Massey Documents by Type

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

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.520402 Decision making

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Healthcare assistant decision-making and information behaviour in long-term care settings : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2025-08-21) Burrow, Marla
    Healthcare assistants (HCAs) are an unregulated workforce who provide most of the care to those living in Aged Residential Care (ARC) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite being the essential workforce for the aged care sector, there is a paucity of literature regarding how healthcare assistants make decisions in their everyday work. Increased demand for aged care and health workforce shortages have led to HCAs often working under pressure and required to make decisions about all manner of care. This study explores the direct care decision-making of HCAs. Critical ethnography underpinned by Elfreda Chatman’s small world theory informed data collection. Direct observations and semi-structured interviews provided data on participant characteristics, decision types, the decision-making environment and information landscape. Experimental vignettes explored decision-making in uncertainty by progressively manipulating three dimensions of knowing: knowledge of the environment of care, knowledge of the resident (familiarity), and knowledge as (HCA) experience. Small world and decision-making theories framed data analysis. Decisions were conceptualised as decision schemas associated with specific care actions. Routine, easy and more difficult decisions were identified. Decisions were influenced by the institutional schedule, availability of resources, and the rules of work. Resident attributes, HCA traits, and task prioritisation influenced how decisions were actioned. Frequent informal handovers between HCAs supported situational awareness of resident and communal care demands. Vignette data provided two compelling findings: the more uncertainty, the higher the frequency of advice sought from an experienced HCA, and HCAs took an active role in assimilating new residents into institutional care routines. Models are offered conceptualising the interplay of tensions, certainty, uncertainty and risk with the constructs, attributes and traits used to frame decisions. Professional implications are related to the provision of safe care to residents and the support of HCAs. Study findings clarified opportunities for the co-creation of strategies to address concerns and better advocate for residents. Nurse educators/managers and registered nurses can support HCAs by sharing information considered to be of relevance to the work and decisions they make. Study findings further highlighted the influence of institutional routines and the value HCAs placed on information held by experienced HCAs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Workplace attitudes and responsibilities regarding euthanasia practices within Australasian zoos and aquariums : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Veterinary Science at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2024) Clarke, Alison S.
    Euthanasia of a diverse range of species is carried out regularly in Australasian zoos, however little is known about zoo employee attitudes on the use of euthanasia within Australasian zoos, the types of euthanasia performed and the range of personnel involved. I carried out a survey of staff in zoos across Australia and New Zealand and used quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse the responses. Widely variable employee support was documented for both lethal and non-lethal animal management strategies, with polarizing attitudes expressed toward the use of euthanasia for “otherwise healthy” animals. Non-lethal methods (e.g. reproductive control) to avoid creation of surplus young were emphatically supported, and were preferred over lethal methods that focused on managing resultant individuals. The underlying justification for the use of euthanasia was critically important to attitudes held by employees, suggesting many zoo professionals will apply moral judgements at the individual animal-level, with euthanasia performed for geriatric animals shown to be a well-accepted and common practice. We documented a broad variety of personnel involved in the euthanasia decision-making process within zoos, and identified divergence in attitudes held across individual employees and major employee groups (i.e. ‘management’, ‘animal care’, and ‘veterinary services’). Variation in euthanasia use and attitudes was identified across different workplace settings, and geographic influences were revealed with a broadly heterogenous set of attitudes identified for Australasia. This work calls for more open and transparent considerations around animal euthanasia, with recognition of the cultural differences that may exist, and the risks that euthanasia practices create for the experiences of those caring for animals, to the animals themselves, and to the maintenance of zoos’ social licence.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Medications : how do we understand expiration dates? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Frankland, Susan
