peers as academically weak students. Therefore, deliberate efforts to destigmatise seeking help from the centre and are essential and secondly, struggling students need to be tracked so that they can be given specific assistance they require