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The investigation of military style academies as an intervention for young people with serious and persistent criminality
(The University of Waikato, 2025) Kazadi, Mujinga Deborah; Roen, Katrina
A developmental perspective asserts that criminal trajectories arise due to the complex interactions between environmental factors and individual factors increasing vulnerabilities towards persistent criminality. These criminal trajectories are identifiable during early childhood and represent unaddressed vulnerabilities across social, cognitive and familial contexts. The presence of serious and persistent offending amongst young people is significant because it highlights the accumulative effects of risk factors present in childhood and places them at increased risk of transitioning into persistent criminality in adulthood. It is therefore advantageous to design interventions targeting serious and persistent offending in young people. Aotearoa’s National government proposed military style academies (MSAs) as an intervention to reduce the amount of young people involved in serious and persistent offending. The combination of physical activity and rehabilitative components is proposed to alter criminal trajectories and encourage desistance from crime. This thesis investigates youth practitioner’s perceptions of MSAs, an intervention for youth with serious and persistent criminality to conceptualize how youth rehabilitation can be shaped to positively contribute to the wellbeing of Aotearoa’s most vulnerable young people. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse 11 interviews with youth practitioners with at least one year’s experience working with vulnerable youth. Four main themes and nine sub-themes were identified. The four main themes included addressing the root causes of crime, reducing re-offending, cultural considerations and the juvenile justice system. Serious and persistent offending amongst young people was viewed to be the result of a lack of early interventions targeting those at the highest risk of developing enduring criminal identities. The whānau unit was highlighted as a key target for early interventions and rehabilitative programmes. Participants raised concerns about the incongruence between MSAs and a Te Ao Māori world view. Participants suggested that MSAs failed to recognise the extent to which young people who offend are often victims first. Further, they argued that MSAs did not facilitate reintegration into the community. These factors were associated with increasing the likelihood that young people will go on to offend. These findings support the need for interventions to embrace a therapeutic model emphasizing the reconciliation and redemption of the young person. As such, the re-structure of youth rehabilitation and the juvenile justice system to more closely align with Mātauranga Māori and desistance theories can be considered a robust strategy to disrupt the care to custody pipeline so prevalent in young people who offend.
Psychological Capital and its support to students while they combine work and study
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Bovill, Kimberly; Sutton, Anna
One in every two students in Aotearoa/New Zealand now works approximately 16 hours per week alongside studying, which is driven by the current increasing living costs and decreased access to governmental financial support seen in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This financial strain and need to self-support is a reality for students that requires more attention, due to the potential negative impacts of financial strain on students’ stress, well-being and academic success, altering the students’ time at university and academic outcomes. However, there is variance in students’ experiences and the way they balance these working and student roles, suggesting that individual psychological resources may play a significant role in shaping outcomes. The present study examined whether Psychological Capital (PsyCap), a positive psychological resource comprising hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism (HERO), mediates the negative impacts of combining work and study by buffering the relationship between hours worked and student outcomes. An online survey was administered to 214 undergraduate students currently studying at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Data were analysed using correlation and mediation analyses to identify relationships between variables, and explain any relationship found between PsyCap involving the components of HERO and hours worked, stress, well-being and academic success. The results showed that higher levels of PsyCap were associated with lower stress, along with higher levels of well-being and academic performance, giving an insight into the importance of psychological resources. Hours worked showed weak associations with student outcomes and were significantly related only to general university stress, indicating that employment hours can add stress but do not inherently impact a student's outcomes. Mediation analyses showed that PsyCap did not mediate the relationship between hours worked and student outcomes, primarily because hours worked were not significantly related to PsyCap. These findings suggest that psychological resources may play a more substantial role in shaping a student's experience in the ability to juggle these roles, rather than employment intensity alone. The findings highlighted the importance of internal coping resources, especially for students who are juggling multiple roles. Future research recommendations include interventions aimed at strengthening PsyCap, known as Psychological Capital Interventions (PCI), which focus on steps such as goal setting and identifying paths to reach these goals, providing a more practical and realistic approach to promoting student well-being, academic success and commitment to higher education. If these practical interventions are put in place to support students’ academic success, this can positively impact the workforce and the new generation of workers.
Using genetic techniques to improve understanding of source-sink dynamics of the invasive mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Hale, Phoenix; McGaughran, Angela
Biodiversity loss is more prominent in freshwater versus terrestrial or marine ecosystems, with temperate estuaries believed to be the most degraded of all ecosystems globally. This is due, in part, to the proliferation of invasive non-native species and the inadequacies of current biomonitoring practices for monitoring population trends over sufficient spatiotemporal scales to inform management decisions. Environmental DNA (eDNA; genetic material shed to the surrounding environment by organisms) is an increasingly popular, non-invasive biomonitoring method that provides the opportunity to increase the scale at which population trends can be monitored, while also having the potential as a sampling method for population genetic studies. My thesis aimed to use a variety of methods to understand source-sink population dynamics at varying spatial and temporal scales and explore the value genetic techniques can provide to species management, using the invasive pest fish, Gambuis affinis, as a test case. Chapter 2 used traditional netting techniques to survey occupancy patterns of G. affinis to understand the species’ physical dispersal drivers within a large coastal ecosystem in the South Island of New Zealand. I demonstrated a decrease in abundance and likelihood of G. affinis presence as tide height increased, and a decrease in abundance of G. affinis at a specific site as rainfall increased. These findings show that monitoring of occupancy patterns of freshwater fish is often done at too small a spatiotemporal scale and that future work should incorporate additional methods to increase the scale at which monitoring is performed. Chapter 3 analysed mitochondrial DNA collected across New Zealand from both tissue and water samples to explore the efficacy of eDNA as a sampling tool for determining mitochondrial variation at large spatiotemporal scales. I showed that >99% of the G. affinis mitochondrial assemblage was shared by both tissue and water samples, but the remaining detected genetic variation was unique to either tissue or water only. These findings show that, while that eDNA holds great promise for biomonitoring in freshwater environments, careful consideration of study design is required for its use in assessing the drivers of biodiversity differentiation. Together, my thesis demonstrates the utility of eDNA metabarcoding techniques as a complement to traditional survey methods to increase the spatiotemporal scale at which biomonitoring is undertaken. Continued application of a combination of these methods will facilitate improved knowledge of occupancy and dispersal patterns for G. affinis and, as such, greater protection of our native ecosystems and species.
