title: Analogy instructions promote efficiency of cognitive processes during hockey push-pass performance

authors: van Duijn, Tina

subjects: Social Sciences

abstract: Analogy instructions may promote effective skill acquisition by providing movement-specific information that can be processed as a single, meaningful unit, rather than as separate “bits” of information (Liao & Masters, 2001; Masters, 2000). Behavioral evidence suggests that information processing associated with analogy instructions is less effortful than information processing associated with explicit instructions, resulting in reduced verbal−analytical involvement in movement control (Lam, Maxwell, & Masters, 2009b). This experiment was designed to test whether analogy instructions promote higher psychomotor efficiency, characterized by greater high-α power in the left hemisphere of the brain (Hillman, Apparies, Janelle, & Hatfield, 2000) and reduced coactivation between the verbal processing (left temporal lobe T7) and motor planning regions of the brain (frontal midline Fz; Hatfield & Hillman, 2001) during motor performance. Novices practiced a hockey push-pass task using an analogy instruction, explicit instructions, or no instructions (control). Push-pass accuracy during a combined task (passing coupled with decision-making) was significantly better following the analogy instruction, which suggested that information processing was less effortful. Left-temporal (T7) electroencephalography (EEG) high-α power was significantly higher in the analogy condition, but T7−Fz coactivation was not significantly different among the conditions. It is possible that the analogy instruction influenced verbal aspects of information processing without impacting the efficiency of motor planning. Consequently, an analogy instruction may promote cognitive, rather than psychomotor, efficiency.

text: Analogy instructions promote efficiency of cognitive processes during hockey push-pass performance Analogy instructions may promote effective skill acquisition by providing movement-specific information that can be processed as a single, meaningful unit, rather than as separate “bits” of information (Liao & Masters, 2001; Masters, 2000). Behavioral evidence suggests that information processing associated with analogy instructions is less effortful than information processing associated with explicit instructions, resulting in reduced verbal−analytical involvement in movement control (Lam, Maxwell, & Masters, 2009b). This experiment was designed to test whether analogy instructions promote higher psychomotor efficiency, characterized by greater high-α power in the left hemisphere of the brain (Hillman, Apparies, Janelle, & Hatfield, 2000) and reduced coactivation between the verbal processing (left temporal lobe T7) and motor planning regions of the brain (frontal midline Fz; Hatfield & Hillman, 2001) during motor performance. Novices practiced a hockey push-pass task using an analogy instruction, explicit instructions, or no instructions (control). Push-pass accuracy during a combined task (passing coupled with decision-making) was significantly better following the analogy instruction, which suggested that information processing was less effortful. Left-temporal (T7) electroencephalography (EEG) high-α power was significantly higher in the analogy condition, but T7−Fz coactivation was not significantly different among the conditions. It is possible that the analogy instruction influenced verbal aspects of information processing without impacting the efficiency of motor planning. Consequently, an analogy instruction may promote cognitive, rather than psychomotor, efficiency.

year: 2019

title: Fiji and New Zealand Pasifika students' perceptions of mathematics and their attitudes towards mathematics learning

authors: Balenaivalu, Siliva

subjects: Pasifika students' perceptions

abstract: Abstract

This thesis explores the perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics learning of 36 students from Fiji and 12 Pasifika students living in New Zealand. The students were in Years 7 and 8, included a range of abilities in maths as assessed by their teachers. The New Zealand (NZ) students attended a school that had participated in the Numeracy Development Project (NDP) several years prior to the study. Data was collected using semi-structured and clinical interviews. Seven key questions were the main focus of this study. The students were asked about their views on: working collectively or individually, the importance of knowing and sharing solution strategies with others, the nature of mathematics, people who supported their maths learning, their attitudes towards mathematics, and how good they thought they were at maths. They solved problems involving subtraction, division and proportional problems. 

The findings revealed that nearly all of the Fiji students but just over half of the NZ students supported group work. On their views about the value of knowing others' strategies, nearly seven tenths of the Fiji students and just under a half of the NZ students thought that it was important. However, all the children were unanimous in their view that explaining their solution strategies to others was important. The findings also revealed that nearly all the students from both countries thought that mathematics was about numbers and operations. Most of the Fiji children commented that it was also about problem solving, whereas the NZ students mentioned having alternative strategies as what they thought mathematics all about.  

