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The Impact of Spaced and Massed Practice on Deliberate Learning of English Opaque Idioms across L2 Proficiency Levels: A Mixed-Methods Research
No full textThe effect of spacing, specifically spaced and massed practice, on learning and retention of different skills and knowledge components has been studied extensively in various disciplines, such as experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, and education. In vocabulary research, spaced practice has been found to bear superior effects on single-word vocabulary learning, compared with massed practice. However, the effects of spaced and massed practice on learning and retention of Multi-Word Expression (MWEs), such as idioms, by L2 learners of different proficiency have not yet been sufficiently researched. The present thesis seeks to address this gap by examining the impact of spaced and massed practice on deliberate learning of English opaque idioms across L2 proficiency levels. This thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, a methodological systematic review of spaced/massed practice studies in applied linguistics/SLA since 2000 to 2023 was conducted. The results of the review informed the field by delineating the present state of research into spacing and suggesting ways it can be described more systematically. The results also informed methodological decision of the present study. In the second part, an experimental classroom-based study was conducted with 199 English L2 learners (65 low-, 68 mid-, and 66 high-proficiency ones) who learned 40 opaque idioms explicitly via flashcard technique through either spaced or massed practice. The learning and retention of the idioms were measured via cued-form recall, meaning recall, and short story writing posttests in immediate, short-delayed (12 days after treatment), and long-delayed (100 days after treatment) posttests. The main results of this part were that firstly, on both cued-form recall and meaning-recall tests, high-proficiency and mid-proficiency groups benefitted most from spaced practice while the low-proficiency group benefitted most from massed practice. Secondly, while massed practice was found more effective on L2 idiom learning, spaced practice was found more effective on L2 idiom retention. Third, in the short story test, it was found that high-proficiency group had the best performance in all types and times of posttests. In the third part of the thesis, 30 of the participants were interviewed to obtain their opinions on the two treatment approaches (spaced and massed practice). The results showed that unlike the low-proficiency and mid-proficiency learners who had false metacognition and metamemory on spacing, the high-proficiency learners did not.</p
Cinematic atmospheres
No full textWestern culture has given predominance to the visual dimension over all other aspects of experience. The culture has evolved to accommodate fast and instantaneous imagery, capturing and freezing the whole of our world into a collection of convenient snapshots. This thesis critiques architecture as primarily representation for printed media, influenced by this ‘instant’ culture that is designed to be viewed at an arm’s length. Architecture’s prioritisation of purely visual media alienates the body from the design process and therefore confounds the consideration of designing for the body. However, architecture is unavoidably sensual in nature and buildings cannot be reduced to vehicles for the scenographic conveyance of abstract architecture ideas. Architectural quality is often equated with having a beautiful form, yet this is only one aspect. Often overlooked is the lived experience of space; the qualities of space that move people; the architectural atmosphere. It is the reciprocal exchange between individuals and the architectural environment that can create an architectural atmosphere. Individuals engage with the architectural environment, and in turn, the built space shapes their emotions and experiences. Architectural atmosphere can also be cinematically experienced, through movement, between or around spaces. Particularly through oppositional dualities such as the interplay between composure and seduction; or the tension between interior and exterior. Consequently, this thesis explores the proposition that the cinematic experience may amplify architectural atmosphere. In order to investigate further, a design-as-research methodology was implemented across three scales: An installation, mid-scale and public scale. This methodology conducted iterative design experiments that examined the cinematic experience’s effect on how architectural atmospheres may be experienced. The first design scale explored how a cinematic experience can be created through a reciprocal exchange between individuals and light. The following project applied an architectural programme. It looked at how the duality between the exterior can amplify the interior. The final scale was to design a co-housing community that explored the layers of privacy between the public, community and private realms. Movement between these realms can be cinematically experienced. In summary, the architectural outcomes and iterative design inquiries underscore the ability of the cinematic experience to amplify architectural atmospheres.</p
Sourcing, Analysing, and Visualising Stories: Multidisciplinary Programme Development in Data Journalism
