title: Acceptance culture theory: A constructivist grounded theory on bullying of junior doctors in the New Zealand healthcare system

authors: Bashir, Sarah

subjects: Workplace bullying

abstract: Workplace bullying has been a serious workplace concern for centuries, with individuals confronting various forms of abuse, mistreatment and bullying at work. Historical accounts indicate that the powerful Egyptian pharaohs strategically lured tribal people to work at their construction sites, which led to submission, slavery and bullying. Regardless of the era, the enduring nature of bullying issues illustrates that individuals can misuse their power by using bullying to establish control and authority over other individuals. In contemporary environments such as New Zealand (NZ) healthcare organisations, workplace bullying remains a significant threat that exposes healthcare workers, including junior doctors, to health and safety issues. 
Despite literature documenting the prevalence and harmful impacts of bullying on NZ junior doctors, there is a lack of theoretical explanations behind bullying in this context. This notable gap in understanding the explanations of bullying impedes effective prevention and management of workplace bullying among NZ junior doctors. The research aimed to explain the bullying process among NZ junior doctors with the objective of facilitating prevention and management. 
Twenty doctors (n=20) from various specialities in medicine and surgery participated in in-depth interviews. Data collection and analysis were guided by the Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) approach. Seven core categories resulted from the data analysis. Six provided explanations of bullying, highlighting the complex interplay of many factors, including social and individual characteristics of the bullies and victims, team dynamics, hierarchy, organisational culture, systemic factors, and acceptance culture. The seventh core category described the prevention and management of bullying. 
CGT analysis of the data led to the development of Acceptance Culture Theory (ACT), which is the contribution of this study. ACT outlines the social process of acceptance of bullying at multiple levels of individuals’ ecological systems. An acceptance of bullying at the micro level caused individuals to endure and accept bullying, with effects seen at multiple levels (micro, meso, exo and macro) that perpetuated an acceptance culture of bullying in the individuals’ work environments, keeping them trapped in a cycle of bullying. 
Effective prevention and management are possible by breaking the acceptance culture using comprehensive approaches encompassing macro, meso, exo, and micro levels. Alleviating hierarchal structures, frequent changes in leadership, organisational support, changes in policies and procedures, and a robust reporting system are critical for the effective prevention and management of bullying. By addressing the root causes of workplace bullying, a safe and healthy workplace can be offered for NZ junior doctors.

text: Acceptance culture theory: A constructivist grounded theory on bullying of junior doctors in the New Zealand healthcare system Workplace bullying has been a serious workplace concern for centuries, with individuals confronting various forms of abuse, mistreatment and bullying at work. Historical accounts indicate that the powerful Egyptian pharaohs strategically lured tribal people to work at their construction sites, which led to submission, slavery and bullying. Regardless of the era, the enduring nature of bullying issues illustrates that individuals can misuse their power by using bullying to establish control and authority over other individuals. In contemporary environments such as New Zealand (NZ) healthcare organisations, workplace bullying remains a significant threat that exposes healthcare workers, including junior doctors, to health and safety issues. 
Despite literature documenting the prevalence and harmful impacts of bullying on NZ junior doctors, there is a lack of theoretical explanations behind bullying in this context. This notable gap in understanding the explanations of bullying impedes effective prevention and management of workplace bullying among NZ junior doctors. The research aimed to explain the bullying process among NZ junior doctors with the objective of facilitating prevention and management. 
Twenty doctors (n=20) from various specialities in medicine and surgery participated in in-depth interviews. Data collection and analysis were guided by the Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) approach. Seven core categories resulted from the data analysis. Six provided explanations of bullying, highlighting the complex interplay of many factors, including social and individual characteristics of the bullies and victims, team dynamics, hierarchy, organisational culture, systemic factors, and acceptance culture. The seventh core category described the prevention and management of bullying. 
CGT analysis of the data led to the development of Acceptance Culture Theory (ACT), which is the contribution of this study. ACT outlines the social process of acceptance of bullying at multiple levels of individuals’ ecological systems. An acceptance of bullying at the micro level caused individuals to endure and accept bullying, with effects seen at multiple levels (micro, meso, exo and macro) that perpetuated an acceptance culture of bullying in the individuals’ work environments, keeping them trapped in a cycle of bullying. 
Effective prevention and management are possible by breaking the acceptance culture using comprehensive approaches encompassing macro, meso, exo, and micro levels. Alleviating hierarchal structures, frequent changes in leadership, organisational support, changes in policies and procedures, and a robust reporting system are critical for the effective prevention and management of bullying. By addressing the root causes of workplace bullying, a safe and healthy workplace can be offered for NZ junior doctors.

