Abstract
This study explored the first-year higher education experiences of seven students studying at a particular private higher education institution in Johannesburg, South Africa. It examined narrated experiences of their first year of study as means to reveal their student identities. In acknowledging stories as a lens to reveal identity, this study focused on student stories as lenses of sense-making of the transition to higher education. It adds to the emerging discourse in local and international literature on the role of narrative in understanding first-year student identity development. Field texts used in this study to construct the transition narratives of respondents included narrative interviews, images, informal conversations, student drawings, a focus group discussion, student reflections, and the use of respondents’ academic results data. The analyses of field text sets were used as a springboard to discover how student identity development emerged through story...
D.Ed. et Phil. (Higher Education)