Education Papers

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/27

This community houses research from the Te Kura Toi Tangata Division of Education at the University of Waikato.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 1521

The development of teacher self and collective efficacy through a research practice partnership project
(Taylor & Francis, 2025) Edwards, Frances
This paper outlines the affordances provided through teacher engagement in an educational research partnership project for the development of teacher self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy. Six teachers, previously involved in a successful two-year project, chose to commit to continuing to research and develop their practice. They agreed to focus on whole class teaching which was an area of interest for their community of schools. This qualitative study utilised audio recordings of workshops, and artefacts produced by these teachers. Data was analysed thematically. Findings show there was clear evidence of growing individual and collective teacher efficacy as teachers used common language and shared and analysed student data over time. The teachers also became more prominent in their role as teacher leaders and proactive and engaged in planning for student improvement within and across their schools. Factors that contributed to teacher self-efficacy and collective efficacy were identified. Implications for teachers and schools are discussed.
Middle leaders dialogic practices: Facilitating professional learning for research academics in higher education settings
(Taylor & Francis, 2025) Petrie, Kirsten Culhane; Edwards-Groves, Christine; Grootenboer, Peter
Professional learning for academics is an important facet for teaching development in higher education. Facilitating this development work for research-intensive academics across different faculties is sometimes delegated to middle leaders. The practices of middle leaders in such situations where research academics have little experience or education for their role as teachers are undeniably complex. In this paper we present research examining a case study of dialogue practices encountered and promoted in a professional learning group in a higher education setting in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this case a middle leader responsible for leading professional learning created an intersubjective space where purposive dialogues helped facilitate shared learning about teaching practices for research-focused academics from the biological sciences. Analysis of the middle leader’s talk moves demonstrates that the dialogic practices of the middle leader create conditions for establishing genuine collegial collaboration, a pedagogically focused space and tentative knowledge building. These practices allow dialogues to be responsive to participants’ varied levels of experience and progress in becoming conscious of what is ‘best fit practice’ for their own tertiary teaching. Implications for providers of tertiary teaching development are proposed.
Investigating the transparency of language for place value understanding: Comparing indigenous Southern African languages and European-based languages
(Informa UK Limited, 2025) Larkin, K.; Vale, Pamela; Ladel, S.; Westaway, L.; Graven, M.; Kortenkamp, U.
In this article we investigate the transparency of language in learning place value in either a Southern African indigenous language (isiXhosa, Setswana, Oshiwambo or Emakhuwa) or a European-based language (Afrikaans, English, German or Portuguese). Since language is a key mediator in developing place value understanding, it is important to investigate the ways in which the transparency of various languages may impact place value learning. A review of pertinent literature and an analysis of literal translations of number words (to thousands) of our eight languages lead us to the conclusion that Southern African indigenous languages are more accessible in their meaning, in relation to place value, than the four European-based languages spoken in Southern Africa, which we analysed. We identified two key advantages in the indigenous languages: (i) there was transparency of the ‘places’ in how numbers are named; and (ii) there was logical alignment between the spoken and symbolic representation of numbers. Despite this, many Southern African learners learn mathematics in English, Afrikaans or Portuguese even though this is not their home language (L1). This means that many learners are denied access to the transparency of the place value concepts that exist in their L1 and must manage learning place value, not only in a yet to be learned ‘foreign’ language, but also in one where they must learn to decode the idiosyncratic ‘irregularities’ of the way those languages name numbers. We conclude this article by discussing the implications of these findings for the teaching of place value in Southern African classrooms, in which indigenous learners are often learning in a European-based language that is not their L1.
