Growing enrollment in distance education has increased student-to-lecturer ratios and, therefore, increased the workload of the lecturer. This growing enrollment has resulted in mounting efforts to develop automatic grading systems in an effort to reduce this workload. While research in the design and development of automatic grading systems has a…

This article focuses on the challenges arising for primary school teachers who have responsibility for teaching physical education (PE) and who are working in particularly complex and contestable policy contexts. In New Zealand provision of physical education is identified as occurring amidst multiple, and not necessarily compatible, sets of…

In this article the author reviews and discusses John Hattie's book "Visible Learning". In this book Hattie presents the results of a meta-meta-analysis on the conditions of successful teaching and learning in schools. Hattie's work is based on more than 800 meta-analyses, and these meta-analyses are substantiated by more than 50 000…

Changes in family and employment patterns have lead to an increasing need for families to balance work and family roles. Little research has examined work and family conflict among teachers. In the present study, 69 New Zealand teachers completed a survey examining occupational-related demands, family-related demands, work and family conflict, and…

Teaching can be an exhilarating and exciting career despite, or perhaps because of, a never-ending round of challenges, difficulties and problems to solve. Beginning teachers face new challenges every day. This book points the way for school leaders to help them meet these challenges and encourage them to stay in teaching. New Zealand is no better…

Recent research (Te One, 2009) investigated perceptions of children's rights in a New Zealand early childhood care and education service (the Creche) for under-two-year-olds. Focus group interviews, interviews with teachers, observational field notes, photographs and a researcher's journal were used to generate data. Findings revealed that…

This article uses four academics' gendered and cultural responses to life in a university in Aotearoa New Zealand under the new managerialist regime. Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) requires academics to submit evidence-based portfolios every six years to categorise and rank them, with government funding assigned accordingly. When the…

New Zealand's early childhood curriculum, "Te Whariki", has two learning outcomes, dispositions and working theories. While a sociocultural perspective of dispositions has received significant attention in research and teaching, "working theories" as a concept has remained somewhat nebulous. This paper describes ways teachers…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has become a policy priority in many countries. A growing body of research recognises that it provides a wide range of benefits, including social and economic benefits, better child well-being and learning outcomes as a foundation for lifelong learning, more equitable outcomes and reduction of poverty, and…

A project funded through the National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation program investigated higher education programs--mostly bachelor's and associate degrees--offered by technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. This overview highlights the implications for TAFE management identified through this project. [This…

In this paper, we report on the results of a series of e-mail interviews with statistics educators around the world, focusing on their views of the nature of teaching statistics as a "service" subject. What do they think are the important aspects of statistics to focus on in such servicing teaching? What do they think are the…

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) is a public domain questionnaire measuring the degree of physical and psychological fatigue experienced in three sub-dimensions of burnout: personal, work-related, and client-related burnout. This study first examines the reliability and validity of the CBI in measuring burnout in New Zealand secondary school…

This study began in the Spring of 2003, when the Canterbury Adult Basic Education Research Network (CABERN), an informal cross-sector network of local adult literacy researchers and practitioners, sent out a questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed potential respondents by asking: "Are you a tutor engaged in any aspect of adult…

As New Zealand has become increasingly pluralistic, the teaching profession has become progressively less reflective of the wider population. This paper reviews the literature on impediments to teaching for minority students, and reports on a case study exploring factors that deter Asian New Zealanders from pursuing teaching as a career. The…

This special edition enables an in-depth look at the process of modernization of education in England, in relation to other international developments. In particular we focus on the reform of teachers? work by examining the antecedence of the current policy of remodelling through three articles based on the Evaluation of the Department for…