title: Chinese students: Holiday behaviours in New Zealand

authors: Ryan, Chris

subjects: Chinese students

abstract: This article reports findings from a sample of 158 students from the People's Republic of China studying in New Zealand. The purpose of the study was to assess the extent to which this market segment undertook travel within their country of studies; and the degree to which they are motivated by features usually regarded as motivators for holidaying by visitors to New Zealand. It found that while relaxation needs motivate holiday patterns, travel was also strongly motivated for 16 per cent of the sample by a search for career and study opportunities. It was also found that trip expenditure per person was low, and a number of possible reasons are suggested. Additionally it appeared that many of the traditional outdoor-adventure attractions of New Zealand have limited appeal to many of these students. The study identifies a number of issues that constrain this market and reference is made to restricted budgets and the need for academic success as inhibiting travel.

text: Chinese students: Holiday behaviours in New Zealand This article reports findings from a sample of 158 students from the People's Republic of China studying in New Zealand. The purpose of the study was to assess the extent to which this market segment undertook travel within their country of studies; and the degree to which they are motivated by features usually regarded as motivators for holidaying by visitors to New Zealand. It found that while relaxation needs motivate holiday patterns, travel was also strongly motivated for 16 per cent of the sample by a search for career and study opportunities. It was also found that trip expenditure per person was low, and a number of possible reasons are suggested. Additionally it appeared that many of the traditional outdoor-adventure attractions of New Zealand have limited appeal to many of these students. The study identifies a number of issues that constrain this market and reference is made to restricted budgets and the need for academic success as inhibiting travel.

year: 2007

title: An evaluation of the use of phallometric assessment for men incarcerated for sexually offending against children in New Zealand: Past results and future directions.

authors: Jones, David Trevor

subjects: Phallometric Assessment

abstract: Phallometric assessment, the direct measurement of male sexual arousal in response to stimuli presented in a controlled setting, has been widely used in the assessment of sexual offenders to detect deviant sexual interests, determine treatment needs and inform risk assessments, but they have also been criticised due to a weak theoretical basis, wide variations in methodology and serious concerns around reliability and validity.  From 1999 to 2007, phallometric assessments were conducted at two treatment units for incarcerated child sex offenders in New Zealand using a standardised Monarch 3.1 phallometric system which provided a database of 583 cases for analysis.  This project, the only large scale analysis of phallometric data known to have been conducted using New Zealand data, was designed to explore a large number of research questions in three areas.  The first area explored the factor structure of the assessments and the relationships between arousal profiles and a variety of co-existing demographic and offence related variables including age, social desirability, victim gender and victim age.  The second area investigated the ability of a large number of possible phallometric indices to predict future both any sexual reconvictions and those involving children, with a particular focus on the role played by stimuli depicting teenagers.  The third area investigated the prevalence and effects of the deliberate suppression of arousal, and analysed the ability of physiological measures to detect such suppression.  The results of these investigations indicated that phallometric data factored according to the gender of the stimuli and could be further divided into age preferences resembling pedophila and teleiophilia.  Phallometric indices consistently related to known victim gender but not victim age, suggesting that these offenders tended to target victims based on gender preferences but not age preferences to the same degree, posing questions about the relevance of diagnostic labels for age based sexual preferences.  Phallometric results were demonstrated to be predictive of sexual reoffending against children and outperformed actuarial or structured dynamic variables.  The best predictions were obtained using ratio and z-scored differential deviance indices from initial assessments to predict sexual reconvictions involving children in a sample of extrafamilial offenders, with a maximum AUC found of .69.  Post-treatment assessments also predicted reconviction, but change scores from pre to post-treatment did not, suggesting that the practice of conducting post-treatment phallometric assessments is of little value.  The investigation into the suppression of arousal found that subjects could reduce the magnitude of their arousal, but could not reduce the discriminative abilities of interpretative indices.  In this sample, there was no reliable way to detect markers of suppression using GSR traces, respiration traces or the patterns in the penile traces themselves.  While many of these findings support those in the existing literature, others are original contributions which extend the literature, including the use of a Principal Component Analysis on raw phallometric data, an exploration of the effects of the use of pubescent stimuli, a mathematical rather than subjective analysis of the properties of penile, GSR and respiration data in relation to suppression, the use of Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis to clarify the relationship between arousal profiles and victim preferences and an analysis of the effects of varying significance levels on the detection of male victims and the prediction of recidivism.  Overall, this research extends and clarifies the phallometric literature through evidence that phallometric assessments may not provide a definitive measure of sexual interests and are not an absolute predictor of reconviction, but are the best available tool for measuring arousal patterns and could be a valuable contributor to a multimodal assessment of risk.

