title: Towards understanding the root causes of outdoor education incidents

authors: Davidson, Grant S.

abstract: Outdoor education involves the interaction of people with the natural environment, often in challenging situations. Because of this there are often real risks involved that must be suitably managed. Despite efforts at managing these risks, incidents are still occurring during outdoor education experiences that sometimes culminate in serious injury and even death. While in the past these injuries and fatalities would have been considered unfortunate acts of misadventure, new attitudes in society seek to ascribe blame in the wake of an accident and those involved, or their families, seek penalties for those blamed. Recent legislation such as the Health and Safety in Employment Act make these penalties easier to apply, while the recent actions of both the police and officers of the Department of Labour show the willingness of public officials to investigate and prosecute outdoor education providers if accidents occur. 
The outdoor education sector has been poorly equipped to reply to the public in the wake of serious incidents. There are few if any statistics on incident rates in the outdoor education sector, and there is very little known about the underlying causes of those incidents. To ensure that outdoor education provision can continue into the future such information needs to be available and training programmes developed based on those findings. 
This research builds a profile of almost 2000 incidents that occurred in the years 1996 - 2000 at 12 of the 25 larger outdoor education centres in New Zealand that were invited to participate. That profile includes calculating accident rates for the group of organisations sampled and compares these to the rates of accidents occurring in outdoor centres in other parts of the world as well as those occurring in other aspects of life in New Zealand. 
Eighteen of the incidents were chosen that had potential for serious injury, and these were studied for the root causes of the incidents using a Delphi technique involving three panels of outdoor experts. From this investigation, and an in-depth review of literature from the fields of safety management and psychology, I developed a taxonomy of root causes of outdoor education incidents and suggest a new model of how these root causes can interact to result in an incident. Not all of the identified types of error in the taxonomy of root causes could easily be accommodated within the existing frameworks of outdoor decision-making. In order to provide a model that incorporated these error types, theories of cognitive psychology were combined into a new model of outdoor education decision making in hazardous situations. This shows how personality factors, attitudes and other social factors can act to bias decisions and lead to incidents occurring. 
As a result of this research, an ongoing collection of incident data in the outdoor education sector is advocated, as is the adoption of the taxonomy of root causes and model of an outdoor education incident into training programmes for outdoor instructors. Through these processes it is hoped that risk management practices will be improved, incidents reduced in frequency and severity, and therefore participation of young people in outdoor education programmes for personal development outcomes can continue to be promoted and justified. 
Suggestions for further research to build the knowledge of the processes leading to incidents in outdoor education activities are made at the end of this thesis.

text: Towards understanding the root causes of outdoor education incidents Outdoor education involves the interaction of people with the natural environment, often in challenging situations. Because of this there are often real risks involved that must be suitably managed. Despite efforts at managing these risks, incidents are still occurring during outdoor education experiences that sometimes culminate in serious injury and even death. While in the past these injuries and fatalities would have been considered unfortunate acts of misadventure, new attitudes in society seek to ascribe blame in the wake of an accident and those involved, or their families, seek penalties for those blamed. Recent legislation such as the Health and Safety in Employment Act make these penalties easier to apply, while the recent actions of both the police and officers of the Department of Labour show the willingness of public officials to investigate and prosecute outdoor education providers if accidents occur. 
The outdoor education sector has been poorly equipped to reply to the public in the wake of serious incidents. There are few if any statistics on incident rates in the outdoor education sector, and there is very little known about the underlying causes of those incidents. To ensure that outdoor education provision can continue into the future such information needs to be available and training programmes developed based on those findings. 
This research builds a profile of almost 2000 incidents that occurred in the years 1996 - 2000 at 12 of the 25 larger outdoor education centres in New Zealand that were invited to participate. That profile includes calculating accident rates for the group of organisations sampled and compares these to the rates of accidents occurring in outdoor centres in other parts of the world as well as those occurring in other aspects of life in New Zealand. 
Eighteen of the incidents were chosen that had potential for serious injury, and these were studied for the root causes of the incidents using a Delphi technique involving three panels of outdoor experts. From this investigation, and an in-depth review of literature from the fields of safety management and psychology, I developed a taxonomy of root causes of outdoor education incidents and suggest a new model of how these root causes can interact to result in an incident. Not all of the identified types of error in the taxonomy of root causes could easily be accommodated within the existing frameworks of outdoor decision-making. In order to provide a model that incorporated these error types, theories of cognitive psychology were combined into a new model of outdoor education decision making in hazardous situations. This shows how personality factors, attitudes and other social factors can act to bias decisions and lead to incidents occurring. 
As a result of this research, an ongoing collection of incident data in the outdoor education sector is advocated, as is the adoption of the taxonomy of root causes and model of an outdoor education incident into training programmes for outdoor instructors. Through these processes it is hoped that risk management practices will be improved, incidents reduced in frequency and severity, and therefore participation of young people in outdoor education programmes for personal development outcomes can continue to be promoted and justified. 
Suggestions for further research to build the knowledge of the processes leading to incidents in outdoor education activities are made at the end of this thesis.

