Dr. Sfiso Mabizela

Sfiso Mabizela is a South African health professions education researcher associated with the University of the Witwatersrand and previously with the University of South Africa. His scholarship centres on student selection, academic readiness, and success in medical and allied health programmes. He has contributed extensively to understanding how cognitive and contextual factors shape progression in higher education.

His work critically examines the predictive validity of the National Benchmark Tests and school-leaving results across medicine, nursing, and physiotherapy. Through quantitative modelling and survival analyses, he highlights how academic literacy, quantitative skills, and mathematics proficiency relate to progression and completion, advocating for data-informed selection and targeted academic support.

Mabizela also explores online learning readiness, decentralised training, peer support, and faculty development within South African institutions. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, his research advances equitable access, student support strategies, and responsive curriculum design in contexts marked by socioeconomic disparity.