The students' views about a teacher's role in helping them learn mathematics greatly differed between the two countries. Slightly more than half of the Fiji students thought that the teacher's role was to show them strategies. The Fiji students also described their teachers as someone who gave them notes to copy and provided exercises from the textbook. In contrast the NZ students mentioned their teacher as someone who helped their mathematics learning by sharing clues, giving tasks that challenged them and grouped them by ability before helping them. The responses of all the students revealed that there was great support from friends, parents and relatives towards their mathematics learning. The students also rated their feelings towards mathematics on a three-point rating scale with happy, neutral and sad faces. Half of the students from both countries chose the happy face with the other half choosing the neutral face. None of them chose the sad face as matching how they felt about maths most of the time.

The students also assessed themselves on how good they were at maths. The majority of the students from both countries rated themselves as  good  and none of them chose the box showing  very poor . The students were asked to do some tasks on subtraction, division and proportional problems. There was a major contrast between the two countries on how they worked out their answers. The Fiji students' responses showed their fluency with standard written algorithms and a high level of procedural knowledge. The NZ students on the other hand hardly used algorithms. Instead their responses showed the use of mental strategies for solving tasks ranging from stage 2, (counting from one on materials) to stage 7, (advanced multiplicative part-whole) on the NDP Number Framework.

text: Fiji and New Zealand Pasifika students' perceptions of mathematics and their attitudes towards mathematics learning Abstract

This thesis explores the perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics learning of 36 students from Fiji and 12 Pasifika students living in New Zealand. The students were in Years 7 and 8, included a range of abilities in maths as assessed by their teachers. The New Zealand (NZ) students attended a school that had participated in the Numeracy Development Project (NDP) several years prior to the study. Data was collected using semi-structured and clinical interviews. Seven key questions were the main focus of this study. The students were asked about their views on: working collectively or individually, the importance of knowing and sharing solution strategies with others, the nature of mathematics, people who supported their maths learning, their attitudes towards mathematics, and how good they thought they were at maths. They solved problems involving subtraction, division and proportional problems. 

The findings revealed that nearly all of the Fiji students but just over half of the NZ students supported group work. On their views about the value of knowing others' strategies, nearly seven tenths of the Fiji students and just under a half of the NZ students thought that it was important. However, all the children were unanimous in their view that explaining their solution strategies to others was important. The findings also revealed that nearly all the students from both countries thought that mathematics was about numbers and operations. Most of the Fiji children commented that it was also about problem solving, whereas the NZ students mentioned having alternative strategies as what they thought mathematics all about.  

The students' views about a teacher's role in helping them learn mathematics greatly differed between the two countries. Slightly more than half of the Fiji students thought that the teacher's role was to show them strategies. The Fiji students also described their teachers as someone who gave them notes to copy and provided exercises from the textbook. In contrast the NZ students mentioned their teacher as someone who helped their mathematics learning by sharing clues, giving tasks that challenged them and grouped them by ability before helping them. The responses of all the students revealed that there was great support from friends, parents and relatives towards their mathematics learning. The students also rated their feelings towards mathematics on a three-point rating scale with happy, neutral and sad faces. Half of the students from both countries chose the happy face with the other half choosing the neutral face. None of them chose the sad face as matching how they felt about maths most of the time.

The students also assessed themselves on how good they were at maths. The majority of the students from both countries rated themselves as  good  and none of them chose the box showing  very poor . The students were asked to do some tasks on subtraction, division and proportional problems. There was a major contrast between the two countries on how they worked out their answers. The Fiji students' responses showed their fluency with standard written algorithms and a high level of procedural knowledge. The NZ students on the other hand hardly used algorithms. Instead their responses showed the use of mental strategies for solving tasks ranging from stage 2, (counting from one on materials) to stage 7, (advanced multiplicative part-whole) on the NDP Number Framework.

year: 2008

title: The Environmental Justice Implications of the Planning Policy and Practice of Flood Risk Management in New Zealand

authors: Martynoga, Charlotte

subjects: environmental justce

abstract: Following an international trend, the flood defence approach historically applied in New Zealand has been superseded by a shift to flood risk management, an approach that aligns with the notion of ‘living with risk’ and devolves responsibility to risk-takers at the local level. Citizens are required to assume responsibility for assessing and minimising their own exposure, increasing their resilience and adapting to periodic flooding events. Inevitably, specific communities respond differently to flooding as their capabilities to understand, identify and manage flood risk varies. Environmental justice is the framework of inquiry within which issues of power, representation and participation in planning for flood risk management are examined to consider the injustices that are experienced by communities ‘living with risk’. 

