Doctoral Theses
Permanent link for this collection
The Doctoral Theses collection contains digital copies of AUT doctoral theses deposited with the Library since 2004 and made available open access. All theses for doctorates awarded from 2007 onwards are required to be deposited in Tuwhera Open Theses unless subject to an embargo.
For theses submitted prior to 2007, open access was not mandatory, so only those theses for which the author has given consent are available in Tuwhera Open Theses. Where consent for open access has not been provided, the thesis is usually recorded in the AUT Library catalogue where the full text, if available, may be accessed with an AUT password. Other people should request an Interlibrary Loan through their library.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Now showing 1 - 5 of 1498
- ItemHe Pukenga Pūrākau, Ka Ora te Tamaiti: Pūrākau-based Physical Activity and Hauora Outcomes for Tamariki Māori(Auckland University of Technology, 2024) Penetito-Hemara, Nicole ArohaHe Pukenga Pūrākau, Ka Ora te Tamaiti centres on the transformative power of pūrākau-based physical activity and its impact on hauora outcomes for tamariki Māori. He Pukenga Pūrākau, Ka Ora te Tamaiti emphasises that a flood of pūrākau results in the health of the child. The enduring nature of pūrākau, spanning thousands of years, attests to how Māori narratives have encoded knowledge, values, and played a vital role in transmitting mātauranga Māori across generations. Central to this research is a focus on tamariki, including a commitment to empowering their creative potential and amplifying their unique voices. Pūrākau-based physical activity involves applying and transmitting mātauranga Māori through traditional and contemporary forms of physical activity to achieve hauora. It is underpinned by three foundational pou: hauora, pūrākau, and Māori physical activity. Three pūrākau-based physical activity programmes served as the focal point of this research, including Pau te Hau, a curriculum-based, pūrākau-inspired high-intensity interval training programme; He Pī Ka Rere, a kaupapa Māori movement programme that fuses kori tinana, pūrākau, and mātauranga Māori; and Tākaro ki te Taiao, a whānau-led, tākaro programme which uses pūrākau and is set in the taiao. This research aims to understand how pūrākau-based physical activity impacts hauora for tamariki Māori. The research participants included tamariki, kaiako, and matua. Pūrākau formed the primary methodological framework underpinning this research and paved the way for understanding the very essence of mātauranga Māori, identity, and knowledge transmission using storytelling. Data collection methods included wānanga activities with tamariki, interviews with kaiako and observational research. Kaupapa Māori Theory in Praxis was also used as a method to actively challenge Western-centric research paradigms and prioritise Māori cultural norms. Employing this approach resulted in the development of Tākaro ki te Taiao, which centred on a wānanga in the taiao as a forum for knowledge sharing and data collection. Pūrākau was integral in allowing participants to tap into Māori narratives to share their experiences, express their truths, and promote cultural innovation. Deductive analysis methods were used to apply key themes to the four dimensions of Te Whare Tapa Whā. Kura huna were drawn from a series of ancestral pūrākau to illustrate an alignment with the data and further deepen comprehension. The findings of this research highlighted that pūrākau significantly enhances physical activity experiences for tamariki, enabling them to achieve hauora and participate authentically ‘as Māori’. The study focused on three research questions. The first question sought to understand what pūrākau-based physical activity entails. Notable findings included a precise definition of pūrākaubased physical activity, encompassing three definitions for each foundational pou. Additionally, it revealed that system leaders fail to recognise a Māori construct of physical activity, emphasising the need for a shared language developed by Māori for Māori. The second question delved into how pūrākau-based physical activity impacts hauora, with a specific focus on 'as Māori' participation. Findings indicated that Pau te Hau offered limited 'as Māori' participation, while He Pī Ka Rere prioritised and built strong bicultural foundations within the school for it to flourish. Tākaro ki te Taiao stood out as a programme, approach, and philosophy which enabled many opportunities to engage authentically in physical activity 'as Māori.' The final research question centred on exploring the perspectives of tamariki, kaiako, and matua regarding the impact of pūrākau-based physical activity on their hauora. All programmes demonstrated a positive impact on hauora to varying extents. Pau te Hau excelled in te taha tinana but lacked connection to te ao Māori. He Pī Ka Rere had a substantial impact across te taha hinengaro, te taha whānau, and te taha wairua, with a holistic