No full textData journalism is an multidisciplinary industry that combines the fields of data science, design, and journalism. Research shows the growing interest in the complex combination of disciplines and skills needed for visualising information. Through a review of literature in the field of data journalism and the tertiary education system within New Zealand, this thesis explores the creation of a Bachelor of Data Journalism. An in-depth analysis of the education of data journalism across the globe, their programme structures and taught papers influenced the exploration and iteration of a tertiary programme design. It supports the structure of the learning process and the selection papers to be taught within the programme.This exploration of a Bachelor of Data Journalism offers an all-inclusive programme that provides the necessary skills to visualise information for the public. It explores and assesses a range of structures to support the effectiveness of a Bachelor of Data Journalism. Graduates will have sought-after skills that will support their future careers. These skills will help increase the creation of information that is engaging, accurate, easy to digest, and can be applied to a wide range of industries.</p
Notions of Home: Improving Medium Density Housing in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textThe current state of home ownership in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) has sparked concern among many. Owning a quarter-acre lot with a stand-alone house and yard has become an unattainable luxury for the average citizen, and an unsustainable pattern of growth. As a result, there has been amarked increase n efforts to make housing more affordable and sustainable. With worldwide population growth, medium-density housing (MDH) models have emerged as part of the solution, but questions emain about how to design these spaces to promote well-being and meet the functional performance and visual appeal required of domestic architecture more commonly met by the conventional stand-alone house.Additionally, it is important to understand how evolving notions of home in NZ, driven by factors such as technological advancements and changing human preferences, influence the design of dwellings. In this project, I aim to address these questions by exploring the potential of an innovative design approach for MDH developments generated from the analysis of past efforts to define the architecture of home in NZ. The analysis reveals how paradigm shifts and human preferences shape evolving notions of home, and leads to a design exploration drawing on relevant techniques and case studies to re imagine what might be possible. The design-led research presented here contributes to the field of interior architecture, to the field of architecture more broadly, and hopefully to more contextually esponsive patterns of MDH design in NZ</p
A Nature-Positive Transect Line
No full textOver time, urban green spaces have reduced in area due to the increasing housing density and commercial expansion in our cities. This reduction in urban green spaces has brought new problems into our cities, such as stormwater management. The discussion of how cities should best combat these problems is now a prominent topic. In New Zealand concerns raised are reflected in the recent release of the government report: Are we building harder, hotter cities? The vital importance of urban green spaces. In response to these issues, this thesis takes the Wellington City Council Green Network Plan as the impetus to investigate how these ideas can be expanded across the city. The design research has been undertaken by reference to a design rubric that looks at five design criteria. These criteria were tested along a significant transect line to explore how the associated ideas could be applied in Wellington. These explorations provide an example of how the ideas can be incorporated via strategic green initiatives. This thesis aims to illustrate how such ideas can be taken and applied across the city.</p
To be of use – designing software with progressive food growers in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textConventional agricultural systems – how we grow, process, and supply food – contribute to local and global environmental problems. These contributions include damaging soil health, loss of productive soil, waterway pollution, greenhouse gas production, and the distortion of tolerable weather patterns due to climate change. The changing climate in turn makes it more difficult to maintain agricultural systems. The last twenty years has seen the growth of agricultural practices in opposition to the conventional, where the farmers’ intent is to work as part of the ecological system in which they reside, so that both the agriculture and its ecological host may benefit. Alongside progressive developments in agriculture, alternative systems for getting the food to customers have sprouted, including shorter and more local food chains. At the same time there has been growth in digital products and services for agriculture. Most of them are designed and developed to support conventional and often larger agriculture practices, in part because the scale of the addressable market makes it commercially viable for software development companies to do so. However, small progressive farmers share similar complexities as larger operations, and could benefit from digital tools to help them plan, grow, and manage their farming systems, make records to demonstrate their compliance across various standards, as well as analyse their performance to improve their practices. This project explores the systems of small progressive vegetable growers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Based on a rudimentary understanding of their growing and selling processes, and working directly with three progressive growers, I have designed some early concepts for tablet and phone-based software. This project is also an opportunity to explore how UX design processes might operate in a non-commercial context, with an emphasis on a non-extractive process that is ultimately useful for the people working alongside designers.</p
Relating State Frontal Alpha Asymmetry to Individual Differences in Psychopathy, Emotional Dysregulation and Aggression
