A college self review : a report on an Action Research Cycle conducted for the purpose of school improvement : presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Educational Administration, Massey University

A school self-review: (i) occupies a central role in the development of effective schools and (ii) it is what we do to make sure that all of us who care about schools and pupils know what we are trying to achieve, how we check whether we have met our aspirations and how we use this information for further development. This study is a school self-review which focuses on the requirements (including National Administration Guideline 1, (Ministry of Education, 2000) that relates specifically to learning) that were put in place by the Establishment Board of Trustees of a new school prior to the school opening at the beginning of the 1999 school year, i.e the school's Vision and Guiding Principles. The study uses an action-research cycle to review how well the school has met these standards after a period of two years and will continue to use further action-research cycles to continue the process of review and development. While this review has been initiated and lead by the Principal of the school, the school's staff has been, and continues to be actively involved in the data gathering process and it is envisaged that staff wil be further empowered to complete this first cycle of action-research using the results to drive subsequent action-research cycles. The completed review will be presented to the school's Board of Trustees to provide members with an opportunity to reflect on the development of the school since its opening and to assist with ongoing strategic planning. It is believed that by placing the staff of the school in the role of researchers, the process will lead to increased motivation, collegiality and ownership of the school's vsion and provide a method for ongoing institution-wide site-based school development

The failure of the global consumer: the importance of localization in the pursuit of globalization

Advancements in globalization and technology have led to the dangerous assumption that the world is becoming increasingly more homogenous. Through providing a definition of the global consumer and an explanation of this concept, evidence will be presented in this paper to support this concept’s failure. This paper will also provide a framework so as to improve upon this concept and facilitate its success within a non-static system. Lastly, this paper will reflect on this increasingly problematic identity of global consumer

Choosing a career : why not nursing? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

In today's society, young people have many different opportunities for career choices. Nursing is a career that could offer many challenges and rewards to young people, yet most do not choose a career in nursing. This research project aims to explore how young people make career decisions and why young people might choose or reject nursing as a career choice. The literature suggests that the process of decision-making for young people is a complex multi faceted process that is influenced by predisposing factors such as their family, gender, culture and society, their ability to search for career options and the choices available to them. Young people's career decision-making in relation to nursing also seems to be influenced by these factors. A qualitative descriptive research design was chosen for this research in order to bring the views of the participants to the forefront. Thirty four young people from two local colleges and a church group volunteered to participate in focus group interviews to discuss how they made career decisions and their perceptions of nursing as a career choice. Five focus groups were conducted including two single gender groups as well as three mixed gender groups. The majority of the participants identified as either Maori or Pasifika ethnicity. Data analysis was undertaken using thematic analysis to identify codes, categories and themes. Data analysis software called NVivo 7(QSR International, 2006) was used to aid in organising the data. The career decision-making process described by Leach and Zepke (2005) was used as a model to present the findings. The findings suggest that in the predisposition stage, it is crucial to provide culturally appropriate advice and support to parents because of the key role they have in the young person's career decision. In the search stage, it is important that young people make positive connections with role models and mentors and are supported in exploring their career interests and aspirations within the educational environment. In the choices stage, young people should be aided in developing a career pathway. Finally the profile of nursing needs to be raised across all three stages of the career decision-making process. Addressing gender stereotypes held by both male and female young people as well as by parents, the educational environments and the community seems crucial in order to develop nursing as an attractive career option for young people

Stabilizer States as a Basis for Density Matrices

We show that the space of density matrices for n-qubit states, considered as a (2^n)^2 dimensional real vector space, has a basis consisting of density matrices of stabilizer states. We describe an application of this result to automated verification of quantum protocols

Explicit concave fillings of contact three-manifolds

In this paper we give explicit, handle-by-handle constructions of concave symplectic fillings of all closed, oriented contact 3-manifolds. These constructions combine recent results of Giroux relating contact structures and open book decompositions of 3-manifolds, earlier results of the author on attaching 4-dimensional symplectic 2-handles along transverse links, and some tricks with mapping class groups of compact surfaces with non-empty boundary.Comment: 15 pages. Accepted for publication in the Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Current version is identical to final version submitted to the journal, differs from original version only in some notation and minor editorial change