Thesis

This unpublished PhD thesis from 2001 by Sarah-Jane Tiakiwai from the University of Waikato focuses on Tainui graduates from the University of Waikato between 1992 to 1997.

The New Zealand Educational Theses Database contains 9000 Doctoral, Masters and Diploma theses in education topics about New Zealand and by New Zealanders at a wide range of overseas tertiary institutions.

A thesis presented by Christine Pritchard for a Master of Education in Adult Education

This Masters thesis examines the shift from traditional on-site industry education (apprentice style learning) to tertiary education in academically-centred institutions, with particular emphasis on professional culinary education. The investigation extends beyond the recent 'symptoms' of changing government Acts, extensively developing (global) tertiary education and evolving industry education responsibility to explore the deeper influences and controls of change which have brought us to where we are today. This treatise explores three key areas of 'power and control' within the arenas of politics, education and industry education. These are considered through the multi-perspective lenses of critical social science, existentialism and postmodernism.

Research on students' approaches to learning in higher education has consistently demonstrated a range of influencing factors. This Masters research used interviews on the basis of an investigation of the factors influencing learning from a sample of postgraduate students in a New Zealand university. The findings from this study showed that the influence of students' prior knowledge and learning orientations was important and this supports the literature in this field. The contextual factors, which include lecturers, choice and integration of courses, and assessments were found to affect students' approaches to learning and were responsible for the variability of learning orientations.

This doctoral thesis explores the professional socialisation of medical students through the preclinical to clinical transition of medical education. The research is based in a traditionally structured medical programme. Twenty-one students were interviewed in their third year and fourth year, before and after their shift into the clinical environment, and participant observation was also undertaken. The findings of this study are that in medical students’ preclinical years human dissection teaches students to manage their emotions, and that students are separating from the lay world. This thesis concludes that while the biomedical science shapes students’ early medical education, it is in the clinical environment that students learn to be doctors.

Teaching journalism in tertiary institutions presents challenges, including how students learn to work in teams under the sort of pressure that characterizes workplace journalism. This thesis is a case study of how a group of students at AUT University, in Auckland, experienced taking responsibility for producing four editions of a student newspaper as part of their journalism training.