No full textIn the literature on Psychopathic Personality traits, associations have been identified between functions of Aggression, Emotion Dysregulation, and the factors of Psychopathic Personality. There is evidence that Approach Motivation at a trait level has similar associations to functions of Aggression and Emotion Dysregulation, as the different factors of Psychopathy. Specifically, higher trait levels of Approach Motivation are more associated with the characteristics of Psychopathy related to risk-taking and impulsive behaviour, and lower levels of Trait Approach Motivation with the unemotional and socially potent characteristics of Psychopathy.This study sought to examine potential latent profiles of Trait Approach Motivation, Psychopathy components, sub-components of Emotion Dysregulation and Aggression with different functions. The further aim of this study was to examine how these factors interact in Vivo when influenced by negative affective states. Specifically, whether any potential profiles predicted the participant’s level of Approach Motivation when anger, loss or neutral affect were induced. A sample of 64 participants completed self-report measures of Psychopathy (PPI-R-40), Emotion Dysregulation (DERS) and Aggression (SRASBM) before being connected to EEG equipment and completing two phases of activity. The first phase was a resting phase in which participants sat for three minutes, alternating eyes open and closed in 30 second intervals. In the second phase, participants viewed nine videos, three of which were intended to evoke feelings of anger, three intended to evoke feelings of loss, and three intended to evoke neutral affect. The alpha band activity in the frontal lobe was recorded during both phases. The activity from two pairs of electrodes (two over the left hemisphere and two over the right) was then used to find the average Frontal Alpha Asymmetry (FAA) score during each phase and in each emotion condition. This FAA score was used as a proxy measure of Approach Motivation. The Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) yielded three profiles named the Controlled Approach Group, Anxious Approach Group and Impulsive Approach Group, the characteristics of which were congruent with previously identified associations between the variables included the LPA. The level of Approach Motivation in anger, loss and neutral affective states did not differ significantly between the groups identified in the LPA.</p
The Response of Taupō Volcano to the M7.8 Kaikōura Earthquake
No full textSeveral studies suggest that large earthquakes (M > 7.0) can act as external triggers of volcanic unrest, and even eruption. This triggering is attributed to either ground shaking (dynamic stresses) or to permanent ground deformation (associated with static stress changes). However, large earthquakes are rare and testing triggering hypotheses has proven difficult. We use geodetic data to show that the 13 November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake (Mw 7.8) triggered local deformation of up to 11 mm at Taupō volcano, 500 km away, which lasted for approximately twelve days. Using elastic geodetic models, we infer that the observed deformation was caused by either aseismic fault slip or a dike intrusion. We then use strong motion data from the surrounding area to show that the Kaikōura earthquake caused maximum dynamic stress changes in the range of 0.15–0.9 MPa in the vicinity of Taupō volcano and conclude that these dynamic stress changes triggered local faulting or dike activity and the associated deformation at Taupō volcano
Investigating the role of the early amnion in the guinea pig embryo
No full textDue to both ethical and technical restrictions, the events of early embryonic development in many mammals remains elusive. During these early developmental stages, gastrulation occurs – an important event induced by trophoblast-epiblast signalling and sets up the embryo body plan. At approximately the same developmental stage, the amnion will form. The amnion plays an import role later in development by surrounding and protecting the foetus, however relatively little is known about its early role in embryonic development. The amnion forms in one of two ways, depending on species. In some mammals, the amnion will form by a cavitation mechanism and in others it will form by a folding mechanism. Interestingly, in species where the amnion forms by folding, the trophoblast overlying the epiblast disappears. In cavitating species, the overlying trophoblast remains.This correlation between trophoblast disappearance or persistence and the mechanism of amnion formation, is the basis for the hypothesis of central epiblast shielding. This hypothesis states that the central epiblast must be shielded from gastrulation-inducing signals that originate from the trophoblast. This shielding can occur in one of two ways. Epiblast cavitation ensures that the central epiblast is shielded from the gastrulation-inducing signals of the trophoblast by distance, while removal of the overlying trophoblast also achieves central epiblast shielding but without the necessity of cavity formation. However, in the guinea pig embryo, the trophoblast and the epiblast are already separated before the cavity forms. How is gastrulation induced without an epiblast-trophoblast boundary? Furthermore, why does the amniotic cavity still form when the central epiblast likely does not need to be shielded from any trophoblast signals?In this study, we proposed a new role for the early amnion. We predict that the amniotic ectoderm (i.e. the roof of the epiblast cavity) has replaced the role of the trophoblast in the guinea pig embryo and is responsible for inducing gastrulation. Following on from this hypothesis, we would further predict that the amniotic cavity still forms in the guinea pig embryo to shield the central epiblast from the gastrulation-inducing signals coming from the amniotic ectoderm. To determine if this is true, I examined signalling in the peri-gastrulation guinea pig embryo. I characterised the peri-gastrulation guinea pig embryo and found that the trophoblast is not required to induce gastrulation. This is compatible with the hypothesis that the amniotic ectoderm is responsible for inducing gastrulation in the guinea pig embryo and, by extension, that central epiblast shielding remains important in the guinea pig embryo.</p
