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This research examined the leadership practices of rural primary school principals in the Otago province of New Zealand. Principals of large rural schools (with a role of 150 and above) and small rural schools (with a role of 60 or below) served as participants in an investigation to learn what about their practice creates and maintains effective rural schools. The goals were to investigate the interrelationships of principal, curriculum, and community and to examine principals' practices in relationship to effective leadership in their schools. A mixed methods approach comprised a survey designed for the study completed by rural principals (n = 63), followed by observations over 3 days and then interviews with 6 principals. Key findings were that leadership practices varied across contexts of large rural and small rural schools; having a local curriculum was critical; and, communication and involvement with parents and the community were essential. The survey had good psychometric qualities; validation through future research use is needed. Results are discussed in terms of factors to consider for effective leadership in rural schools.

The New Zealand school curriculum was last revised in 2007, at which time a new emphasis was placed on culture in language teaching. The practice of intercultural language teaching is implicit in the curriculum document and explicit in the curriculum guide, which features a set of principles for intercultural communicative language teaching (iCLT). This article presents a study on the extent to which New Zealand language teachers' beliefs and practices are aligned with intercultural language teaching (ILT). A questionnaire administered to New Zealand language teachers included a number of items used in a seminal seven-nation comparative study conducted by Lies Sercu and her colleagues, as well as other items developed from relevant literature. Expanding on previous studies' use of item-by-item analyses, multi-item scales to measure alignment of New Zealand teacher's beliefs and practices with ILT were developed, which yielded good internal reliabilities. The findings revealed an apparent mismatch between beliefs and practices, with teachers being favourably disposed towards ILT but not practising the approach in their classrooms. Interpretation of the data using concepts from teacher cognition research suggested that the differences represented tensions between teachers' abstract, theoretical beliefs and their concrete, practical beliefs. We argue that supporting teachers' applied knowledge of developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) will allow them to recognize that those beliefs need not be discordant.

This research examined preservice teachers' self-efficacy beliefs immediately prior to and after the final practicum for an undergraduate three-year primary education teaching program. The primary purpose of the study was to explore the effect of the capstone practicum experience on the students' teacher self-efficacy beliefs. A secondary objective was to compare the utility of two established measures of teacher self-efficacy. A cohort of preservice teachers from New Zealand (N = 75) completed the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy (long form) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and the English version of the Norwegian Teacher Self Efficacy Scale (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007), before and after their final practicum placements. Results indicated that the participants' self-efficacy beliefs increased from pre to post. Further, the NTSES and the TSES were both found to be useful measures for assessing preservice teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, with the NTSES providing more differentiated evaluation. These results are discussed in the context of how capstone practicum experiences can enhance preservice teachers' teacher self-efficacy beliefs.

Both physical and relational aggression are characterised by the intent to harm another. Physical aggression includes direct behaviours such as hitting or kicking; relational aggression involves behaviours designed to damage relationships, such as excluding others, spreading rumours, and delivering threats and verbal abuse. This study extended research conducted in New Zealand (Page & Smith, 2012) to explore perceptions of Physical Aggression (PA) and Relational Aggression (RA) of Year 7 to 13 boys and girls (n = 443) and their teachers (n = 8) in the Cook Islands. It also investigated teachers' strategies used to manage aggression. Using a mixed-methods approach, results indicated that there was no gender difference in the perpetration of PA. Girls, however, were more likely to perpetrate and be targets of RA than were boys, but were more likely than boys to act in prosocial ways. Boys were more likely to be targets of PA. PA and RA were highly correlated for both genders. Finally, teachers' perceptions of RA and PA behaviours corresponded with those of the students, but their perceptions of effective strategies differed from those of the students. The findings are discussed in terms of developing strategies for building healthy relationships within Cook Islands' schools.

This study compared perceptions of teacher efficacy beliefs and concerns about teaching in pre-service teacher cohorts from New Zealand, Malaysia, and England. Participants were primary pre-service teachers from Malaysia (n = 53), New Zealand (n = 100), and England (n = 119), who completed the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy (long form) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and the Concerns About Teaching Scale (Smith, Corkery, Buckley & Calvert, 2012) at the beginning of the second year of their teaching programs. Eight focus groups (n = 4 to 8 each) were conducted to further explore the issues. Results indicated that both culture and context are important in regard to pre-service teachers' concerns about teaching and their teacher efficacy beliefs. Differences by nation were most evident in the comparatively low efficacy beliefs reported by the Malaysian pre-service teachers, who also expressed concerns about teaching class sizes of 50 primary students, having subject-based rather than class-based contact with students, and dealing with high parental expectations of student success. Results are discussed in terms of practical applications when preparing pre-service teachers from the cultural contexts represented by the participants.

