Using reflective practices to reduce dropout rates among first year students at a University of Technology, a South African perspective

One of the major challenges facing the growth of South Africa, the largest economy in Africa and a member of the five major emerging national economies (BRICS) of the world, is unemployment. While there are other factors influencing unemployment, high dropout rates in universities are seen as a definite contributor to this challenge. Reflection and reflective practices have been extensively researched over the years by Richert, Moon and Green to name a few. The research question that arises that this paper attempts to address is what academics can do to reduce the high dropout rates of students in tertiary institutions. The paper presents an effective teaching technique using the centric reflection model and the Greenaway´s model. The paper first looks at the actual causes behind the failures at first year level such as high student volume, language barrier and poor motivation. Secondly it details how a model was created using centric reflection model which addresses these causes and a method for addressing them. The third part of the paper looks at how the methodology described in the second part is implemented using the Greenaway´s model. The paper finally looks at the results that were obtained over a period of time and correlates the data with a control group.