    The expectation of the pharmaceutical industry is that medication expiration dates are automatically understood by consumers. There is a complexity to this interpretation that has not been fully studied. The main aim of this research is to explore how prescription medication expiration dates, are understood by the consumer. An in-depth interviewing, narrative method was used to gain valid and detailed discourse of the individuals perspective of why expiry dates are used by pharmaceutical companies, how it influenced their decisions on storage and/or disposal, and individual views on recycling and/or redistribution of excess and/or expired medications to those in need. Twenty people were interviewed, from varied demographics, using a questionnaire guide, consisting of 18 questions, aimed at gaining information on their personal opinions of pharmaceutical expiration dates. The main findings revealed by the narratives, were that medication expiration dates were only an indication of best efficacy and not something that would cause any serious harm. Interestingly, there was no consensus on the types of medications most effected by expiration dates, or which medications the individual would consume after expiry. The analysis showed that most of the subjects would, and had used expired medications at some point, and were not concerned about experiencing any major side effects. It was also found that a high percentage of participants thought the use of expiry dates on medications, to be a marketing strategy by pharmaceutical companies, in order to generate more sales. Knowledge of the process of disposing of expired medications was limited, and only one participant had any knowledge of the concept of programs to redistribute medication. Support for such programs received mixed results. The majority of participants felt that the risk of taking expired medicine was not a concern; however this only applied to the patient themselves and all would not dispense expired medications to another family member, particularly mothers to children. In summary, the findings of this research highlighted the gap in consumer knowledge of medication expiration dates, the categories of medication most effected by age and for uncovering new ways to examine expired medication for deterioration and efficacy. It was shown that consumers are positive about investigating redistributive programs which could facilitate excess/expired medications reaching those in need and to drastically minimise excessive, current global medication wastage.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Accuracy of consumer identification of characteristics, visual representations and purchase receipts of loot boxes : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023) Hall, Matt
    Loot boxes are virtual containers in video games, that provide players with randomized rewards. Concerns exist about the similarities between loot boxes and conventional gambling (Drummond & Sauer, 2018). Supporting this, there is a robust meta-analytic relationship between loot box spending and problem gambling symptomatology (Garea et al., 2021). Although the regulatory response varies between jurisdictions, it often remains up to consumers to regulate their own, and their children's engagement with loot boxes. For consumers to effectively achieve this, at minimum they must be able to identify loot boxes. The present research investigated the accuracy of consumers in identifying characteristics, visual representations, and purchase receipts of loot boxes. We employed a cross-sectional between subjects quasi-experimental research design. Participants were members of natural groups (e.g., parents/guardians, non-parents/non-guardians, video gamer/non-video gamers). Participants were asked to identify basic facts about, pictures of, and receipts generated by, loot boxes. Our results suggests that parents/guardians and non-gamers perform poorer at identifying loot boxes than non-parents/non-guardians and gamers respectively across these three measures. Our results suggest that parents/guardians and non-gamers may be less likely to be able to make informed loot box purchasing decisions compared to non-parents/non-guardians and gamers respectively. Our findings are the first to provide objective insight into the relative performance of consumers' ability to identify and thus regulate loot box purchases.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The influence of confirmation bias on the decision making of emergency services pilots : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Aviation at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Browne, Matthew
    Pilots of emergency services aircraft face complex, challenging, and life and death situations on a regular basis as part of their roles. The purpose of this research was to investigate how confirmation bias may influence pilots to make potentially unsafe decisions. Confirmation bias has previously been found to adversely affect decision quality in several areas of aviation. 101 emergency services pilots participated in this research by using an online tool which presented them with three scenarios representative of the types of situations they encounter in their line of work. After each of the scenarios, participants were asked four questions: their willingness to fly the specific scenario, whether a confirmatory factor influenced their decision, and how confident they were in their previous two answers. The findings suggested high levels of confirmation bias across all participants. Whilst the criticality of the scenario presented did not provide a statistically significant difference in the level of confirmation bias of participants, the total number of missions participants decided to fly, and their total emergency services flight hours, did. The findings overall suggest that confirmation bias may adversely affect emergency services pilots’ decision-making, leading them to decide to fly based on an unrealistically positive appraisal of information relevant to making a decision. The findings were broadly consistent with prior research on confirmation bias and aviation decision making and appeared to provide a framework for understanding a number of previous fatal accidents of emergency services aircraft. The main limitation was use of hypothetical scenarios, rather than real life ones, due to ethical and practical implications of conducting this research on real-life missions.