Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.1301 Education Systems

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A performative-performance analytical approach: Infusing butlerian theory into the narrative-discursive method
    (SAGE Publications (UK and US), 2013-10-01) Morison T; Macleod C
    Judith Butler’s theory of performativity provides gender theorists with a rich theoretical language for thinking about gender. Despite this, Butlerian theory is difficult to apply, as Butler does not provide guidance on actual analysis of language use in context. In order to address this limitation, we suggest carefully supplementing performativity with the notion of performance in a manner that allows for the inclusion of relational specificities and the mechanisms through which gender, and gender trouble, occur. To do this, we turn to current developments within discursive psychology and narrative theory. We extend the narrative-discursive method proposed by Taylor and colleagues, infusing it with Butlerian theory in order to fashion a dual analytical lens, which we call the performativity-performance approach. We provide a brief example of how the proposed analytical process may be implemented.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Navigating roadblocks and gates: longitudinal experiences of highly accomplished teachers following professional development
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-07-04) Cooper R; Carpendale J; Cutler B; Berry A; Mitchell I
    Highly Accomplished Teachers (HATs) think deeply about skilled pedagogy in ways that illuminate its complexity and the challenges of pedagogical change. The sophistication, breadth, and depth of their thinking often goes well beyond the way that teachers and their responses to professional development (PD) are typically positioned in the extensive, and often quite pessimistic literature on teacher PD. This study extends our previous research with a cohort of HATs immediately following their participation in an intensive PD programme, where we reported how they took ideas from the programme and extended and amplified them by exerting agency and high degrees of professionalism. Our current study reports research with the same cohort 2 years post-PD as they sought to introduce ideas inspired by the PD within their schools. While there were some clear successes, some of their ideas challenged existing thinking and practices in ways that school leadership did not expect. Thus, they encountered barriers that in some cases they were able to navigate and overcome. This paper foregrounds the new complexities of both pedagogy and change that flowed from the HATs’ ideas as well as how they exerted their professionalism to tackle these.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Identifying discipline-based study skills: A preliminary needs analysis
    (Adam House Press, 2018) Ishii D
    As undergraduate students begin their first year of study, they are expected to possess a set of transferable study skills. Teaching and learning support staff are typically called upon to provide assistance, through institution-wide skills workshops, for students in need of further skills development. An alternative approach is the movement towards embedding study skills within the curriculum to better address the specific study skill needs of each disciplinary community. This study used survey data from 191 students, collaboration with academic staff, and classroom observations as a means of conducting a preliminary needs analysis of students’ study skills in three, first-year undergraduate courses. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed particular study variables (i.e., tutorial attendance, comprehending readings, integrating knowledge sources into writing) were significant predictors of final term grades. The findings of this study may assist academic departments who wish to embed study skill support within their undergraduate courses.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Pathways to engagement: a longitudinal study of the first-year student experience in the educational interface
    (Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2/07/2019) Kahu ER; Picton C; Nelson K
    Student engagement is critical to success in the first year of university, yet evidence about how and why various factors influence engagement remains relatively rare. This study addresses this gap combining an existing framework of student engagement (Kahu and Nelson, Higher Education Research and Development, 37(1), 58–71, 2018) with student narratives to provide a detailed understanding of students’ engagement throughout their first year. Weekly semi-structured interviews with 19 first-year students at an Australian university illustrate how student and university factors interact to influence engagement, as conceptualised in the framework. The findings provide empirical support for the framework of student engagement, offering a more nuanced understanding of the student experience within the framework’s educational interface. The importance of self-efficacy, belonging, emotions and wellbeing as interwoven pathways to student engagement is demonstrated and the contextual and dynamic nature of engagement highlighted. Further work is necessary to understand how this knowledge can best facilitate student engagement and perhaps reduce cycles of disengagement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Making subject choices: Influences on adolescents' decision making
    (Adolescent Success, 2016) Poskitt JM; Bonney I
    Middle Years students are required to make critical educational decisions with respect to subject choices. These decisions occur in adolescence - a period of intense identity formation, strong emotions, living in the moment and peer affiliation - characteristics which may affect decision making. Subject choices either broaden or narrow future pathways, so what influences adolescent student decisionmaking? A case study research investigation at one middle school involved teachers, students and their parents/caregivers through the use of questionnaires, interviews and document analysis to reveal various influences. Significant others (family, friends, older students and subject teachers), website sources and course information booklets were among the most frequently cited influences, although there were gender, ethnic and year-level variations. Structural issues related to school resourcing and timetabling affected some students’ choices. Of concern was inadequate awareness of: subject information, subjects required for entry to particular tertiary courses or career options, how to access information or who to approach. The school careers’ advisor was rarely sought, and subject teachers sometimes had little knowledge of progression in their field or career options. Implications arise from the study about effective ways to support adolescents in making appropriate subject choices.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Increasing the emotional engagement of first year mature-aged distance students: Interest and belonging
