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: Open Access ,
Nondualism as a Research Paradigm for Mindfulness Research and Beyond
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2026-09-24) Medvedev, Oleg; Krägeloh, Chris
Many qualitative methods textbooks instruct researchers to begin by declaring their paradigm position from a standard typology, such as positivist, postpositivist, constructivist, critical, and poststructural paradigms, and to ensure methodological coherence with that position. This typology is often perceived to be a comprehensive framework for locating research positions. We argue that it is not. We examine what is at stake methodologically when a researcher’s starting commitments are nondual, that is, when the subject-object distinction that structures every position on the standard typology is itself treated as a derived rather than fundamental feature of reality. Researchers whose work is shaped by such commitments may be more common than the explicit literature suggests, particularly in mindfulness, contemplative science, and consciousness research, where Buddhist philosophical commitments implicitly underlie much of the work without being made methodologically explicit. We situate our argument by noting parallel attempts to articulate paradigm positions from non-Western philosophical traditions, and by introducing the Kyoto School’s articulation of nondualism through the work of Nishida Kitarō. We then present a recent framework called “unitlessness” that renders nondualism’s methodological consequences accessible to contemporary researchers. We close by drawing out the implications of adopting nondualism as the starting commitment. First-person and third-person methods are located at the same structural level rather than ranked on a hierarchy of fundamentality. Reflexivity is deflated rather than made constitutive: positionality statements are themselves discourse-level acts, and they cannot close a researcher–researched gap that is itself a discourse-level structuring. Research methods are left unchanged; what changes is how findings are worded and what they are taken to show. Nondualism enters paradigm debate on the same terms as any other position; it requires no contemplative practice of the researcher and claims no privileged access to truth.
Access status: Open Access ,
Organisational Support for Older Nurses' Continuation of Practice: A Qualitative Interpretive Descriptive Study
(Elsevier, 2026-09-18) Chen, Chunxu; Napier, Sara; Holroyd, Eleanor; Shannon, Kay
Background: Global population ageing is increasing pressure on healthcare systems, contributing to workforce shortages and the loss of experienced practitioners as many approach retirement age. Retaining older nurses is essential because they provide critical clinical expertise, mentorship, workforce stability, and continuity of patient care in increasingly strained healthcare systems. Yet, little is known about how older nurses perceive organisational support for their continuation of practice. Objective: To explore older registered nurses' perceptions of organisational support, and to understand how nurse leaders perceive organisational support offered to older nurses. Design A qualitative interpretive descriptive study was conducted using two datasets: older registered nurses and nurse leaders. A convergent design was used. Methods: Research was conducted in a publicly funded organisation providing acute hospital, outpatient and community-based healthcare services in a metropolitan city in New Zealand. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews between June and August 2024 and analysed using the thematic analysis approach. Results: Thirteen older registered nurses and four nurse leaders participated in semi-structured interviews. All except one of the nurses were female, and most were aged 61–70 years. Nurse leaders worked at frontline, operational or strategic levels within the organisation. Four themes were identified from the nurses' interviews: Tensions in continuation of practice, with sub-themes health decline, caring responsibilities, and stigmatisation; Drivers for continuation of practice, with sub-themes passion for care, financial incentives, and positive collegial relationships; The experience of being an older nurse in practice, with sub-themes feeling valued and cared for, feeling unseen, and navigating technological challenges; and Retirement from a large organisation, with sub-themes support for part-time practice, pension advice, and fear of leaving an empty spot. Three themes were identified from the nurse leaders' interviews: Perceived complexities in continuation of practice; Support at the interpersonal level; and Support at the organisational level. Conclusion: This study offers valuable insights into supporting older nurses to continue practising. Relationships with managers and organisational support play a key role. To support older nurses, healthcare organisations need to address interpersonal and institutional ageism and respond to personal level challenges. Nurse leaders recognised the importance of fostering a supportive workplace culture and developing flexible, inclusive career pathways for older nurses.
