Welcome to Research Commons

Research Commons is the University of Waikato's open access research repository, housing research publications and theses produced by the University's staff and students.

Communities in Research Commons

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Recent Submissions

Scholarly responses to ‘students’ experiences of open distance learning: A Samoan case study’
(University of Sydney, 2023) Chan, Philip Wing Keung; Baice, Tim; Fonua, Sonia M.; Diamond, Zane; Ji, Grace; Levy, Benjamin; Zeng, Shaoru Annie
This is foundational to the collective success of educational facilitators and learners in knowledge ecologies that are grounded in relationality. In summary, ODL can be an important tool to increase access and the number of teachers, but it needs to be contextually adapted, not just by the learners but also by curricular designers.
Managing digital citizens: Online safety and the rise of private actors in New Zealand schools
(Taylor & Francis, 2026) Doyle, Andrew; Estellés, Marta; Forbes, Dianne Leslie
Online safety has increasingly become an issue in schools worldwide. For both teachers and students, online safety problems, from sleep deprivation through to sextortion, present unprecedented challenges beyond the control of school management. The pressing nature of online safety issues combined with other material conditions, such as underfunded public systems and neoliberal administration models, has presented a breeding ground for private organisations to flourish in this field. In this study, we examine how schools enact online safety, the educational approaches underpinning these efforts and the conditions favouring the privatisation of online safety services. The context of the research is New Zealand – a country whose education system has experienced a sharp rise in privatisation over the last few decades. The study draws on ethnographic data with four high schools, involving school leaders, teachers, students and private organisations – for profit and non-profit – providing services to these schools. Our findings point at the unrealistic expectation of demanding schools guarantee young people’s safety online and the problems associated with the increasing privatisation of the field, including the lack of critical approaches to digital citizenship education. The article concludes with recommendations for policy makers, including legislative measures to hold online platforms accountable for online harm.
Understanding regional differences in extreme heat vulnerability in Aotearoa New Zealand: Demographic sensitivity, social vulnerability, and climate justice
(The University of Waikato, 2026-09-11) McLean-House, Cassidy; Jarallah, Yara; Whitehead, Jesse
Extreme heat is an emerging climatic and population health risk in Aotearoa New Zealand, yet its demographic and spatial dimensions remain poorly understood. While international evidence demonstrates clear associations between heatwaves and excess mortality, hospitalisations, and social disruption, limited research has examined how extreme heat intersects with demographic sensitivity and social vulnerability in New Zealand’s temperate climate. This thesis addresses that gap by providing the first national, spatially explicit assessment of extreme heat vulnerability in New Zealand, framed through the lenses of climate justice and intergenerational equity. The study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional design integrating daily maximum temperature observations from thirty representative climate stations (2009/10–2018/19 summers) with 2023 Census demographic data and the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep2023) at Statistical Area 2 (SA2) level. Extreme heat is defined using station-specific 95th percentile thresholds, reflecting relative local acclimatisation. For each station, the mean number of summer days exceeding this threshold was calculated and spatially assigned to SA2s using a nearest-station approach in QGIS. Demographic sensitivity was operationalised through age structure, focusing on children (0–14 years) and older adults (65+ years), while social vulnerability was captured using ethnic composition and area-level, socioeconomic deprivation. Results demonstrate substantial regional and interannual variability in extreme heat exposure. Warmer eastern and inland regions record higher temperature thresholds, yet relative exceedance days are not confined to traditionally hot areas, underscoring the importance of percentile-based measures in temperate climates. Exposure increased markedly in later summers, particularly in the summer of 2018/19, indicating a national upward shift in extreme heat frequency. Demographically, vulnerability is unevenly distributed. Older populations are concentrated in several South Island and coastal regions, while Māori and Pacific communities, characterised by younger age structures, are concentrated in specific North Island regions and urban areas. Overlay analysis reveals distinct spatial