Quantitative and qualitative methods are used to investigate the extent planning is complicit in delivering flood risk management processes that can create environmentally unjust outcomes. Flood hazard maps overlaid with contextual demographic data identify who is living in at risk spaces in three case-study communities. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with local government representatives and iwi, and a questionnaire to local residents was followed by interviews. 

The analysis demonstrates how the environmental justice components of distributive justice, procedural justice, justice as recognition and a capabilities approach to justice are tied together in the political and social processes of managing floods. Procedural justice is based on participatory parity so ensuring all members of the affected community are treated fairly in the deliberative and discursive decision-making is essential. Evidence revealed a community’s limited access to extensive flood risk information, unequal power sharing in decision-making and community participation, and restricted ability for disadvantaged groups to access legal processes. Distributive justice demands the use of multi-criteria analysis, rather than cost-benefit analysis, in prioritising and directing flood risk management to vulnerable communities. Using direct benefit rating to fund flood mitigation works heightens existing inequalities within communities and demands consideration of social difference in flood risk vulnerabilities. To ensure justice as recognition, local and indigenous knowledge needs to be valued and included in decision-making processes. Whilst working party arrangements are not inclusive they empower communities to be actively involved, promote trust and ownership of their local place and flood risk project. Recognition of identities and cultural practices is crucial for self-determination and minimises the marginalisation of voices. Planners need to examine social aspects of how people perceive, adapt and cope with flood risk, alongside place-based vulnerability. Policy, in embracing a capabilities approach to justice, would focus on the functionings people actually achieve rather than the opportunities. This calls for removing aggregations to look at the capabilities of individuals and communities to manage and respond to their flood risk. Judgements on planning initiatives need to be based on whether distributional outcomes enhance the capabilities of the relatively disadvantaged, thereby improving the resilience capacity of a community to manage flood risk. 

This study bridges a research gap in drawing together flood risk management, planning and environmental justice; advancing understanding of the environmental injustices within flood risk management in New Zealand.

text: The Environmental Justice Implications of the Planning Policy and Practice of Flood Risk Management in New Zealand Following an international trend, the flood defence approach historically applied in New Zealand has been superseded by a shift to flood risk management, an approach that aligns with the notion of ‘living with risk’ and devolves responsibility to risk-takers at the local level. Citizens are required to assume responsibility for assessing and minimising their own exposure, increasing their resilience and adapting to periodic flooding events. Inevitably, specific communities respond differently to flooding as their capabilities to understand, identify and manage flood risk varies. Environmental justice is the framework of inquiry within which issues of power, representation and participation in planning for flood risk management are examined to consider the injustices that are experienced by communities ‘living with risk’. 

Quantitative and qualitative methods are used to investigate the extent planning is complicit in delivering flood risk management processes that can create environmentally unjust outcomes. Flood hazard maps overlaid with contextual demographic data identify who is living in at risk spaces in three case-study communities. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with local government representatives and iwi, and a questionnaire to local residents was followed by interviews. 

The analysis demonstrates how the environmental justice components of distributive justice, procedural justice, justice as recognition and a capabilities approach to justice are tied together in the political and social processes of managing floods. Procedural justice is based on participatory parity so ensuring all members of the affected community are treated fairly in the deliberative and discursive decision-making is essential. Evidence revealed a community’s limited access to extensive flood risk information, unequal power sharing in decision-making and community participation, and restricted ability for disadvantaged groups to access legal processes. Distributive justice demands the use of multi-criteria analysis, rather than cost-benefit analysis, in prioritising and directing flood risk management to vulnerable communities. Using direct benefit rating to fund flood mitigation works heightens existing inequalities within communities and demands consideration of social difference in flood risk vulnerabilities. To ensure justice as recognition, local and indigenous knowledge needs to be valued and included in decision-making processes. Whilst working party arrangements are not inclusive they empower communities to be actively involved, promote trust and ownership of their local place and flood risk project. Recognition of identities and cultural practices is crucial for self-determination and minimises the marginalisation of voices. Planners need to examine social aspects of how people perceive, adapt and cope with flood risk, alongside place-based vulnerability. Policy, in embracing a capabilities approach to justice, would focus on the functionings people actually achieve rather than the opportunities. This calls for removing aggregations to look at the capabilities of individuals and communities to manage and respond to their flood risk. Judgements on planning initiatives need to be based on whether distributional outcomes enhance the capabilities of the relatively disadvantaged, thereby improving the resilience capacity of a community to manage flood risk. 

This study bridges a research gap in drawing together flood risk management, planning and environmental justice; advancing understanding of the environmental injustices within flood risk management in New Zealand.

year: 2018