La educación en un mundo globalizado y postdigital: Debates, tendencias y giros inesperados
(2026) Estellés, Marta
Desde las reformas educativas neoliberales de los 80 en el mundo anglosajón, la mayoría de países han seguido, en grados y formas variables, politícas educativas caracterizadas por una creciente privatización de los sistemas educativos públicos, estandarización de los procesos educativos y la introducción de mecanismos de rendición de cuentas, promovidos, en buena medida, por organismos internationales como la OECD y el Banco Mundial. Los efectos más visibles de estas políticas sobre la desigualdad y el aprendizaje han estado bien documentados en la literatura de las últimas décadas y debatidos en múltiples foros. Las formas más recientes de responder a estos y otros desafíos (la pandemia, la IA, etc.) han dado lugar a una serie de respuestas que, sin alterar el sustrato neoliberal esencial de estas reformas, están reformulando los términos y preocupaciones centrales sobre los que gira el debate educativo. En este seminario, discutiremos tres de estos giros. El primero está relacionado con la reacción conservadora frente a, por un lado, el auge de pedagogías ‘blandas’ centradas en el niño que han florecido al calor de discursos neoliberales sobre la flexibilidad, la autonomía y el aprendizaje individualizado y, por otro, las políticas identitarias emergidas en el contexto de lo que Nancy Fraser denomina ‘neoliberalismo progresista’. En numerosos países anglosajones, esta reacción conservadora se está traduciendo en políticas curriculares que apoyan el retorno a las disciplinas tradicionales y métodos de enseñanza centrados en el docente. El segundo giro concierne al proceso que he denominado la ‘safetyficación’ de la educación y que se refiere a la reciente centralidad adquirida por la noción de seguridad, en su vertiente afectiva y emocional, en debates educativos. Esta preocupación sobre la seguridad, entendida como una condición indispensable para el aprendizaje, ha llevado a numerosos países a aprobar políticas relacionadas con la medición de la salud mental, el aprendizaje socioemocional, las pedagogías culturalmente sensibles y el uso generalizado de estrategias psicoterapéuticas para mejorar el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes. El tercer giro concierne al cuestionamiento emergente de la digitalización como piedra angular de la reforma educativa. Preocupaciones crecientes sobre los efectos de las pantallas en las habilidades cognitivas y el bienestar emocional de los estudiantes han llevado a países como Australia, Nueva Zelanda o Suecia a introducir restricciones en el uso de redes sociales, teléfonos móviles y softwares educativos respectivamente. Una ‘reacción digital’ que a menudo convive con procesos de progresiva dataficación y digitalización de la educación. Como veremos, estos tres giros, íntimamente relacionados y llenos de contradicciones, están marcando las nuevas direcciones en política educativa a nivel mundial, ofreciendo nuevas respuestas a la cuestión del rol de la educación en un mundo global y postdigital.
CodeWars: Using LLMs for vulnerability analysis in cybersecurity education
(The Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education, 2026-03-21) Chaudhary, Arunima; Colombo, Gualtiero; Javed, Amir; Haseeb, Junaid; Kumar, Vimal; Larsen, Richard
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly explored as tools for software development and could further constitute a supplementary source for the development of varied examples intended for pedagogical use. While they can improve productivity, their ability to produce code that is both secure and compliant with Secure Software Development (SSD) practices remains uncertain, raising concerns about their role in cybersecurity education. If LLMs are to be integrated effectively, students must be trained to critically evaluate generated code for correctness and vulnerabilities, raising an important question: How can LLM-generated code be effectively and securely incorporated into Cybersecurity education for teaching vulnerability analysis? This paper introduces CodeWars, a novel teaching methodology that combines LLM-generated and human-written code to examine how students engage with vulnerability detection tasks. CodeWars was implemented as a pilot study with a total of 32 students at Cardiff University and the University of Waikato, where students analyzed flawed, secure, and mixed-origin code samples. By comparing student approaches, analysis, and perceptions, the study provides insights into how vulnerabilities are detected, how code origins are distinguished, and how SSD practices are applied. Our analysis of student feedback and interviews indicates that Codewars produced structured and accessible code, simplifying vulnerability identification and offering educators the means to efficiently develop varied SSD teaching applications. These findings illuminate both the advantages and constraints of employing LLMs in secure coding and position this study as a foundational step toward the responsible adoption of AI in Cybersecurity Education.