title: "Please turn ON your mobile phone" - first impressions of text-messaging in lectures

authors: Jones, Matt

subjects: computer science

abstract: Previous work by Draper and Brown investigated the use of specialized handsets in increate interactivity in lecture settings. Inspired by their encouraging findings we have been exploring the use of conventional mobile phones and text-messaging to allow students to communicate with the lecturer as the class proceeds. In our pilot-study, students were able to respond to MCQs and send free-text comments and questions to the lecturer via SMS. Through observations and interviews with students and lecturers, we gained useful impressions of the value of such an approach. Students enjoyed the opportunity to be more actively involved but voiced concerns about costs.

text: "Please turn ON your mobile phone" - first impressions of text-messaging in lectures Previous work by Draper and Brown investigated the use of specialized handsets in increate interactivity in lecture settings. Inspired by their encouraging findings we have been exploring the use of conventional mobile phones and text-messaging to allow students to communicate with the lecturer as the class proceeds. In our pilot-study, students were able to respond to MCQs and send free-text comments and questions to the lecturer via SMS. Through observations and interviews with students and lecturers, we gained useful impressions of the value of such an approach. Students enjoyed the opportunity to be more actively involved but voiced concerns about costs.

year: 2004-05

title: Why have children: a study of method and meaning in value-of-children research

authors: Cameron, Jan

abstract: The ‘Value of Children’ has been proposed, inter alia, as an important intervening variable in fertility behaviour, and as an explanatory factor in demographic transition. It has been investigated as such by sociologists, psychologists and microeconomists. This thesis is concerned with the notion of ‘value’ which is implied by these investigators. The research addresses three questions:
1. What is ‘Value’?
2. Is the understanding of ‘value’ which a researcher has of the same order as the understanding which a subject has?
3. If not, how might meanings which the subject imputes to ‘value’ of children be understood?
Answers to these questions have been sought in several different ways. Firstly, research is seen as a social construction which has its own set of meanings and understandings. This includes prior ideas and modes of analysis: the conceptualisation of ‘value’ is thus understood within the context of sociological, psychological and economic ideas about fertility determination and the nature of social action. The nature of meaning is also explored within a distinctly sociological context whereby imputation of subjects’ meanings is seen to reflect assumptions about objective and subjective meanings, and positivist versus interpretive modes of analysis. Thirdly, the notion of a paradigm is employed to elucidate how subjects, as well as researchers, make sense of their fertility behaviour. These three approaches emphasize that ‘value’ as understood by everyday people does not have the same meaning as that imputed by researchers who have investigated this as an attribute of children.
The empirical component of the thesis represents an attempt to apply two different modes of analysis to an elaboration of child ‘value’. Survey data (n=154 pakeha New Zealanders) are compared with material derived from indepth, informal discussions with 15 of the survey participants. Whereas survey data provided some indication of generalities, the conversational analysis was employed to try and gain access to subjects’ understandings of children and having children. These meanings have been deduced by analysis which sought not only the form and content of people’s talk, but which also looked for particular expressions of order, ambivalence and tension, marginality and deviance. Everyday talk was not taken literally, but was taken seriously. 
The meanings people attributed to children were categorized (by the researcher) as understandings to do with family, immortality and continuity, parenthood, childlessness, economics and biology. Of these, the most pervasive and coherent paradigm whereby subjects understood and gave meaning to children and having children was one labelled a ‘biological paradigm’. This paradigm is not of the same order as that which might be employed by a (‘scientific’) biologist. Rather, it reflects a kind of sense-making which implies an underlying assumption of ‘natural’ order to the course of human events. 
This exploratory investigation led to a review of the approaches useful to an interpretive analysis of the value of children. A proposal is offered which assumes that meaning is socially constructed in everyday action and interaction with and about children; that talk is a form of action and though metaphorical, reflects the formation, nature and communication of meanings; and that the nature of everyday understanding might be elucidated by examining what is taken for granted and what is questioned, by notions of order and contradictions to that order. By treating meaning as subjective and expressed in parents’ speech of the everyday world, in their common sense, an opportunity is provided to understand more clearly the social meaning which they impute to the idea which previous researchers have labelled the ‘value of children’.