Pūrākau, death, and assisted dying: A Māori framework for understanding end-of-life
(University of Victoria, 2025-09-24) Karaka-Clarke, Te Hurinui; Robertshaw, Claire; Clarke, Awhi
This conceptual article addresses several critical gaps in health literature by exploring the ethical, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of assisted dying through the lens of Tikanga Māori and pūrākau (ancestral narratives). While existing end-of-life policy frameworks often prioritize Western bioethical principles, this article argues for the inclusion of Kaupapa Māori principles such as whakapapa, wairua, mana motuhake, and tapu/ noa as essential components of culturally resonant care. Drawing upon foundational narratives including the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, the creation of Hineahuone, the transformation of Hinetītama into Hinenuitepō, and the fatal attempt of Māui to conquer death, we position pūrākau as dynamic ethical texts that guide decision-making. This article contributes to Indigenous health discourse by offering a whānau-centred, tikanga-informed critique of the End-of-Life Choice Act 2019 and calls for broader recognition of spiritual and relational dimensions in end-of-life care. We contend that, when under-taken with whānau engagement, spiritual awareness, and cultural integrity, may be ethically compatible with tikanga Māori
Ascending the Poutama: Culturally responsive diabetes care for Māori communities
(CSIRO Publishing, 2025) Crosswell, Rebekah Jane; Nikora, Hinetu; Paul, Ryan G.; Buntting, Catherine Michelle; Roa, Tom; Keenan, Rawiri; Aporosa, S. 'Apo'; Paekau, Capri; Raumati, Glenda; Moorhouse, Suzanne; Latu, Anna Tiatia Fa'atoese
Introduction Type 2 diabetes (T2D) significantly impacts Māori populations in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) who experience health disparities including suboptimal disease management. Aim To explore culturally responsive approaches to supporting Māori living with T2D from the perspective of healthcare providers. Methods Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinicians from various disciplines (general practitioner, podiatrist, exercise physiologist, three kaiāwhina, dietitian, two pharmacists); five clinicians identify as Māori, four as non-Māori. Kaupapa Māori inductive thematic analysis was used. Results Four key themes emerged: empowering patient-centred communication, whānau involvement, interprofessional collaboration, and culturally appropriate analogies. Discussion The findings underscore the need for holistic, culturally responsive T2D care that prioritises culturally appropriate communication to improve patient engagement, health outcomes and address Māori health disparities.
Early career academics navigating the ecology of the university: a collaborative autoethnography
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) Doyle, Andrew; Suppers, Janina; Cunningham, Emma; Wagner, Brent
Early career academics (ECAs) are negatively affected by the neoliberal university which encourages performativity, competition and a ‘publish or perish’ mentality. In this paper a group of four ECAs in the Aotearoa New Zealand context explore and navigate the neoliberal university through a collaborative autoethnography. Collectively, we adopt Barnett’s [2018. The ecological university: A feasible utopia. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.] five dimensions of ecologies framework to study our own experiences. Findings suggest that as ECAs, we seek connection to academia, experience workload and power imbalance, and actively learn how to navigate roles. We also describe how our research group created a supportive environment within the competitive space of academia that fostered feelings of belonging and offered support in navigating the university ecology. Furthermore, working in initial teacher education, as a high service discipline, created unique challenges for us such as high service and teaching roles which may negatively impact ECAs. Through this lens of initial teacher education, we in turn make recommendations for universities to better support early career academics.
Computational thinking for young indigenous learners in New Zealand
(Wiley, 2024) Fox-Turnbull, Wendy; Wu, Shaoqun; Mayo, Tiana; Stafford, Matthew
This article presents the findings from a study aimed to investigate how the computational thinking aspect of digital technologies can be embedded authentically into students’ technological practice. The project explored teaching and learning computational thinking in context and particularly focus on technological needs and practice for young Māori learners. There is recognition internationally about the need for digital technologies within the curriculum. Computational thinking is a critical component of this and is defined as an approach to problem-solving, designing computer systems, and understanding related human behaviours, while drawing on fundamental ideas of computing. Therefore, it is critical that all students acquire computational thinking skills. Technology practice is most successful when embedded within authentic contexts, thus this paper presents a study that facilitated the learning of two concepts of computational thinking: sequencing and orientation within culturally embedded technology practice. The study’s vision is to assist mainstream Māori learners from low socio-economic backgrounds to develop an understanding of related concepts of computational thinking. The research design drew on Māori values and practice that situates learning within authentic Māori contexts. Kaupapa Māori pedagogies were used in our design-based intervention programme to achieve the research goal. The focus of the project was to improve digital technologies learning outcomes to ensure Māori tamariki (children) see themselves as comfortably situated in a digital world.
Talking technology into the future
(Brill, 2025) Fox-Turnbull, Wendy Helen; Wendy Helen; Wendy Helen
From its very inception in the 1980s Professor Marc de Vries has been a strong advocate for and supportive of the Technology Education in the New Zealand curriculum, its philosophical underpinning and pedagogical approaches. This support has always been very much appreciated by the technology education community in New Zealand. In addition Marc’s support has given the curriculum ‘mana’ [prestige] both within New Zealand and internationally. Like many countries around the world New Zealand has had its challenges in implementing and maintaining technology as part of the taught curriculum. There has been and is currently a reluctance to see and understand that serious and rigourous curriculum can be both academic and practical in nature. This duality is both a strength and a threat to technology. This chapter presents the authors’s SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis of technology in New Zealand, taking into consideration the past while walking with head held high into the future drawing on her experiences as a teacher, teacher educator, researcher and curriculum developer in technology education from 1996 to the current day.
Harmonies of the universe
(2025) Taylor, Simon
Harmonies of the Universe - Physics and Music with Dr Simon Taylor. Presented on Monday 26 May 2025, University of Waikato, Tauranga campus. There were episodes of live music to accompany the lecture. An evening where both worlds met, and a wonderful opportunity to discuss the connections and explore: • Musical Intervals and Physics • Natural Frequencies in Nature • Cultural Perspectives
Why standardised assessment doesn’t measure up?