    (Queensland University of Technology, 8/08/2014) Kahu ER
    This research followed 19 mature-aged distance students through their first semester of undergraduate study. The analysis of interviews and video diaries presented in this paper focuses on two key elements of emotional engagement: interest and belonging. Findings highlight the importance of interest triggered by personal preferences and experiences. Interest led to enjoyment, increased behavioural engagement with greater time and effort expended, and improved cognitive engagement in terms of depth and breadth of learning. In contrast, there was less evidence of the social side of emotional engagement, belonging. Participants felt little connection to the university, but connecting with fellow students through face-to-face courses and online forums was important for some to reduce their sense of isolation. However, distance study was not for all. The findings highlight the need for staff to consider emotional engagement when designing and delivering the curriculum and when interacting with students, particularly in the all-important first year.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Linking academic emotions and student engagement: mature-aged distance students’ transition to university
    (4/07/2015) Kahu E; Stephens C; Leach L; Zepke N
    Research into both student engagement and student emotions is increasing, with widespread agreement that both are critical determinants of student success in higher education. Less researched are the complex, reciprocal relationships between these important influences. Two theoretical frameworks inform this paper: Pekrun’s taxonomy of academic emotions and Kahu’s conceptual framework of student engagement. The prospective qualitative design aims to allow a rich understanding of the fluctuating and diverse emotions that students experience during the transition to university and to explore the relationships between academic emotions and student engagement. The study follows 19 mature-aged (aged 24 and over) distance students throughout their first semester at university, using video diaries to collect data on their emotional experiences and their engagement with their study. Pre and post-semester interviews were also conducted. Findings highlight that different emotions have different links to engagement: as important elements in emotional engagement, as inhibitors of engagement and as outcomes that reciprocally influence engagement. There are two key conclusions. First, student emotions are the point of intersection between the university factors such as course design and student variables such as motivation and background. Second, the flow of influence between emotions, engagement, and learning is reciprocal and complex and can spiral upwards towards ideal engagement or downwards towards disengagement and withdrawal.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    New Zealand teachers' overall teacher judgments (OTJs): Equivocal or unequivocal?
    (New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1/03/2012) Poskitt JM; Mitchell K
    Central to New Zealand National Standards is the concept of overall teacher judgments (OTJs). This paper examines the concepts of OTJs and standards through international literature and experiences of a sample of New Zealand teachers in 2010. Standards contain expectations – what is, what could be, and what might be desirable – implicit degrees of performance. Teacher capacity to judge current and future performance is important. With multiple opportunities to gather pertinent information, teachers are best placed to make valid (unequivocal) judgments on student achievement when they have shared understandings of standards. Because standards are comprised of multiple criteria, not all of which are evident in samples of student achievement, teacher understanding of standards develops through professional conversations and moderation processes. In 2010 New Zealand teachers had mixed (equivocal) understandings of National Standards, applied them in different ways and had minimal experience of moderation processes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Teachers’ perspectives of social-emotional learning: Informing the development of a linguistically and culturally responsive framework for social-emotional wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2022) Denston A; Martin R; Fickel L; O'Toole V
    Teachers’ understandings of social-emotional wellbeing contribute to developing ways that teachers can engage with students to develop social-emotional skills. This collaborative research project adopted a critical participatory action research methodology, informed by Kaupapa Māori research principles. The perceptions of teachers were explored through wānanga (ethical spaces for research) to inform the development of a co-constructed culturally and linguistically sustaining framework for social-emotional wellbeing. Findings suggested that creating a framework requires being informed by indigenous models of wellbeing. Results suggest that developing such a framework requires teachers to develop understandings of their own social-emotional competencies, as well as their students.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Using photo elicitation to understand first-year student experiences: Student metaphors of life, university and learning
    (29/02/2020) Kahu ER; Picton C
    © The Author(s) 2020. The transition from school to university is challenging and a greater knowledge of the first-year student experience will enable staff to better support their students. University- and government-run student surveys fail to capture the depth and breadth of the first-year experience and so qualitative research is needed to get a more nuanced and holistic understanding of students’ lives. The study described in this article used a photo elicitation method. We asked students to choose four images that represented their first year at university. The data – the chosen photographs and the students’ explanations of their choices – were thematically analysed, focusing in particular on the diverse metaphors students used to depict three dimensions of their experiences: life, university and learning. The findings highlight the dual nature of the transition to university – learning to be a university student and learning to be an adult – as well as the challenges and stresses of that process. The lack of agency that students felt is evident. The students likened their journey to a rollercoaster and talked of not being able to keep up with the fast-moving curriculum. They depicted themselves as passive acquirers of knowledge. The findings offer new ways for staff to understand the challenges that potentially disrupt student engagement in the first year. Both students and staff could benefit from recognising the metaphors in their thinking and, potentially, seeking new metaphors that might reveal different and more positive ways of experiencing the first year in higher education.