text: An evaluation of the use of phallometric assessment for men incarcerated for sexually offending against children in New Zealand: Past results and future directions. Phallometric assessment, the direct measurement of male sexual arousal in response to stimuli presented in a controlled setting, has been widely used in the assessment of sexual offenders to detect deviant sexual interests, determine treatment needs and inform risk assessments, but they have also been criticised due to a weak theoretical basis, wide variations in methodology and serious concerns around reliability and validity.  From 1999 to 2007, phallometric assessments were conducted at two treatment units for incarcerated child sex offenders in New Zealand using a standardised Monarch 3.1 phallometric system which provided a database of 583 cases for analysis.  This project, the only large scale analysis of phallometric data known to have been conducted using New Zealand data, was designed to explore a large number of research questions in three areas.  The first area explored the factor structure of the assessments and the relationships between arousal profiles and a variety of co-existing demographic and offence related variables including age, social desirability, victim gender and victim age.  The second area investigated the ability of a large number of possible phallometric indices to predict future both any sexual reconvictions and those involving children, with a particular focus on the role played by stimuli depicting teenagers.  The third area investigated the prevalence and effects of the deliberate suppression of arousal, and analysed the ability of physiological measures to detect such suppression.  The results of these investigations indicated that phallometric data factored according to the gender of the stimuli and could be further divided into age preferences resembling pedophila and teleiophilia.  Phallometric indices consistently related to known victim gender but not victim age, suggesting that these offenders tended to target victims based on gender preferences but not age preferences to the same degree, posing questions about the relevance of diagnostic labels for age based sexual preferences.  Phallometric results were demonstrated to be predictive of sexual reoffending against children and outperformed actuarial or structured dynamic variables.  The best predictions were obtained using ratio and z-scored differential deviance indices from initial assessments to predict sexual reconvictions involving children in a sample of extrafamilial offenders, with a maximum AUC found of .69.  Post-treatment assessments also predicted reconviction, but change scores from pre to post-treatment did not, suggesting that the practice of conducting post-treatment phallometric assessments is of little value.  The investigation into the suppression of arousal found that subjects could reduce the magnitude of their arousal, but could not reduce the discriminative abilities of interpretative indices.  In this sample, there was no reliable way to detect markers of suppression using GSR traces, respiration traces or the patterns in the penile traces themselves.  While many of these findings support those in the existing literature, others are original contributions which extend the literature, including the use of a Principal Component Analysis on raw phallometric data, an exploration of the effects of the use of pubescent stimuli, a mathematical rather than subjective analysis of the properties of penile, GSR and respiration data in relation to suppression, the use of Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis to clarify the relationship between arousal profiles and victim preferences and an analysis of the effects of varying significance levels on the detection of male victims and the prediction of recidivism.  Overall, this research extends and clarifies the phallometric literature through evidence that phallometric assessments may not provide a definitive measure of sexual interests and are not an absolute predictor of reconviction, but are the best available tool for measuring arousal patterns and could be a valuable contributor to a multimodal assessment of risk.

year: 2014

title: Accommodating multiculturalism and biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: implication for language education.

authors: May, Stephen

subjects: bilingual education

abstract: The field of language education in Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere, has developed significantly since its early and almost exclusive focus on the acquisition of English literacy in schools. As the field has expanded, so too has the range of language education sectors addressed and the theoretical approaches and understandings employed in relation to language and literacy education. Both developments have resulted in a more coordinated literacy education policy - exemplified to date most clearly in the New Zealand Literacy Taskforce - and a more situated, less monolithic understanding of the widely different literacies available to learners. Despite these developments, however, one area still remains noticeably under-theorised and marginalized in relation to the ongoing development of language and literacy education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand - the place of second language learners within it. This paper explores this lacuna and the potential policy implications of addressing and integrating first and second language educational concerns within an evolving national literacy education policy. This has particular implications for the further development of bilingual education - both for Maori and, possibly, other minority groups - and for the related possibilities of multicultural education. It also requires a wider and clearer recognition of minority language education rights, as developed within both international law and political theory, in order to apply these rights appropriately to an Aotearoa New Zealand context which is currently witnessing rapid and extensive demographic (and linguistic) change.

text: Accommodating multiculturalism and biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: implication for language education. The field of language education in Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere, has developed significantly since its early and almost exclusive focus on the acquisition of English literacy in schools. As the field has expanded, so too has the range of language education sectors addressed and the theoretical approaches and understandings employed in relation to language and literacy education. Both developments have resulted in a more coordinated literacy education policy - exemplified to date most clearly in the New Zealand Literacy Taskforce - and a more situated, less monolithic understanding of the widely different literacies available to learners. Despite these developments, however, one area still remains noticeably under-theorised and marginalized in relation to the ongoing development of language and literacy education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand - the place of second language learners within it. This paper explores this lacuna and the potential policy implications of addressing and integrating first and second language educational concerns within an evolving national literacy education policy. This has particular implications for the further development of bilingual education - both for Maori and, possibly, other minority groups - and for the related possibilities of multicultural education. It also requires a wider and clearer recognition of minority language education rights, as developed within both international law and political theory, in order to apply these rights appropriately to an Aotearoa New Zealand context which is currently witnessing rapid and extensive demographic (and linguistic) change.

year: 2002