(2025-05-14) Estellés, Marta
Panel discussion with Dr Marta Estellés, Dr Jade Wrathall, and Lynda Stuart about the moves the Government is making to bring in standardised testing in schools. The Ministry of Education has issued a tender to purchase a standardised assessment tool for children between Year 3 and 10. We discuss why this policy introduced by stealth is so concerning. Drawing on national and international evidence, we will reflect on the implications of standardised assessment. You will learn why this new policy doesn’t measure up and it is no more than a reboot of National Standards.
The safetyfication of curriculum as an example of bureaucratic governance
(2024) Estellés, Marta; Spector, Hannah
This presentation takes up what Author 1 terms the “safetyfication” of education. Safetyfication refers to the process through which the notion of ‘safety’ has acquired an omnipresent status in education in the Anglophone world as a result of an amalgam of claims that range from disciplinary calls to social justice demands. In this paper-presentation, the authors will analyze attempts to make the curriculum safer – or free from sociopolitical risk – under Author 2’s political analysis of bureaucracy as a form of governance (2018; 2023). The main argument made is that this form of governance operates inadvertently, through the safetyfication of education.
Commonsense, coercions of logic, and the death drive: Responding to reviews of 'In Search of Responsibility as Education'
(2024) Estellés, Marta
This panel takes up the 2024 AAACS call for alternative session formats for its annual conference: the book review panel. Taking a slightly different approach to the book review format, the presenters generate new lines of thought related to a book review symposium in press at Studies in Philosophy and Education on presenter 1’s 2023 book publication with Routledge’s Studies in Curriculum Theory Series.
Diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2025) Daly, Nicola; Vanderschantz, Nicholas; Mitchell, Stella; Blair, Crissi
It is widely accepted that diversity in the literature read by and with children is of great importance, both for ensuring all children see themselves in the stories they share and in ensuring children are aware of lives and experiences outside their own. There is a growing body of international literature critically exploring the diversity present in English-language children’s literature, but to date very little analysing diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand. This study examines 90 picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022 in terms of representations of ethnicity, skin colour, gender, disability, family structures, and language use. Findings indicate similar representations of gender, disability, and family structure to those found internationally but higher representation in relation to the ethnicity and skin colour of primary and secondary characters. New findings in relation to language use are presented. Future research concerning the details of representation in picturebooks and other formats of children’s literature in Aotearoa New Zealand is called for.
“Doing this kind of linguistics, you do feel like you're making a difference in the world” Postgraduate linguistics students learning in the field
(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2019) Daly, Nicola
Despite the stated importance of fieldwork within the discipline of Linguistics, and the existence of several texts about fieldwork (Thieberger, 2012; Bowren, 2008; Newman & Ratliff, 2001), there is very little literature concerning the experience of fieldwork from tertiary students' perspectives (see Macaulay, 2012). In this article, the work of four New Zealand postgraduate linguistics students working with fourteen Vanuatu teachers to translate reading materials written in Bislama into seven vernacular languages is documented. Findings indicate that students were motivated to be involved in the fieldwork by a range of factors including travel, altruism, and commitment to the communities and their languages; they drew on and, in some cases, clarified many concepts from their undergraduate studies; and that the fieldwork experiences both allowed them to gain confidence in their linguistic skills and influenced their future studies in linguistics. © John Benjamins Publishing Company
From safeguarding to critical digital citizenship? A systematic review of approaches to online safety education
(Wiley, 2025) Estellés, Marta; Doyle, Andrew
Over the last two decades, online safety education has emerged as a new field of research focusing on concerns about a myriad of cyber risks. These risks range from online sexual exploitation through to the reproduction of social inequalities. The main assumption underlying this field is that online risks can be mitigated via educational interventions, and significant discrepancies can be observed between the proposed approaches to online safety education. In this article, we develop an analytical model based on prevalent concepts of digital citizenship and narratives of technologies to identify four different approaches to online safety education in the academic literature; that is, safeguarding, equipping, empowering and resisting. Each of these approaches draws on different assumptions on what constitutes as ‘online risk’ and ‘digital education’. Through a systematic literature review, we analyse 75 journal articles and examine the approaches to online safety education that these studies adopt. Our analysis reveals a dominance of approaches that adopt limited concepts of digital citizenship and acritical views of technology. Context and implications. This article provides an analytical framework that transposes concepts of digital citizenship with narratives of technology. This framework is used to identify approaches towards online safety education in the literature. The review found a problematic dominance of acritical views of digital citizenship and technology, which overlook the socio‐political contexts and implications of online safety education. As this framework considers a broader and more politically situated range of online risks (from cyberbullying and digital exclusion through to discriminatory design and the tyranny of algorithms) and educational solutions (i.e., safeguarding, equipping, empowering and resisting), it serves to enrich current debates about ‘digital risks’ and has the potential to assist policymakers, researchers and educators to make critically informed decisions regarding online safety education.