A New Service Model for Identifying and Improving the Quality of Emergency Department Operations in Tertiary Settings
No full textThe conceptual framework adapted by this thesis discusses improving the quality of care in tertiary care hospitals’ Emergency Department (ED), which is challenged by the ever-increasing number of patients seeking emergency treatment. The demand for emergency services is much more than supply, and resources are comparatively less, which can lead to deterioration of patient satisfaction and reduction in quality of services. Emergency department managers are trying to achieve a balance between quality services for patients and efficiency for providers. This research looks at many and varied causes of waiting in the emergency department and examines its effect on patients and staff. The research presents a compelling argument that the causes and effects of waiting are more than just inconveniences, and result in suboptimal patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction. Literature from various operations management and emergency medicine journals is critically reviewed to identify relevant issues of longer waiting times and resource utilization. Whilst past studies predominantly look at one of either input, throughput, or output processes for improvement; all three need consideration as these are interdependent measures to achieve enhanced quality care. Thus, the objective of the study is to develop a service model for decision-makers to identify the best opportunities for improvement with flexibility and statistical reliability considering all interdependent processes. This study focuses on inevitable complexities within ED processes and services and addresses opportunities for improvement using Lean principles coupled with a simulation optimization approach. Complexities such as differences in healthcare systems worldwide, patient acuity, different locations of ED, physical layouts, and staffing levels identified need to develop an improvement model. Developing a simulation model in an ED environment is challenging because of uncertainty in patient elements and difficulty in obtaining the necessary data. This research seeks to optimize the use of existing human resources in resource-constrained ED environments, ensuring that they are allocated efficiently to reduce waiting times and length of stay. It integrates both simulation and optimization tools that allow the evaluation of different ED configurations and resource allocation strategies for efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It presents an organised method for assessing the impact of different decisions on ED operations in a controlled and risk-free environment, ultimately leading to more informed and effective resource allocation planning. It helps to continuously monitor and adapt to changing conditions and operational challenges within the ED. The efficacy and intricacy of the new developed model was validated in a tertiary care hospital in India.The research contributes theoretically with a new simulation optimization framework to reduce waiting and total length of stay of patients in ED and to achieve overall performance improvement; extending contribution in the current applied research and is a novelty of the research as no past studies addressed improvement model in the context of ED set-up with limited budget and resources and integrating Lean theoretical frameworks and a simulation-optimization approach. The research revealed specific factors contributing to patient waiting times which included resource allocation issues, bottleneck triage process for category-3 patients and operational inefficiencies. Waste reduction methods such as Lean principles were identified as a potential solution. Implementing Lean principles within the ED was a viable approach for improving operations by eliminating waste, thus contributing to greater efficiency. The developed simulation model and mathematical model for optimal staff scheduling are both contextually relevant and replicable in similar healthcare settings. It acknowledges the multifaceted nature of ED operations, encompassing areas such as patient flow, resource allocation and quality measures. The study uncovered the effectiveness of implementing an alternative triage method for category 3 patients in reducing waiting times for all non-urgent patients. Although this study is focused on the tertiary care Indian hospital operations, the improvement model and strategies developed during the research can be implemented successfully in other EDs that operate in similar manner.The implementation of triage process improvement and optimal staff scheduling has led to a substantial reduction in the total length of stay for all patients in the ED (45.18%) and resulted in marked reductions in waiting times for patients across all categories ranging from 30.90% to 60.47%. The success of this research lies in its comprehensive approach, incorporating Lean principles, simulation and optimization techniques. The interconnected use of these strategies has allowed for a thorough analysis, efficient resource allocation, operational efficiency and continuous improvement in real-world ED settings. The continuous improvement mindset embedded in these methodologies and the tangible improvements in total length of stay and waiting times underscore the real-world impact of this research, benefiting both patients and healthcare providers in the dynamic environment of ED. The developed model in this research may serve as a blueprint for improving operations across diverse healthcare environments.</p
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