Access status: Open Access ,
Sāmoan Health Worker Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Timmins, Josie Lorraine; O'Brien, Daniel; Boon, Juliet
A strong Sāmoan health workforce is required to improve inequitable health outcomes for the growing Sāmoan population within Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ). However, despite initiatives to increase an underrepresented Sāmoan health workforce, little is known about the wellbeing of these workers or the safety of the spaces they occupy. Existing literature on Sāmoan health worker wellbeing is sparse, superficial, and largely focused on increasing overall Pacific health workforce numbers rather than understanding the lived experiences and support needs of Sāmoan health workers. This research, through two comprehensive studies, aimed to engage with regulated Sāmoan health workers and their communities within AoNZ to explore their wellbeing, how they navigate their roles, what supports are needed for their practice, and help develop safe spaces for new Sāmoan health workers. Study One involved a scoping review using a broad literature search that included grey literature to capture often neglected Pacific knowledge and create a comprehensive understanding of the literature. Thirty-four sources, including 29 from grey literature, were reviewed. The findings exposed an underrepresented Sāmoan health workforce whose wellbeing is hindered by institutional racism, discrimination, the undervaluing of cultural knowledge, and discourteous additional work. Sāmoan health workers sought improved wellbeing through support to further their education, cultural education and supervision, and strong Pacific leadership. Study Two used the foundational methodology of Fa‘afaletui alongside Interpretive Description to explore deeper understandings of Sāmoan health worker wellbeing. Participants (n=23) were Sāmoan and represented a collective lens, with experience or the ability to speak to Sāmoan health worker wellbeing. Purposeful sampling enabled perspectives from faife‘au (church ministers), matai (chiefs), elders, parents, health managers, unregulated health workers, healthcare students, and regulated health workers. Data were collected through two fa‘afaletui (meeting for discussion) held in Porirua and Manukau, transcribed verbatim, and analysed initially collectively within the fa‘afaletui and then using reflexive thematic analysis. From the data, four themes were constructed that described wellbeing and its intricate link with Fa‘aSāmoa (Sāmoan culture) and tautua (service): Theme 1 ‘Leadership—Lighting the Path’ illuminated the Sāmoan values of collective leadership, where pathways to leadership come from tautua, fa‘aaloalo (respect), and alofa (love) and are reciprocated by those who hold leadership positions. Theme 2 ‘Identity and Visibility’ describes the importance of expressing and maintaining Sāmoan identity while working within westernised health systems. Theme 3 ‘Culture Implemented in Service—The Flame’ reflects the talanoa (conversation) of embedding Fa‘aSāmoa into Sāmoan health worker roles and environments, allowing culturally safe and appropriate services. Finally, Theme 4 ‘Self-Care—Stoking Your Own Fire’ reveals the tension between collective cultural expectations and the need for individual self-care and wellbeing. This Pacific-based and Sāmoan-specific research has shed light on generational understandings of Sāmoan health workers’ wellbeing. Sāmoan health worker wellbeing extends beyond workforce growth and addressing racism and discrimination, to encompassing the ability to maintain and express Sāmoan identity and cultural values within professional practice. Culturally responsive leadership, meaningful approaches to self-care, and Pacific-led health policies are essential to supporting wellbeing, challenging Western-centric systems, and enabling Sāmoan health workers to thrive and continue faithfully serving their communities.
Access status: Open Access ,
An Ontology-Driven AI Framework for Context-Aware Threat Detection in Mobile Health Applications
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Ferdous, Raiyan; Petrova, Krassie
Mobile health (mHealth) applications have substantially improved the accessibility of healthcare, enabling remote monitoring, chronic-disease management, and personalized interventions. However, because these applications collect and transmit sensitive personal health information on resource-constrained mobile devices, they introduce significant security and privacy risks, including weak authentication, unsafe data sharing, and a lack of awareness of user context (Luxton et al., 2012; Aljedaani & Babar, 2021). Traditional, signature-based security methods are largely static and frequently fail to adapt to the changing situations in which mobile users operate, leaving context-dependent threats poorly addressed. This thesis proposes a context-aware mHealth security architecture and develops an OWL 2 DL contextual ontology in Protégé. It separately evaluates a candidate machine-learning (ML) detection component on a network-intrusion benchmark. The architectural integration is a design proposition; its effect on detection performance has not been tested. The empirical work consists of a Python/scikit-learn classification pipeline applied to NSL-KDD network-connection records, following the publicly available Kaggle notebook by josiagiven (n.d.). The ontology is a design artefact. The Android context-collection layer, ontology-to-ML transformation, mitigation module, and on-device application were designed but not implemented or empirically evaluated. To preserve participant privacy and satisfy ethical requirements, no real patient data were used. The appendix records point estimates from a validation split, including Decision Tree accuracy of 0.983, KNN accuracy of 0.995, and Linear SVC accuracy of 0.981; the displayed Random Forest confusion matrix contains no errors and reports AUC = 1.00. These unusually high scores require verification for leakage and proxy features before being interpreted as reliable out-of-sample performance. The different ranges in Table 4.4 are retained as originally reported but cannot be identified as estimates from that same run without the fold-level records. Latency below 150 ms and CPU utilization below 12% were proposed design targets. No Android deployment or device resource measurement was carried out. The contribution is a specified ontology and mHealth security architecture together with an offline benchmark evaluation of a candidate ML detection layer. Whether semantic enrichment improves detection or an on-device implementation is feasible remains open to empirical testing.
Access status: Open Access ,
Tihei Māuri Ora: Exploring The Threads of Whakapapa Through Kōrero Tuku Iho Within a Tikanga-Oriented Practice
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Korewha, Hope; Tapuni, Nooroa; Walker, Arielle; Shin, Jeena
‘Tihei Māuri Ora’ pays homage to the Pūrākau of the creation of humankind and the origins of the cosmos. This phrase introduces the notion of this Wairua-guided painting project: by returning to our Pūrākau, we can further contextualise what it means to be Māori and pave the way towards an Indigenous future. But what does an Indigenous future look like? I engage with this question through a Tikanga-oriented art practice, setting boundaries and rules to ensure a sense of rightness within myself– affording my art and the concepts I am engaging with the respect they deserve. As a means of ‘storied memory’, painting becomes a form of processing and a learning of Kōrero tuku iho woven with my own lived experiences to stay connected to the culture I love so dearly. At the heart of this project lies Te Whare Tupuna, the ancestral home; and the Mārae, which is the centre of Māoridom. Throughout this project, the Mārae has manifested in various ways: as a source of Mātauranga, as a grounding to Māori ways of being, and as a home. The concept of the Mārae establishes itself as a site of Whakapapa leads us to ideas around the interrelatedness of existence and toi as rongoā. These concepts build my own kaupapa Māori guided by Wairua and focussed on Indigenisation and sharing a message of hope for Indigenous futures.