Connecting the dots: Enhancing curriculum through STEAM integration
(NZARE, 2025) Taylor, Simon
There’s a growing buzz around integrating STEAM (Science, Technology, Environmental Studies, the Arts, and Mathematics) into the curriculum for junior secondary school students. This future-focused approach aims to spark curiosity and innovation. To explore the potential of STEAM programmes, a dedicated group of teachers from two schools embarked on a short-term research intervention. This blog shares on some of their findings, which could help to shape the future of science education.
Conceptions of nature of technology in educational research: a systematic literature review
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2025) Doyle, Andrew
Since the inception of Technology Education, the learning area and its advocates have struggled for legitimacy. Part of this challenge stems from difficulties in articulating the nature of technology (NoT) and its unique contribution to education. This article presents a systematic review of NoT in educational research, analysing empirical studies that investigate teachers’ conceptions of NoT. An analysis of the 22 included studies showed significant differences in the ways that NoT is theorised in educational research. In highlighting both the complexity of NoT and Technology Education as a learning area, 11 distinct aspects of NoT were identified in this study. This analysis also revealed tensions between a focus on specific technology/ies and Technology-as-phenomenon, suggesting the need for conceptual coherence in future research. Implications are drawn for understanding NoT, Technology Education, and the position of Technology Education in broader education narratives.
Integrating technology in STEM with integrity: Avoiding the mucky brown paint
(Springer, 2024) Fox-Turnbull, Wendy Helen ; Fox-Turnbull, Wendy Helen ; Williams, P John
This chapter explores and discusses a range of issues associated with the integration of science, technology, engineering and maths in the classroom. It will argue for an approach that enables authentic and appropriate representation of each discipline and the ways in which approaches can be students centred. The main implication of this approach for technology is that it puts it centre stage as student work towards the development of a technological artefact to meet an identified need or opportunity. Disciplines must be considered and specifically taught to develop skills and knowledge required by the students to reach their intended goal- a successful outcome to their technological practice. However, if purposeful teaching fails to occur students find themselves busy but not necessarily learning to their potential in the STEM disciplines.
Technological concepts and technical contexts for technology education
(Brill, 2025) Doyle, Andrew; Dakers, John R.
The origins and trajectory of technology education in different national contexts has been well charted, and the Irish context mirrors the vocational past found in many countries around the world (Banks & Williams, 2022). While an in-depth discussion on this history is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important to note. The relevance here stems from the clarity through which the content of these previous subject may be represented. As the primary focus was on the preparation of learners for the world or work, the skills, knowledge and competencies associated with wood- and graphical communication-oriented professions formed the primary content of subjects. With the development from vocationally oriented technical education, technology education is instead presented as a learning area of importance for all learners. While the goals for technology education are well articulated, and have been for some time, the perennial debate in technology education is the stymied transition from technical education. It is my contention that the technical contexts that defined vocational education, which are still present in curricular representations of technology education, contribute to these tensions.
A critical thinking thematic framework and observation tool for improved theory and developing secondary teachers’ instructional practice: Proof of concept
(Elsevier BV, 2025) Shafer, Derek
Theoretical understandings of critical thinking, including how it is positioned and developed across educational contexts, remains contentious. While critical thinking features across school curricula internationally with increasing prominence as an educational priority for young people, efforts to explore and develop secondary teachers’ practices of critical thinking reveal diverse theoretical influences and instructional approaches, without reaching a consensus model of best practice. To address this, a new critical thinking thematic framework was developed towards reconciling theoretical tensions within the question of: what is critical thinking?, so that understandings of what it might look like as part of teacher instructional practice can be developed. Together with this thematic framework, a critical thinking observation tool and thematic coding guide were constructed to code and analyse teacher interview and classroom observations in order to guide a year-long investigation of secondary teachers’ beliefs and practices of critical thinking. Applied across multiple studies within a design-based research project, this critical thinking thematic framework enabled the effective exploration and dissemination of secondary teachers’ perceptions and instructional practices of critical thinking across English, Social Science and Science subject contexts. Engaged as a community of practice, and supported with contextualised evidence, 28 participant teachers across five New Zealand secondary schools were able to reflect their beliefs and practices for future planning. Significant shifts in the frequency and conceptual nature of teachers’ beliefs and practices of critical thinking in response to professional development across repeated measures suggest that the Critical Thinking Thematic Framework and Observation Tool can be employed to produce consistent and reliable coding of beliefs and practices with effective researcher training.

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