Tuwhera Research Repository

The Tuwhera Research Repository provides sustainable open access and archiving to a broad range of AUT produced research - theses, research outputs and datasets.

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Access status: Restricted ,
Shaping Residents’ Attitudes Towards Tourism: Do Interactions With Tourists and Family Involvement Matter?
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Kaluthara Liyanage, Nishadi Lakshika; Kim, Peter B; Zhu, Dan; Kim, Chloe
Residents' perspectives on tourism are essential for the sustained development of tourism destinations. Understanding the factors that influence these perceptions is thereby critical for tourism researchers, destination policymakers, and practitioners. Based on Social Learning Theory, this study evaluates whether residents' frequency of interaction with tourists affects their positive attitudes about tourism through perceived cultural revitalisation, and whether family involvement in tourism moderates these associations. A quantitative research methodology was utilised, drawing on secondary data from the 2023 Cook Islands Community Attitudes Survey. Following data screening and cleaning, 659 valid responses from residents were retained for analysis. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and Hayes’ Process macro were employed to investigate the suggested mediation and moderated mediation relationships. The findings show that residents' interactions with tourists have a positive influence on perceptions of cultural revitalisation, which in turn increases positive attitudes towards tourism. Perceived cultural revitalisation was found to mediate the relationship between interaction frequency and residents’ positive attitudes towards tourism, underscoring its role as a mechanism through which resident-tourist interactions shape tourism perceptions. Furthermore, family involvement in tourism attenuated the positive relationship between perceived cultural revitalisation and positive attitudes towards tourism, which was stronger among residents without family involvement. The moderated mediation analysis also demonstrated that the indirect effect of interaction frequency on residents' positive attitudes via perceived cultural revitalisation was stronger among residents who did not have family involvement in tourism. This study extends the application of Social Learning Theory in residents’ attitude research by demonstrating how interactions with tourists contribute to learning processes that strengthen perceptions of cultural revitalisation and, in turn, foster positive attitudes towards tourism. The findings also provide practical insights for tourism policymakers and practitioners in the Cook Islands by highlighting the importance of promoting meaningful resident-tourist interactions and initiatives that support cultural revitalisation to encourage positive community attitudes towards tourism.
Access status: Open Access ,
Weaving a Collective Future: Insights From Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa on Decolonising and Indigenising Mainstream Teacher Education
(Open Access Publishing Association, 2026-10-16) Worchel, Jessica
The Indigenous education movements in Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa) have demonstrated decades of advancement and success, yet we are still confronted with a predominantly Western-centric teaching and learning context that resists recognising Indigenous education as an essential foundation for all educators (Hutchings & Lee-Morgan, 2016; Wilson-Hokowhitu & Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, 2019). This article draws from a larger PhD research study, Decolonizing the colonizer: Indigenous education as the foundation of teacher education in Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa, offering specific guidance to transform mainstream teacher education. The research grounds in Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa as their Indigenous peoples have shared colonial experiences and their Indigenous resurgence movements have evolved together and strengthened one another (Asensio, 2019; Walker, 2004; Wilson & Kamanā, 2001). They hold a strong connection stemming not only from their geographic proximity but also shared histories reflected in their cosmogony, ancestors, language, and cultural practices. These connections ignited an Indigenous education movement that has grown and evolved over the past 50 years, leading to the revitalisation of Hawaiian and Māori languages and cultural practices, and the creation of a robust Indigenous education pipeline. The study applies oral storytelling and semi-structured interview methods to gather moʻolelo/pūrākau (stories, narratives, history), ʻike/mātauranga (knowledge, wisdom), and manaʻo/whakaaro (thoughts, opinions, ideas) from 20 Hawaiian and Māori Indigenous education leaders who have dedicated their personal and professional lives to their respective Cultural Renaissances. The leaders offered guidance for mainstream teacher education on how to ground in Indigenous knowledge systems and practices. Through the study, the metaphor of a three-whiri wahakura (flax bassinet with three foundational braids) emerged, depicting that for transformative and restorative shifts in teacher education to occur, there must be change at the system, programmatic, and individual level. This article will focus on the programmatic level by proposing a framework for decolonising and indigenising teacher education based on eight themes detailing how Indigenous Pacific epistemologies, pedagogies, and philosophies can be employed in university teaching and learning practices.
