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Item Thriving in clinical veterinary practice : a strengths-based, qualitative investigation of thriving in clinical veterinarians in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Veterinary Science at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2025-11-21) Cantley, Charlotte Emily LouiseVeterinarians play an important role in society, contributing to animal health, public health, and environmental sustainability. However, there is growing international concern about the well-being and workforce stability of veterinarians, particularly those working in clinical practice. Much of the existing research has focused on the negative impact of veterinary work on well-being, emphasising that veterinarians experience high levels of psychological distress and burnout. However, there is a lack of understanding of what enables veterinarians not only to cope in clinical practice but also to thrive and enjoy fulfilling careers. This research employed a qualitative approach, grounded in positive psychology, to explore the factors that help veterinarians thrive in clinical practice. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, this research investigated the lived experiences of clinical veterinarians in Aotearoa New Zealand, to identify the factors that contribute to a fulfilling and sustainable career. Participants across the three studies represented veterinarians from a wide range of clinical practice types, including companion animal, production animal, equine, and mixed practice. They included late-career veterinarians (n = 19), new and recent graduates (n = 22), and mid-late career veterinarians who were not practice owners or senior managers (n = 29). Reflexive thematic analysis was utilised to identify key themes from the data. Three final key concepts emerged as critical to thriving in veterinary clinical practice: positive leadership, a psychologically safe clinic culture, and a strong sense of purpose and meaning in work, referred to as the “3Ps” of thriving. For early-career veterinarians, positive mentorship in a psychologically safe environment was crucial for developing confidence, self-efficacy, and a professional identity suitable for general practice. Mid- and late-career veterinarians who experienced positive leadership and a healthy, safe workplace culture reported an evolving sense of purpose that included providing care to patients and expanded to encompass mentoring and supporting others in the profession, as well as philanthropic work and community commitment. These veterinarians expressed high levels of engagement and were often motivated by fostering thriving in others. The attitudes and behaviours of clinic managers were noted as particularly important. Thus, a thriving veterinary career can be considered an odyssey — a long, transformative journey shaped by challenges, growth, and continuous learning. It reflects an evolving sense of purpose, making the role of a clinical veterinarian far more than just a job. Based on these findings, a practical framework of evidence-based recommendations was designed to foster thriving throughout a veterinarian’s career. These recommendations target three levels of influence: the individual, the clinic, and the broader veterinary profession, and may help address the ongoing issues of recruitment and retention in veterinary practice. This research provides valuable insights into the benefits of pursuing a clinical career, contributing to the growing body of literature on positive well-being in the veterinary field. It highlights the importance of leadership and psychological safety — topics that have received relatively little attention in veterinary contexts — and shows how they enable veterinarians to find purpose and meaning in their work. Importantly, the research highlights that fostering thriving is a collective responsibility, shared between veterinary businesses, individual veterinarians, and the profession as a whole.Item Multiple veterinary stakeholders' perspectives on important professionalism attributes for career success in veterinary clinical practice : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Veterinary Science at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2020) Gordon, Stuart John GaltThere is an increasing body of literature on professionalism in the health sciences. Most research has, however, elicited the opinions of single groups of experts and tried to use these to generalise across the profession. The aim of the thesis was, therefore, to gain a broad understanding of professionalism by appraising the voices of many tiers of veterinary stakeholders involved in veterinary clinical practice. Through a mixed methods approach using card-sort analysis, online questionnaires, focus groups, critical incident reporting and analysis of client complaints, information was collected from first year and final year Massey University veterinary students, clinical veterinary practitioners and veterinary clients. An online questionnaire was also used to gather the final year veterinary students’ opinions on veterinary professionalism pedagogy. The iterative sampling method ensured that a wide range of perceptions were represented. These multiple perspectives, along with the existing knowledge contained within the literature on veterinary and medical professionalism, provide the basis upon which to develop a theoretical framework on professionalism in the veterinary context. The synthesis of data into a framework was undertaken primarily through a grounded theory approach. The research also provides support for the importance of including professionalism in veterinary curricula. Three overarching themes emerged from the