title: Explicating the value of standardized educational achievement data and a protocol for collaborative analysis of this data

authors: Cowie, Bronwen

subjects: data literacy

abstract: Governments expect teachers to be able to make sense of and take action on data at various levels of aggregation. In our research we collaborated with 13 teachers from six primary schools and one intermediate school to use a Data Conversation Protocol to analyze and act on mathematics assessment data generated through a standardized assessment tool—the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT). Our intention was to optimize teacher use of this data for pedagogical decision making and action. At team meetings, the teachers co-constructed then refined a taken-as-shared definition for teacher data literacy for instructional action, which acted to inform and anchor our collaborative research. Data were collected in all teacher meetings and via interviews. Initial findings indicate that a ‘Data Conversation Protocol’ is helping teachers to slow down the process of considering, interpreting and making a judgement about their students’ understanding thereby opening up a space for deeper consideration of the range of possible reasons for student responses to assessment items. Students responded positively to teachers’ data informed small group teaching, gaining in understanding and confidence. Teachers considered this confidence translated to more positive engagement with mathematical ideas. Patterns and trends in student responses emerging from the teachers’ collaborative analysis of standard data supported a shift from viewing student responses as linked to student or school characteristics to critical analysis of how their teaching approaches might have contributed to student answers/misunderstandings. This finding has implications for how we might challenge assumptions about students through a willingness to engage critically with student achievement data. The importance of teachers having a rich pedagogical content knowledge as a basis for this was clearly evident.

text: Explicating the value of standardized educational achievement data and a protocol for collaborative analysis of this data Governments expect teachers to be able to make sense of and take action on data at various levels of aggregation. In our research we collaborated with 13 teachers from six primary schools and one intermediate school to use a Data Conversation Protocol to analyze and act on mathematics assessment data generated through a standardized assessment tool—the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT). Our intention was to optimize teacher use of this data for pedagogical decision making and action. At team meetings, the teachers co-constructed then refined a taken-as-shared definition for teacher data literacy for instructional action, which acted to inform and anchor our collaborative research. Data were collected in all teacher meetings and via interviews. Initial findings indicate that a ‘Data Conversation Protocol’ is helping teachers to slow down the process of considering, interpreting and making a judgement about their students’ understanding thereby opening up a space for deeper consideration of the range of possible reasons for student responses to assessment items. Students responded positively to teachers’ data informed small group teaching, gaining in understanding and confidence. Teachers considered this confidence translated to more positive engagement with mathematical ideas. Patterns and trends in student responses emerging from the teachers’ collaborative analysis of standard data supported a shift from viewing student responses as linked to student or school characteristics to critical analysis of how their teaching approaches might have contributed to student answers/misunderstandings. This finding has implications for how we might challenge assumptions about students through a willingness to engage critically with student achievement data. The importance of teachers having a rich pedagogical content knowledge as a basis for this was clearly evident.

year: 2021

title: Performance of a building integrated collector for solar heating and radiant cooling

authors: Anderson, Timothy Nicholas

subjects: building

abstract: Due to their limited temperature range, unglazed solar collectors have long been relegated to providing low cost heating in applications such as swimming pool heating systems. This limited temperature range is due to heat loss: firstly by convection to the surrounding air and secondly by radiant heat transfer to the cold sky. During the day an unglazed collector can be operated as a standard solar absorber to heat water in a storage tank. However, it is possible to take advantage of radiant cooling of unglazed solar collectors by operating them at night. Under night conditions when there is no solar radiation and the sky temperature is low, the collector can radiate heat to the sky and cool a cold storage tank to provide cooling in the building the following day. 
This study theoretically and experimentally examines the performance of a building integrated collector for heating and cooling and explores the contribution it can make to heating and cooling loads in typical New Zealand and Australian buildings.

text: Performance of a building integrated collector for solar heating and radiant cooling Due to their limited temperature range, unglazed solar collectors have long been relegated to providing low cost heating in applications such as swimming pool heating systems. This limited temperature range is due to heat loss: firstly by convection to the surrounding air and secondly by radiant heat transfer to the cold sky. During the day an unglazed collector can be operated as a standard solar absorber to heat water in a storage tank. However, it is possible to take advantage of radiant cooling of unglazed solar collectors by operating them at night. Under night conditions when there is no solar radiation and the sky temperature is low, the collector can radiate heat to the sky and cool a cold storage tank to provide cooling in the building the following day. 
This study theoretically and experimentally examines the performance of a building integrated collector for heating and cooling and explores the contribution it can make to heating and cooling loads in typical New Zealand and Australian buildings.

year: 2011

title: Decolonising legal research: Developing legal theory to articulate Māori and non-Māori legal research paradigms equitably

authors: Hasan-Stein, Linda

abstract: Māori and non-Māori legal research paradigms in Aotearoa New Zealand are separated by a considerable theoretical knowledge gap. Māori knowledge systems are generally not well known in a non-Māori context. In order to bridge this theoretical knowledge gap jurisprudential studies need to address this gap from Māori and non-Māori perspectives. Doing so enables the development of decolonised legal research paradigms which allow for the sharing of knowledge from positions of respect. In this work, a new theoretical interpretation of legal research paradigms in our jurisprudence is presented, relying on an interdisciplinary approach to support these interpretive strategies. 

