Distance education research literature tends to focus on building economies of scale as a way to improve efficiency and effectiveness. However, the smaller scale distance education operation has a place and there are institutions, such as the one where the current study was set, that, while being keen to improve efficiency and effectiveness…

This study focuses on the negotiation of environmental identity by 10 New Zealand students as they progressed from late primary school to junior secondary school. Interviews with these students and their parents focused on six theoretical perspective prominent in environmental education: significant life experiences, transformative learning,…

Twice-exceptional students are characterized by the almost paradoxical combination of giftedness accompanied by learning difficulties that hinder their ability to reach their potential in a traditional academic setting. This qualitative study examined the experiences of three twice-exceptional students during transfer to a New Zealand high school.…

Hermeneutics is both a philosophical tradition and a methodological resource. In this qualitative study, hermeneutics provided, simultaneously, a framework and a methodology for understanding empathy in synchronous multimedia conferencing. As a framework for the design of the study, hermeneutics supported the overriding objective to understand the…

While the experiences of international doctoral students, especially those from Asian countries, have been well researched, fewer studies have explored the experiences of African students in Southern countries like Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. This article reports on doctoral writing and student and supervisor perspectives on English…

It is my privilege to work as a tertiary learning advisor (TLA). Through my role I have had the opportunity to form unique relationships with students during individual consultations. This has enabled me to observe student behaviour, and the metacognitive strategies students use to negotiate the myriad challenges of tertiary study. I noticed…

This study considered the previous educational experiences, decision-making, and first-year experiences of four students who self-identified as learning with dyslexia within one university in New Zealand. The study showed that despite achieving the required standards for entrance to study at university, some students lacked the knowledge and…

Research that seeks to understand the lived experience of the teacher-student relationship is not prevalent. This article reports on a phenomenological inquiry which explored the nature of this relationship in the context of teacher education. Participant's lived experiences were hermeneutically interpreted against the philosophical writings of…

The paper presents a reconceptualisation of trades tutors drawn from tutors themselves. Trade educators here are seen as multidisciplinary, multi-dimensional practitioners with an occupational milieu that goes beyond the reductionist and instrumentalist views of teaching with which vocational education is often beset. Trade-tutor perspectives on…

The powerful learning that occurs outdoors has been well documented in this journal, as has an array of barriers teachers typically face in providing outdoor learning experiences. This paper draws on findings from a collaborative, practice-based research project examining the reconceptualisation of outdoor education in two Year 4 classes in a…

Mary O'Sullivan writes that she spent part of her sabbatical leave interviewing teacher educators from nine countries across three continents exploring teacher education contexts both nationally and locally, and the nature of the 'teacher educators' work in these contexts. Three issues struck her: (1) The intensification of regulation and policy…

This research examined the decisions that highly experienced outdoor leaders made on backpacking expeditions conducted by a tertiary institution in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. The purpose of the research was to document decision problems and explore them as Recognition-Primed Decisions (RPD) within naturalistic decision making (NDM)…

Although educational online technologies (EOTs) have transformed the delivery of learning in higher education, significant EOT challenges have impeded their effectiveness, preventing widespread implementation. The persistence of these challenges suggests that tertiary education institutes (TEIs) have experienced a gap in understandings about the…

The stories shared by the immigrant teachers capture some of their personal and professional lived experiences in their new teaching environment. The hermeneutic narrative approach of the study of seven immigrant teachers' stories, as they compared their teaching experiences in their home country to their New Zealand teaching experience, offer…

An international agenda to raise educational "standards" and increase the accountability of schools has the unintended consequence of increased uniformity around pedagogical practices, and of introducing assessment practices that influence the way students experience learning. This paper explores how the self-assessment experiences of…