analysis of the veterinary stakeholders’ opinions, namely: ‘committing to best practice’, ‘building the veterinarian-client relationship’ and ‘client expectations’. The framework of veterinary professionalism that has evolved from scrutiny of these themes revolves around the principles of ‘veterinary care’. Career success and satisfaction for practising clinical veterinarians hinges on three crucial domains of veterinary care: ‘patient-centred care’, ‘relationship-centred care’, and ‘self-care’. The focus of patient-centred care is the animal, while the foci of relationship-centred care are the client and veterinary colleagues. The self-care domain focuses on the practising veterinarian as a person. Professionalism, therefore, fundamentally revolves around veterinarians’ accountability to a social contract with patients, clients and colleagues as well as to themselves. Analysis of veterinary student opinions on the teaching of professionalism revealed constructive viewpoints and recommendations. Students recommended that the veterinary professionalism course be embedded across the whole primary veterinary teaching programme, including in the early years of study. It was further suggested that role-playing and reflective practice should be used throughout the programme to support the development of professionalism. The need to assess professionalism adequately and appropriately was also highlighted, as was the need to include rewards for displays of good professional behaviour. The potential for the hidden curriculum and negative clinical role models to undermine the teaching of professionalism was also addressed. Additionally, students recommended that the veterinary professionalism curriculum should prepare graduates for the job market by accommodating the requirements of veterinary employers. This research represents the first time that the opinions of multiple veterinary stakeholders on the attributes of professionalism important for career success have been solicited in one series of research studies. Furthermore, this study has used novel methodologies to determine the opinions of stakeholders. For the first time, a card-sort analysis has been used to solicit veterinary students’ opinions and the critical incident technique has been used to determine the perspectives of practising veterinarians. Analysing client complaints lodged with the Veterinary Council of New Zealand also represents an original method of determining those attributes of professionalism that will promote veterinary career success and satisfaction. By seeking the perspectives of multiple veterinary stakeholders, the body of knowledge about professionalism has been extended. Furthermore, the neoteric framework of veterinary professionalism, developed in the study, could help to form the basis for constructing a robust curriculum prescribing the teaching and assessment of veterinary professionalism. It may also be used by veterinarians as a guide in the practice of veterinary medicine and in their relationships with patients, clients, colleagues and society.Item Understanding Indonesian primary school teachers' social-emotional practice : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Saptandari, Edilburga WulanTeaching and learning is an emotional experience and teachers play a crucial role in the nature of this experience. There is consistent evidence that shows a significant relationship between teachers’ emotion, emotion regulation and social-emotional skills, and students’ emotional, social and academic outcomes (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). However, little is known about teachers’ emotional style, especially in an Indonesian context. This thesis aims to explore the underlying dimensions of the Indonesian primary school teachers’ socialemotional practices. A mixed-methods research design was employed. The first, qualitative research phase was conducted using classroom observations, focus group discussions and individual interviews. Twelve Indonesian primary school teachers who were nominated as having excellent social and emotional skills and 45 students were recruited for this phase. The observation notes and teachers’ and students’ statements were transcribed verbatim. A thematic approach was used for data analysis. Key emergent themes included teachers’ relational philosophies about their work, teachers’ sense of duty to nurture students, teachers’ strategies to regulate their emotions and teachers’ attempts to establish classroom harmony. Based on the findings of the qualitative phase, two separate measurements to assess teachers’ social-emotional practices called Teachers’ Social-Emotional Practices – teachers’ perspectives (TSEP-T) and teachers’ social and emotional practices – and Students’ Perspectives (TSEP-S) were developed. Subsequently, in Study 2, multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis were applied to the data to produce visual representations of the structure of teacher-perceived and student-perceived teachers’ social-emotional practices. In Study 3, the nature of teachers’ social-emotional practices was further investigated by administering TSEP-T to 90 teachers and TSEP-S to 333 students. From teachers’ data, five highly applicable clusters of social-emotional behaviours across five style patterns were identified, while from students’ data, eight highly applicable clusters of teachers’ social-emotional behaviours across ten style patterns were identified. Finally, the associations between the identified clusters and styles with a student-teacher relationship, student connectedness and wellbeing were explored using ANOVA. The findings across three phases of the study showed the Indonesian teachers’ social-emotional practices as