Beginning with the understanding that knowledge is empowering for both Māori and non-Māori, I foreground the epistemological character of decolonising legal research that supports Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s call for research to be conceived differently and highlight the need for an integrated recognition of kaupapa Māori in the development of legal theory in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reimagining our laws as something more than ‘sovereignty’ is the first step in narrowing the current theoretical knowledge gap. I translate the broader language of colonialism into the more specific vocabulary of the criminal justice system, in order to make more visible the manner in which Eurocentrism permeates decolonising legal research and stifles the potential future social development of Māori. 

Since Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s call to decolonise research, significant progress has been made with regard to the inclusion of principles of tikanga Māori to guide legal research that includes Māori. However, transforming principles of tikanga Māori into our jurisprudential landscape is a complex task. It is increasingly recognised that understanding the key principles of tikanga Māori is not always sufficient and that a greater theoretical understanding of decolonising legal principles is needed. I will analyse theoretical features of research epistemologies with the goal of grasping the complex array of historically-specific practices through which particular dimensions of our socio-legal experience are produced. 

Finally, I will explore how an interdisciplinary approach enables us to link forms of subjectivity to forms of objectivity in a distinctively “cultural” way, by working through difference rather than against it, and by acknowledging as meaningful each law’s characteristic discursive formation. 

This work is written as an intervention in Eurocentrism, aimed at providing a fresh interpretation of decolonising legal research. On this level, the most important argumentative thread is the one that demonstrates how Eurocentrism can be read as a colonising tool, which deploys positions that marginalise Indigenous knowledge. By unpacking Eurocentrism’s complex meaning it is possible to refashion Eurocentrism to include the notions of “partnerships”, that value subjective experience over objective, and that, in reality, include “Indigenous cultural” qualities. 

This style of decolonising jurisprudence pushes strenuously for a legal paradigm shift towards a culturally safe space for all legal scholars, not just Māori; a shift that could encourage our legal theory to converge in a more holistic way. The most important argumentative threads are those centred on the inclusion of Indigenous arguments, and the emergent character of decolonising legal research categories such as whanaungatanga or relational accountability. This type of innovative legal interpretation offers the possibility for a new theoretical era for decolonising legal research.

text: Decolonising legal research: Developing legal theory to articulate Māori and non-Māori legal research paradigms equitably Māori and non-Māori legal research paradigms in Aotearoa New Zealand are separated by a considerable theoretical knowledge gap. Māori knowledge systems are generally not well known in a non-Māori context. In order to bridge this theoretical knowledge gap jurisprudential studies need to address this gap from Māori and non-Māori perspectives. Doing so enables the development of decolonised legal research paradigms which allow for the sharing of knowledge from positions of respect. In this work, a new theoretical interpretation of legal research paradigms in our jurisprudence is presented, relying on an interdisciplinary approach to support these interpretive strategies. 

Beginning with the understanding that knowledge is empowering for both Māori and non-Māori, I foreground the epistemological character of decolonising legal research that supports Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s call for research to be conceived differently and highlight the need for an integrated recognition of kaupapa Māori in the development of legal theory in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reimagining our laws as something more than ‘sovereignty’ is the first step in narrowing the current theoretical knowledge gap. I translate the broader language of colonialism into the more specific vocabulary of the criminal justice system, in order to make more visible the manner in which Eurocentrism permeates decolonising legal research and stifles the potential future social development of Māori. 

Since Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s call to decolonise research, significant progress has been made with regard to the inclusion of principles of tikanga Māori to guide legal research that includes Māori. However, transforming principles of tikanga Māori into our jurisprudential landscape is a complex task. It is increasingly recognised that understanding the key principles of tikanga Māori is not always sufficient and that a greater theoretical understanding of decolonising legal principles is needed. I will analyse theoretical features of research epistemologies with the goal of grasping the complex array of historically-specific practices through which particular dimensions of our socio-legal experience are produced. 

Finally, I will explore how an interdisciplinary approach enables us to link forms of subjectivity to forms of objectivity in a distinctively “cultural” way, by working through difference rather than against it, and by acknowledging as meaningful each law’s characteristic discursive formation. 

This work is written as an intervention in Eurocentrism, aimed at providing a fresh interpretation of decolonising legal research. On this level, the most important argumentative thread is the one that demonstrates how Eurocentrism can be read as a colonising tool, which deploys positions that marginalise Indigenous knowledge. By unpacking Eurocentrism’s complex meaning it is possible to refashion Eurocentrism to include the notions of “partnerships”, that value subjective experience over objective, and that, in reality, include “Indigenous cultural” qualities. 

This style of decolonising jurisprudence pushes strenuously for a legal paradigm shift towards a culturally safe space for all legal scholars, not just Māori; a shift that could encourage our legal theory to converge in a more holistic way. The most important argumentative threads are those centred on the inclusion of Indigenous arguments, and the emergent character of decolonising legal research categories such as whanaungatanga or relational accountability. This type of innovative legal interpretation offers the possibility for a new theoretical era for decolonising legal research.

year: 2026