clusters where elevated heat exposure coincides with high proportions of either older adults or children, often alongside higher socioeconomic deprivation. By embedding these findings within climate justice and intergenerational equity frameworks, the thesis demonstrates that extreme heat is not only a climatic hazard but also an issue of equity. Communities least responsible for climate change may face disproportionate exposure due to structural inequities. Simultaneously, children represent a cohort with both heightened physiological sensitivity and greater lifetime exposure under continued warming. This research contributes to knowledge by integrating climatological, demographic, and socioeconomic deprivation data into a unified national vulnerability assessment for New Zealand. It provides a policy-relevant evidence base to inform heat-health planning, housing standards, urban design, and equitable adaptation strategies. More broadly, it demonstrates the importance of embedding justice-oriented frameworks into climate and population health research to ensure adaptation responses reduce, rather than reproduce, existing inequities.
Exploring prompt engineering for grapevine pruning decision making with limited data
(Australian Robotics & Automation Association (ARAA), 2025) He, Wanrui; McGuinness, Benjamin; Holmes, Geoffrey; Fletcher, Dale; Duke, Mike; Au, Chi Kit; Williams, Henry A. M.; Smith, David; Lim, Shen Hin
To address the challenges posed by the shortage of agricultural labour, this paper explores the use of Prompt Engineering (PE) to guide Large Language Models (LLMs) for grapevine pruning decision-making. Based on real grapevine images and structured data, five prompt templates were designed and tested on four mainstream LLMs: Gemma-3, Llama-4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and GPT-o3. Experimental results show that some models excel in consistency—GPT-o3 achieved full consistency (1.0) under Prompt 3, and Gemma-3 performed well under Prompts 2 and 3 (0.98 and 0.96). However, inter-model agreement remained low (Fleiss’ Kappa < 0.07) across all conditions. These findings confirm the feasibility of using PE to simulate expert pruning in data-scarce environments and offer insights for building scalable, interpretable decision-support systems in agriculture.
Microfoundations of accountability when transparency is constrained: Moral and relational practices in Tonga's public sector
(Emerald, 2026) Uele, Iki Mafi; Ranasinghe, Dinithi; Akroyd, Chris
Purpose: This study examines how accountability is enacted in everyday financial practice in Tonga's public sector by analysing the microfoundations through which public servants interpret, negotiate, and resolve accountability demands. It addresses an unresolved theoretical puzzle in accountability research: why strong moral responsibility can coexist with constrained procedural transparency. Rather than treating accountability outcomes as the product of institutional design alone, the study investigates how relational ethics, cultural obligations, and moral reasoning simultaneously enable accountability while limiting formal disclosure and contestation. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design grounded in talanoa, a Pacific dialogic methodology suited to eliciting morally and relationally embedded practices. Data were generated through in-depth talanoa with public servants across ministries and hierarchical levels in Tonga. Analysis follows a microfoundations perspective, tracing how individual-level moral judgements, emotional regulation, relational obligations, and discretionary practices aggregate into patterned organisational accountability outcomes. Findings: The findings show that accountability in Tonga is enacted as a lived ethical practice rather than a purely procedural one. Moral self-regulation, faith-based responsibility, prudential judgement in budgeting, respect for hierarchy, and relational dialogue sustain strong accountability. At the same time, these same mechanisms constrain procedural transparency by discouraging escalation, formal contestation, and explicit disclosure. Accountability is therefore realised through a double-edged configuration in which moral responsibility is strengthened even as formal transparency becomes ethically, relationally, or politically costly. Originality/value: The study contributes to accounting and accountability scholarship by offering a microfoundational explanation of why transparency deficits persist despite strong ethical commitment. It reframes constrained transparency not as an informational or enforcement failure, but as an outcome of morally embedded accountability practices. By theorising accountability as an emergent configuration of moral, emotional, and relational mechanisms, the paper advances understanding of how accountability is simultaneously enabled and constrained in relational public-sector contexts, with implications for accountability reform in developing and culturally plural settings.