comprising relational philosophy, emotional relationship, nurturing, emotion regulation and classroom harmony dimensions. The resulting dimensions were visually represented using “a jasmine flower” model, which allows this model to be discussed and expanded. Findings are compared and contrasted with existing literature and discussed with regard to the potential usefulness of teachers’ social-emotional styles for enhancing the teacher-student relationship, student connectedness and wellbeing. Implications based on these findings are considered for researchers and educational providers who together share responsibility for improving teachers’ social-emotional practices in primary classrooms.Item How psychologists view and engage with competence in their practice : 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, 2018) Taylor, KristinThe purpose of this study was to gain insight into how psychologists view and engage with competence and identify the factors that they determine as supporting or inhibiting competent practice. To date, few studies have examined the elements psychologists identify as shaping the development of their professional competence. It is hoped by doing so, strategies can be implemented that develop, maintain, and enhance competence and encourage active participation in the Continuing Competence Programme (CCP). Having an agreed definition of the qualities required to be competent is essential to evaluate, improve, and ensure quality assurance in psychological practice. Ten psychologists from the clinical and industrial organisational scopes participated. Semi-structured interviews were used; questions were designed to act as prompts and to ensure no relevant themes were overlooked. The interviews were recorded then transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that while the participants understood the meaning of competent practice, how they relate that to their practice and how this influences their participation in the CCP varies. The participants discussed the value of, and the challenges associated with, achieving, demonstrating, and measuring competence and the consequences this has on their practice, their clients and themselves. They also identified factors that encourage, develop, and maintain competence and those factors that are threats to competence. It is essential to understand how an individual perceives competence as this will determine how they view and engage with competence in their practice. Understanding this will assist with competency development, maintenance, measurement and demonstration across the professional lifespan.Item How do psychologists maintain their professional competencies? : voices from the field : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Educational Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Brennan, JennyThis research explored how five psychologists in Aotearoa New Zealand maintained their professional competencies throughout their careers. Using a qualitative approach, and drawing from social constructionism and phenomenology, the collective case study research design facilitated the exploration of participants’ experiences of maintaining their mandatory competencies required to practice as psychologists, through semi structured interviews. The research found that the participants identified themselves as reflective and evidence-based practitioners, with a strong sense of personal responsibility towards maintaining their competencies. The challenges they faced in maintaining the competencies and the solutions to mitigate the challenges were all centred around the workplace. Based on the findings the key suggestions made include: Aligning policies and procedures in all psychologists’ workplaces with legislation and evidence based practice; aligning continuing competence programmes with performance planning; building leadership and cultural supervision, and making high quality supervision accessible throughout the profession; better access to professional information and new research in the field; adopting a coaching and mentoring approach to professional learning and development; and legitimising the valuable collegial support that psychologists relied upon to maintain their competencies. These suggestions are also well supported by the literature in helping psychologists to practice psychology competently in order to ensure public safety.Item Barriers to and facilitators of research use in clinical practice for a sample of New Zealand registered nurses : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Nursing at Massey University(Massey University, 2001) Stolz-Schwarz, PetraThe professionalisation of nursing has created much debate about nursing research and research utilisation in clinical nursing practice. Clarke (1999) has commented that research on research utilisation is a whole new field worthy of further exploration. An early study in the field identified a considerable lack of integration and application of research findings in clinical practice (Ketefian, 1975). Research utilisation is a complex process with many varied influencing factors. Funk, Champagne, Wiese and Tornquist (1991a) developed a research tool, the BARRIER scale, to assess barriers to and facilitators for the use of research that covers factors within four major sub scales, i.e. factors on the level of the individual nurse, of the organisation, the research, and the way of communicating research results. This tool is based on Rogers' (1995) framework of the diffusion of innovation. The present study is a replication study using the BARRIER scale to assess barriers to and facilitators of research use in clinical practice in a New Zealand sample of registered nurses and midwifes. The data for