year: 2024

title: Instance-based learning: nearest neighbour with generalisation

authors: Martin, Brent

subjects: computer science

abstract: Instance-based learning is a machine learning method that classifies new examples by comparing them to those already seen and in memory. There are two types of instance-based learning; nearest neighbour and case-based reasoning. Of these two methods, nearest neighbour fell into disfavour during the 1980s, but regained popularity recently due to its simplicity and ease of implementation. Nearest neighbour learning is not without problems. It is difficult to define a distance function that works well for both discrete and continuous attributes. Noise and irrelevant attributes also pose problems. Finally, the specificity bias adopted by instance-based learning, while often an advantage, can over-represent small rules at the expense of more general concepts, leading to a marked decrease in classification performance for some domains. Generalised exemplars offer a solution. Examples that share the same class are grouped together, and so represent large rules more fully. This reduces the role of the distance function to determining the class when no rule covers the new example, which reduces the number of classification errors that result from inaccuracies of the distance function, and increases the influence of large rules while still representing small ones. This thesis investigates non-nested generalised exemplars as a way of improving the performance of nearest neighbour. The method is tested using benchmark domains and the results compared with documented results for ungeneralised exemplars, nested generalised exemplars, rule induction methods and a composite rule induction and nearest neighbour learner. The benefits of generalisation are isolated and the performance improvement measured. The results show that non-nested generalisation of exemplars improves the classification performance of nearest neighbour systems and reduces classification time.

text: Instance-based learning: nearest neighbour with generalisation Instance-based learning is a machine learning method that classifies new examples by comparing them to those already seen and in memory. There are two types of instance-based learning; nearest neighbour and case-based reasoning. Of these two methods, nearest neighbour fell into disfavour during the 1980s, but regained popularity recently due to its simplicity and ease of implementation. Nearest neighbour learning is not without problems. It is difficult to define a distance function that works well for both discrete and continuous attributes. Noise and irrelevant attributes also pose problems. Finally, the specificity bias adopted by instance-based learning, while often an advantage, can over-represent small rules at the expense of more general concepts, leading to a marked decrease in classification performance for some domains. Generalised exemplars offer a solution. Examples that share the same class are grouped together, and so represent large rules more fully. This reduces the role of the distance function to determining the class when no rule covers the new example, which reduces the number of classification errors that result from inaccuracies of the distance function, and increases the influence of large rules while still representing small ones. This thesis investigates non-nested generalised exemplars as a way of improving the performance of nearest neighbour. The method is tested using benchmark domains and the results compared with documented results for ungeneralised exemplars, nested generalised exemplars, rule induction methods and a composite rule induction and nearest neighbour learner. The benefits of generalisation are isolated and the performance improvement measured. The results show that non-nested generalisation of exemplars improves the classification performance of nearest neighbour systems and reduces classification time.

year: 1995-05

title: Te Kotahitanga: culturally responsive professional development for teachers

authors: Bishop, Russell

subjects: indigenous

abstract: Te Kotahitanga is a research and professional development project that aims to support teachers to raise the achievement of New Zealand's indigenous Māori students in public/mainstream classrooms. An Effective Teaching Profile, developed from the voices of Māori students, their families, principals and some of their teachers, provides direction and focus for both the classroom pedagogy and the professional development. While the authors understand that there are many institutional changes necessary at the school level, this paper focuses on the professional learning opportunities developed for classroom teachers within this project to support the development of more effective classroom relationships and interactions with Māori students. This has resulted in Māori students attending school more regularly, engaging as learners and achieving to levels where they begin to realise their true potential.

text: Te Kotahitanga: culturally responsive professional development for teachers Te Kotahitanga is a research and professional development project that aims to support teachers to raise the achievement of New Zealand's indigenous Māori students in public/mainstream classrooms. An Effective Teaching Profile, developed from the voices of Māori students, their families, principals and some of their teachers, provides direction and focus for both the classroom pedagogy and the professional development. While the authors understand that there are many institutional changes necessary at the school level, this paper focuses on the professional learning opportunities developed for classroom teachers within this project to support the development of more effective classroom relationships and interactions with Māori students. This has resulted in Māori students attending school more regularly, engaging as learners and achieving to levels where they begin to realise their true potential.

year: 2010-05