Access status: Open Access ,
Portfolio Management in Large Scale Agile Software Development
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Saleh, Sambreen; Clear, Tony; Lal, Ramesh
As organisations scale agile software development across concurrent teams, the governance problems shift upward. Team-level agility cannot resolve what is, at root, a portfolio coordination problem: who decides which work gets done, in what sequence, with what resources, and against what strategic objectives? Traditional portfolio management models were designed for sequential, plan-driven delivery. They were not built for the iterative prioritisation, continuous investment decisions, and cross-team dependencies that large-scale Agile environments generate. The practitioner community has responded with a range of frameworks and guidance. The academic literature has not kept up: the evidence base for Agile Portfolio Management (APM) governance remains fragmented and considerably thinner than what practitioners have produced independently. This thesis investigates that gap. The study used a Multivocal Literature Review (MLR), combining 23 white literature sources retrieved from four academic databases (Scopus, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and EBSCO) with 18 grey literature sources such as practitioner frameworks, enterprise consulting reports, and professional guidance documents. Reflexive thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke (2019, 2021) produced 923 coded extracts and 16 merged themes, organised across four research questions (Braun & Clarke, 2019, 2021b). Five themes explain why organisations adopt APM (RQ1): strategic alignment, adaptive empirical governance, resource and flow management, behavioural enablers, and Project Management Office (PMO) infrastructure. Where APM is absent (RQ2), two failure patterns dominate namely governance breakdown with strategic drift, and structural fragmentation with coordination failure which account for 127 coded extracts. Three barrier types block the transition from traditional Project Portfolio Management (PPM) to APM (RQ3): political, cultural, and leadership resistance (the most prominently evidenced, at 48 extracts); structural and scalability constraints; and financial and capability gaps. The RQ4 evidence suggests that effective APM at scale draws on six governance components working in combination:: adaptive steering mechanisms, institutional architecture and PMO roles, decentralised team autonomy, portfolio visibility and financial governance, stakeholder engagement routines, and interdependency management. The study makes three contributions to the academic literature. First, the analysis identifies an adoption paradox: organisations that most need APM governance are often the least positioned to adopt it. Second, the RQ2-to-RQ4 challenge-solution correspondence, surfaced through systematic thematic synthesis of 923 coded extracts from 41 sources, yields a diagnostic-prescriptive framework. Third, the evidence suggests that APM governance is better framed as an organisational capability than as a methodology selection. Portfolio managers can use the framework to sequence governance investments against their specific needs and organisational context. Keywords: Agile Portfolio Management, portfolio governance, large-scale software development, Multivocal Literature Review, scaled Agile, project portfolio management, adoption paradox.
Access status: Restricted ,
An Investigation into Miniaturization and Compactness of Lung Therapy Devices
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Al-Attar, Ahmed Kaleem Muez; Al-Jumaily, Ahmed; Huang, Loulin
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a significant spoiler of a quality lifestyle. It is characterized by an intermittent partial or complete obstruction of airflow in the upper airway with reduced oxygen saturation during sleep. Untreated OSA disease could lead to fragmented sleep, poor quality of relaxation, negatively affecting patients' night and daytime functioning, continuous fatigue and tiredness, anxiety and eventually may significantly contribute to cardiovascular and mental illness. Current options for treating patients with OSA include lifestyle changes, weight loss, quitting smoking and drinking, sleep positional therapy, positive airway pressure (PAP), oral appliances such as mandibular advancement devices, hypoglossal nerve stimulation and surgical interventions. Most physicians and medical staff consider continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy a first-line treatment modality for OSA patients because it effectively reduces apnea and hypopnea events and shows significant improvements in subjective and objective sleepiness. Despite these benefits of CPAP therapy, nightly adherence and commitment to CPAP therapy remain challenging, as many studies show that after the first month of CPAP usage, about half of the patients quit or require better adherence. This research aims to address CPAP adherence barriers by exploring innovative engineering strategies for device miniaturization and patient-centered optimization. It analyzes the comparative roles of static and dynamic pressures in the upper airway during CPAP therapy as well as investigates single-source and multi-source micro-pressure delivery approaches alongside advanced passive breathing conditioning and humidification techniques. These include emerging novel materials and technologies such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), micro-scale compression technologies, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) polymers, Nafion™ tubing and Sodalime. As the main components of most lung support devices are the Air Delivery Unit (ADU), humidifier, connecting tube and mask, the proposed miniaturization process can be generalized from the concept of attaching a miniaturized CPAP device. Therefore, the ultimate objective of the study is to promote a next-generation CPAP therapy system that integrates design principles with advanced materials and system architectures to develop a miniaturized, efficient and patient-focused CPAP system with reduced side effects and maintained standard therapeutic effectiveness and humidification performance while improving portability, usability and long-term patient adherence.
Access status: Open Access ,
Reintegrating Women Accused of Witchcraft in Northern Ghana: A Culturally Grounded Reintegration Framework for Mental Health Promotion
(Cambridge University Press, 2026-10-15) Yakubu, Yakubu H.; Krageloh, Chris; Siegert, Richard; Aziato, Lydia; Holroyd, Eleanor
Witchcraft accusations in Northern Ghana have led to the banishment of hundreds of older women to isolated camps, resulting in profound social exclusion and mental distress. While previous studies have explored their lived experiences, limited attention has been given to strategies that enable safe return and psychosocial recovery. To develop an evidence-informed, culturally grounded framework for mental-health promotion and sustainable reintegration of women previously accused of witchcraft in Northern Ghana. This conceptual paper draws on evidence from a mixed-methods doctoral programme comprising qualitative interpretive interviews, stakeholder discussions, and a cross-sectional survey of 268 camp residents in northern Ghana, supplemented by documentary and policy analysis. Framework development was guided by three complementary lenses – the socio-ecological model, Kleinman’s explanatory model, and the social determinants of health – used to structure a Framework Method synthesis that informed the Culturally Grounded Reintegration Framework (CGRF). Reintegration is constrained by persistent stigma, precarious livelihoods, weak institutional protections, and limited access to mental health and social welfare services. Simultaneously, culturally authoritative mechanisms including mediated reconciliation by traditional and faith leaders, collective labour practices, and storytelling, provide meaningful pathways for restoring dignity, belonging, and psychological wellbeing. The CGRF integrates four mutually reinforcing components: (1) culturally adapted psychosocial support; (2) family and spiritual reconciliation; (3) community inclusion and livelihood security; and (4) legal and institutional safeguards. Reintegration is a therapeutic, social justice, and culturally mediated process rather than physical relocation alone. The CGRF offers a locally grounded, theoretically informed model aligned with WHO mhGAP principles and the Sustainable Development Goals, with potential relevance (with adaptation) for other settings facing spiritually mediated stigma, ageism, and gendered exclusion.