text: Why have children: a study of method and meaning in value-of-children research The ‘Value of Children’ has been proposed, inter alia, as an important intervening variable in fertility behaviour, and as an explanatory factor in demographic transition. It has been investigated as such by sociologists, psychologists and microeconomists. This thesis is concerned with the notion of ‘value’ which is implied by these investigators. The research addresses three questions:
1. What is ‘Value’?
2. Is the understanding of ‘value’ which a researcher has of the same order as the understanding which a subject has?
3. If not, how might meanings which the subject imputes to ‘value’ of children be understood?
Answers to these questions have been sought in several different ways. Firstly, research is seen as a social construction which has its own set of meanings and understandings. This includes prior ideas and modes of analysis: the conceptualisation of ‘value’ is thus understood within the context of sociological, psychological and economic ideas about fertility determination and the nature of social action. The nature of meaning is also explored within a distinctly sociological context whereby imputation of subjects’ meanings is seen to reflect assumptions about objective and subjective meanings, and positivist versus interpretive modes of analysis. Thirdly, the notion of a paradigm is employed to elucidate how subjects, as well as researchers, make sense of their fertility behaviour. These three approaches emphasize that ‘value’ as understood by everyday people does not have the same meaning as that imputed by researchers who have investigated this as an attribute of children.
The empirical component of the thesis represents an attempt to apply two different modes of analysis to an elaboration of child ‘value’. Survey data (n=154 pakeha New Zealanders) are compared with material derived from indepth, informal discussions with 15 of the survey participants. Whereas survey data provided some indication of generalities, the conversational analysis was employed to try and gain access to subjects’ understandings of children and having children. These meanings have been deduced by analysis which sought not only the form and content of people’s talk, but which also looked for particular expressions of order, ambivalence and tension, marginality and deviance. Everyday talk was not taken literally, but was taken seriously. 
The meanings people attributed to children were categorized (by the researcher) as understandings to do with family, immortality and continuity, parenthood, childlessness, economics and biology. Of these, the most pervasive and coherent paradigm whereby subjects understood and gave meaning to children and having children was one labelled a ‘biological paradigm’. This paradigm is not of the same order as that which might be employed by a (‘scientific’) biologist. Rather, it reflects a kind of sense-making which implies an underlying assumption of ‘natural’ order to the course of human events. 
This exploratory investigation led to a review of the approaches useful to an interpretive analysis of the value of children. A proposal is offered which assumes that meaning is socially constructed in everyday action and interaction with and about children; that talk is a form of action and though metaphorical, reflects the formation, nature and communication of meanings; and that the nature of everyday understanding might be elucidated by examining what is taken for granted and what is questioned, by notions of order and contradictions to that order. By treating meaning as subjective and expressed in parents’ speech of the everyday world, in their common sense, an opportunity is provided to understand more clearly the social meaning which they impute to the idea which previous researchers have labelled the ‘value of children’.

year: 1984

title: Ko wai tō ingoa? The transformative potential of Māori names

authors: Seed-Pihama, Joeliee Elizabeth

subjects: Māori names

abstract: Ingoa tangata (personal names) are an expression of te reo Māori, Māori identity, and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). Nevertheless, our names are still mispronounced, marginalised and demeaned by individuals and institutions, such as schools, the health system, politics and media. This thesis argues that the gift of a Māori name and the assertion of that name over one’s lifetime is simultaneously a political act of resistance and an act of normalisation – an act of just being Māori. In particular, the thesis reveals how whānau naming practices endure and are important for whānau identity and belonging.

A Kaupapa Māori theoretical approach is used to highlight the mana of our ingoa tangata within te ao Māori (the Māori world). I analyse the experiences of six generations of one whānau and the ways in which they have resisted, reclaimed and regenerated our ingoa tangata and associated practices. Kaupapa Māori theory provides a much-needed theoretical framework that privileges te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori throughout this research. This theory also supports Māori researchers to critique and disrupt Western power dynamics within research as well as maintaining the political imperative of decolonisation and resurgence agendas within the research of Indigenous communities.

This thesis foregrounds Pūrākau as a research method to tell the kōrero ingoa (naming stories) of six generations of one whānau, totalling twenty-six different stories. I explore the possibilities of pūrākau as a method and ako (to teach/ learn) as a powerful component in the building and sharing of stories, as writing tools for the (re)presentation of that material and in expressing the researcher’s positionality. Pūrākau as method also enables the utilisation of our cosmogonies as important sources of mātauranga Māori and therefore as crucial to an analysis of our naming motivations and notions of belonging. Furthermore, I critically analyse the disruptions and interruptions to ingoa tangata caused by institutions of colonialism such as religion, law and education. This research argues for the transformative potential of our ingoa tangata and their associated kōrero ingoa in terms of enhancing identity, embedding whakapapa kōrero and keeping Māori values alive within whānau, and beyond.

text: Ko wai tō ingoa? The transformative potential of Māori names Ingoa tangata (personal names) are an expression of te reo Māori, Māori identity, and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). Nevertheless, our names are still mispronounced, marginalised and demeaned by individuals and institutions, such as schools, the health system, politics and media. This thesis argues that the gift of a Māori name and the assertion of that name over one’s lifetime is simultaneously a political act of resistance and an act of normalisation – an act of just being Māori. In particular, the thesis reveals how whānau naming practices endure and are important for whānau identity and belonging.

A Kaupapa Māori theoretical approach is used to highlight the mana of our ingoa tangata within te ao Māori (the Māori world). I analyse the experiences of six generations of one whānau and the ways in which they have resisted, reclaimed and regenerated our ingoa tangata and associated practices. Kaupapa Māori theory provides a much-needed theoretical framework that privileges te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori throughout this research. This theory also supports Māori researchers to critique and disrupt Western power dynamics within research as well as maintaining the political imperative of decolonisation and resurgence agendas within the research of Indigenous communities.

This thesis foregrounds Pūrākau as a research method to tell the kōrero ingoa (naming stories) of six generations of one whānau, totalling twenty-six different stories. I explore the possibilities of pūrākau as a method and ako (to teach/ learn) as a powerful component in the building and sharing of stories, as writing tools for the (re)presentation of that material and in expressing the researcher’s positionality. Pūrākau as method also enables the utilisation of our cosmogonies as important sources of mātauranga Māori and therefore as crucial to an analysis of our naming motivations and notions of belonging. Furthermore, I critically analyse the disruptions and interruptions to ingoa tangata caused by institutions of colonialism such as religion, law and education. This research argues for the transformative potential of our ingoa tangata and their associated kōrero ingoa in terms of enhancing identity, embedding whakapapa kōrero and keeping Māori values alive within whānau, and beyond.

year: 2017