Using data from New Zealand's National Education Monitoring Project, a light sampling, low stakes performance based national school assessment program, reading self-efficacy, reading enjoyment, and reading achievement were examined in samples of 8 and 12 year old children. Sample sizes were n = 480 for each group. While reading achievement increased substantially in going from age 8 to age 12, reading enjoyment and reading self-efficacy declined. Girls outperformed boys in reading achievement and showed higher levels of reading enjoyment; differences in self-efficacy by gender were minimal. Results are discussed in terms of previous research and implications for instructional practice. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)

This study used mixed methods to compare perceptions of relational aggression (RA) of adolescent girls (n = 282) and their teachers (n = 15) in New Zealand, and to explore strategies for teachers to effectively manage RA in the classroom. Results indicated that younger adolescent girls view physical aggression as more acceptable than older girls, and that the girls were more likely to view others as engaging in RA, rather than themselves. Teachers' perceptions of RA behaviours overlapped with those of the girls' but perceptions of effective strategies varied. The results led to the development of a model that identifies three types of relationally aggressive adolescent girls. Results are discussed in terms of applying the model and developing strategies for building healthy relationships. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Every year, New Zealand assesses students' learning progress through the National Educational Monitoring Project (NEMP). NEMP is a national, formative evaluation effort that provides New Zealand educators with an accurate picture of students' education progress at Year 4 and Year 8, which are roughly comparable to grades 3 and 7 in the United States. Unlike the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or various statewide assessment programs in the United States, NEMP covers nearly all areas of the New Zealand curriculum on a four-year, rotating cycle. Assessment tasks involve one-to-one interviews, stations, teams, and independent work. Results are reported only at the national level and are disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. No individual student or school scores are provided. By focusing primarily on formative aspects, the NEMP emphasizes the value of assessments for learning.

Background: The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused major disruption to health systems, with allogeneic haemopoietic cell transplant (alloHCT) services a particularly vulnerable area. Ongoing provision of alloHCT has required dynamic responses at national and local levels. In Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), a high reliance on unrelated donors from overseas registries has posed an additional challenge. Aims: To describe the impact of COVID‐19 on alloHCT services in ANZ in the first year of the pandemic. Methods: Data from the national alloHCT patient and unrelated donor registries were extracted for a 2‐year time frame. Comparisons were made between a pre‐pandemic period of 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020 and the corresponding dates during the pandemic, 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2021. Results: There was a 13% decrease in the number of allogeneic transplants, a reversal of steady increases in previous years, with the largest decrease in unrelated donor transplants. Local donors supplied a greater proportion of unrelated stem cell products. With a switch to universal cryopreservation, the time from request of a product to infusion increased by a median of 25.5 days for overseas products and 14 days for local products. There was a significant increase in the number of products collected but not used. Conclusions: A strong public health response and coordinated transplant community activities allowed for safe provision of alloHCT in ANZ; however, our data suggest that the timely delivery of allogeneic transplants was affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Continued dedicated efforts are required to minimise further impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of advanced imaging in clinical practice is emerging and the use of this technology by optometrists in assessing patients with age-related macular degeneration is of interest. Therefore, this study explored contemporary, self-reported patterns of practice regarding age-related macular degeneration diagnosis and management using a cross-sectional survey of optometrists in Australia and New Zealand.Methods: Practising optometrists were surveyed on four key areas, namely, demographics, clinical skills and experience, assessment and management of age-related macular degeneration. Questions pertaining to self-rated competency, knowledge and attitudes used a five-point Likert scale.Results: Completed responses were received from 127 and 87 practising optometrists in Australia and New Zealand, respectively. Advanced imaging showed greater variation in service delivery than traditional techniques (such as slitlamp funduscopy) and trended toward optical coherence tomography, which was routinely performed in age-related macular degeneration by 49 per cent of respondents. Optical coherence tomography was also associated with higher self-rated competency, knowledge and perceived relevance to practice than other modalities. Most respondents (93 per cent) indicated that they regularly applied patient symptoms, case history, visual function results and signs from traditional testing, when queried about their management of patients with age-related macular degeneration. Over half (63 per cent) also considered advanced imaging, while 31 per cent additionally considered all of these as well as the disease stage and clinical guidelines. Contrary to the evidence base, 68 and 34 per cent rated nutritional supplements as highly relevant or relevant in early age-related macular degeneration and normal aging changes, respectively.Conclusions: These results highlight the emergence of multimodal and advanced imaging (especially optical coherence tomography) in the assessment of age-related macular degeneration by optometrists. Clinically significant variations in self-rated test competency and the understanding regarding nutritional supplements for different stages of age-related macular degeneration suggest that further work to up-skill optometrists may be required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study followed a cohort of preservice teachers (n = 85) in a 1-year secondary school program in New Zealand to examine their concerns about teaching in terms of what they are, how they are related to teaching efficacy, and how they are affected by practicum experiences. Before beginning the program and after each of two practica, participants completed the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (short form) and the Concerns About Teaching Scale. Focus groups (n = 8 each) were conducted after each survey administration. Results indicated that the participants’ concerns about teaching became differentiated over time and with classroom experience; their sense of efficacy increased. Results are discussed in terms of practical implications for teacher education taking into consideration the relationships among teaching concerns, practicum experiences, views of teaching, and policy changes in New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper begins by reviewing the historic and current needs and problems associated with connecting theory and practice, and then moves to a brief discussion of current research on quality teaching, and factors that affect learning. An argument is put forward on how we can learn from other disciplines. Next, the case is made for thinking more about moderation and its relationship to standards. The paper concludes with a call for developing better vehicles for communication, a description of some innovative approaches to this issue using ICT, and some ideas on where to next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from New Zealand's National Education Monitoring Project, a light sampling, low stakes performance based national school assessment program, reading self-efficacy, reading enjoyment, and reading achievement were examined in samples of 8 and 12 year old children. Sample sizes were n=480 for each group. While reading achievement increased substantially in going from age 8 to age 12, reading enjoyment and reading self-efficacy declined. Girls outperformed boys in reading achievement and showed higher levels of reading enjoyment; differences in self-efficacy by gender were minimal. Results are discussed in terms of previous research and implications for instructional practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]