the study was collected from 164 registered nurses and midwifes working in the Inpatient wards of a tertiary teaching hospital. Data analysis was performed with the Statistical Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), including descriptive statistics, item ranking, group comparisons and factor analysis. Two open ended questions on additional barriers and facilitators were analysed for their thematic content and in relation to the BARRIER sub scales. Findings are discussed in relation to the theoretical framework and against the literature. Overall, this sample perceived the organisational and research items as the biggest barriers to registered nurses' use of research. Time was the most often stated barrier to and facilitator of research use. The item ranking of this sample is compared with international results. The research tool is evaluated for its psychometric value and scope of development. Finally, the general limitations of the study are outlined and implications for future research are discussed.Item Interaction within the therapeutic relationship : exploring the relationship between the music therapy practices of a music therapy student and the concepts used in intensive interaction : an exegesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music Therapy, Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music, Wellington, New Zealand(Massey University, 2014) How, Shona LouiseThis research project explores the relationship between the music therapy practices of a music therapy student and intensive interaction, a teaching model of communication used with children, young people and adults who experience challenges with learning and relating to others. Secondary analysis of clinical records (session notes and video footage) was used in this theoretical research, using both inductive and deductive methods of micro-analysis to explore the relationship between the two approaches. Themes included two relatively distinct forms of interactive communication – communication which predominantly used music and communication which used other modes. These two groups were then divided into further themes including: elements of music and improvisational musical techniques; visual cues; vocal activity; gestures and body language; movement activity and time/space. These themes were then correlated and compared with the corresponding features and descriptions of improvisational music therapy and intensive interaction. The findings suggest there is a relationship between the concepts used intensive interaction and the improvisational music therapy practices of the music therapy student; they both share features of the naturalistic processes of ‘infant-caregiver interactions’ within the elements of music, with both parties fine-tuning to one another’s rhythmic, melodic, textural and temporal nuances. However, improvisational or creative music therapy combines more complex usage of the elements of music including musical form, structure and texture to provide an interpersonal experience through a therapeutic relationship. That relationship is reliant on the music therapist’s sophisticated skills to combine emotion and music within the improvisational process. The strengths and limitations of the study are stated along with implications for training and further research in the field of music therapy and special education.Item In search of nursing : the long-term impact of the New Zealand health reforms on ward nursing : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand(Massey University, 2012) Teekman, Englebert CornelisThis thesis began with my curiosity about why, despite repeated attention to nurses’ health assessment skills (at undergraduate and professional development level), it has remained an under-utilised skill. A focused ethnography was conducted in six acute wards of a provincial New Zealand hospital. Twelve registered nurses were observed and interviewed in the first phase of the research and multiple additional primary data sources were utilised. Early findings indicated that nurses did not undertake health assessment and raised much broader questions about the nature of ward nursing practice and the amount of control ward nurses have over their work environment and their own nursing practice. The research was extended to include seven stakeholders, senior nurses who had good insight and knowledge of ward nursing practice. A structuration theory lens was applied to assist in the analytic process. The findings of this research reveal the long-term impact of the NZ health reforms on ward nursing practice. The introduction of generic management principles and the continuous restructuring of the health care environment have impacted on nursing practice and reduced nurses’ autonomy. Nurses have come to rely on standardised documented processes to provide essential care, relying significantly less on knowledge of a patient’s actual health status. Much recent local and international quantitative research has revealed a number of concerning findings about the reduced time nurses spend at the bedside, the complexity of nursing work flow, the increase in interruptions, missed nursing care, and the vital role nurses have in preventing many adverse events and unexpected deaths. This thesis provides a rich qualitative understanding of the circumstances behind these quantitative findings and reveals that nurses are now struggling to provide care consistent with the ethos of nursing. I argue that challenging the nature of nurse education will not improve nurses’ ability to deliver nursing care. Instead I argue that the current acute ward environment does not support registered nurses to provide the nature of care for which their education has prepared them.