year: 2005

title: Mechanisms linking acculturation, work-family conflict, and subjective well-being among Chinese immigrants in New Zealand

authors: Shang, Sudong

subjects: Social Sciences

abstract: Work–family conflict (WFC) research has focused almost exclusively on nonimmigrant populations. To expand the understanding of WFC among immigrants, this longitudinal study (six‐month time lag) aimed to investigate the mechanisms linking acculturation, strain‐based WFC, and subjective well‐being. In order to do this, two theory‐based mediation models were developed and tested on a sample of 264 Chinese immigrants working in New Zealand using structural equation modeling. Results show that subjective well‐being mediated the effect of acculturation on strain‐based WFC, and acculturation did not directly influence strain‐based WFC. Furthermore, evidence was found for reciprocal relationships between strain‐based WFC and subjective well‐being, as well as for the same‐domain perspective. Strain‐based work interfering with family and strain‐based family interfering with work (two directions of strain‐based WFC) have significant effects on work‐related and family‐related well‐being, respectively, and vice versa. Overall, the present study provides an appropriate platform for future work–family research on immigrant populations and offers practical prescriptions for human resource managers to operate successfully within a diverse workplace.

text: Mechanisms linking acculturation, work-family conflict, and subjective well-being among Chinese immigrants in New Zealand Work–family conflict (WFC) research has focused almost exclusively on nonimmigrant populations. To expand the understanding of WFC among immigrants, this longitudinal study (six‐month time lag) aimed to investigate the mechanisms linking acculturation, strain‐based WFC, and subjective well‐being. In order to do this, two theory‐based mediation models were developed and tested on a sample of 264 Chinese immigrants working in New Zealand using structural equation modeling. Results show that subjective well‐being mediated the effect of acculturation on strain‐based WFC, and acculturation did not directly influence strain‐based WFC. Furthermore, evidence was found for reciprocal relationships between strain‐based WFC and subjective well‐being, as well as for the same‐domain perspective. Strain‐based work interfering with family and strain‐based family interfering with work (two directions of strain‐based WFC) have significant effects on work‐related and family‐related well‐being, respectively, and vice versa. Overall, the present study provides an appropriate platform for future work–family research on immigrant populations and offers practical prescriptions for human resource managers to operate successfully within a diverse workplace.

year: 2018

title: Ani Jane Lipsey and Alexander Watson Edwards

authors: Hart, Philip

abstract: Ani Lipsey, the eldest daughter of George and Ema, was well educated. Her Scottish husband, who settled in Te Aroha in the 1880s, had been apprenticed as a draper, an occupation he followed in both Australia and then New Zealand. In addition, for a couple of decades he owned dairy farms in the Te Aroha district. He was a successful merchant with a steadily expanding and profitable business. 
Ani received a good income for a while from goldfields revenue, and put the land she inherited to profitable use. In the early twentieth century she convinced officials that she should be permitted to sell land within the township because the proceeds went to assist her husband’s business and because, over time, the government had decided to acquire all the Maori interests in Te Aroha. To assist in selling her land, in 1911 she had it declared European land, she herself being regarded as ‘practically a European’.
Both were active in the social life of the township, Ani being a competent pianist, and participated in sporting activities. Both owned racehorses, and Edwards assisted in organizing many race meetings. As part of his efforts to assist the community, for a while he was a member of the borough council. Both were popular, and were fondly remembered.

text: Ani Jane Lipsey and Alexander Watson Edwards Ani Lipsey, the eldest daughter of George and Ema, was well educated. Her Scottish husband, who settled in Te Aroha in the 1880s, had been apprenticed as a draper, an occupation he followed in both Australia and then New Zealand. In addition, for a couple of decades he owned dairy farms in the Te Aroha district. He was a successful merchant with a steadily expanding and profitable business. 
Ani received a good income for a while from goldfields revenue, and put the land she inherited to profitable use. In the early twentieth century she convinced officials that she should be permitted to sell land within the township because the proceeds went to assist her husband’s business and because, over time, the government had decided to acquire all the Maori interests in Te Aroha. To assist in selling her land, in 1911 she had it declared European land, she herself being regarded as ‘practically a European’.
Both were active in the social life of the township, Ani being a competent pianist, and participated in sporting activities. Both owned racehorses, and Edwards assisted in organizing many race meetings. As part of his efforts to assist the community, for a while he was a member of the borough council. Both were popular, and were fondly remembered.

year: 2016