approach playing a pivotal role. Tākaro ki te Taiao excelled in embracing all dimensions of Te Whare Tapa Whā, and its connection to the taiao contributed to a heightened sense of spiritual connection. Future implications for this study were anchored in the title of this research, He Pukenga Pūrākau, Ka Ora te Tamaiti. He Pukenga Pūrākau is a research paradigm that recognises the pivotal role of pūrākau in shaping the entire research journey. It played a crucial role in forming the methodology as well as driving the research methods and data gathering activities employed. Additionally, pūrākau significantly contributed to the development of Tākaro ki te Taiao, which exemplifies Kaupapa Māori Theory in Praxis. Pūrākau influenced the analysis process, resulting in the creation of three pukapuka. These pukapuka are an accumulation of the insights gathered and they serve to challenge conventional academic ideals about what constitutes appropriate, valid, and legitimate research outputs. This multidimensional impact therefore showcases the transformative power of pūrākau and the crucial role it can play. Ka Ora te Tamaiti is a research praxis that centres on tamariki as agents of change and recognises the mana of tamariki as our most sacred taonga. It argues the need to explore creative methods for engaging tamariki in the research process and highlights the importance of their active participation as leaders and decision-makers in programme design and implementation. Embracing pūrākau in this research signified a commitment to decolonise the research process, exercise tino rangatiratanga, prioritise mātauranga Māori and empower the mana of tamariki.
- ItemEmerging Athletes’ Transition in Professional Sport: An Existential Multi-Case Perspective(Auckland University of Technology, 2023) Thomas, PhilippaI am a practitioner with my own sport related business. My work involves assisting predominately adolescent male athletes progress the early stages of their athletic careers. The role I undertake enabled me to identify a lack of accessible resources to help athletes meet their athletic and personal development needs. This concern applies to the period preceding and during their transition into professional sport environments in New Zealand, with many athletes migrating into international organisations. This thesis investigates the challenges emerging young male athletes in boxing, rugby league and basketball experienced during their transition in professional sport. The emerging athlete transition commences with talent identification and extends to exit or promotion into senior professional sporting contracts. The transition occurs within multiple phases and environments, including talent development environments (schools/organisations), collegiate programmes, and within semi-professional and professional organisations. An existential lens is applied to examine identity, meaning, freedom and connection, amongst the messiness of sporting events during this transition. Navigating adolescent maturation alongside the pressures of professional sport, requires coaching beyond athletic abilities to the facilitation of coping capabilities to build self-efficacy, along with athletic and personal development. Given the phenomena of today's modern sporting world, athletes who choose professional sporting careers commonly start in their early adolescence and must exhibit toughness, endurance and intelligence to convert having-a-talent to being-a-talent. This requires commitment and responsibility to the gaining of skill and knowledge, and to the work and actions inherent in this choice. But they cannot do it alone. Using a qualitative multi-case methodology, findings demonstrate the availability and ability to connect authentically with other stakeholders and their environment will enable the young men to perform and develop as athletes as well as individuals. The thesis also demonstrates the importance of collaborative social support relationships in facilitating environments and cultures that enable athletes to thrive in and beyond their lives in sport. Finally, I make some practical recommendations for solutions to better facilitate this transition, following an approach informed by the pragmatic paradigm of this research.
- ItemThe Acute and Frequency Dose Effects of High Intensity Functional Training on Cardiometabolic Health, Fitness, and Exercise Enjoyment in Adults With Metabolic Syndrome(Auckland University of Technology, 2024) Smith, ErinMetabolic syndrome (MetS) increases the potential of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and several common cancers. The reported prevalence of MetS is as high as 31% in the global adult population, rendering it a predominant driver of the worldwide crisis of the aforementioned diseases. There is mounting evidence demonstrating that regular exercise has a profound effect in improving MetS, however, only one in four adults worldwide meet the minimum exercise recommendations. The most commonly reported barriers to this are “lack of time,” “lack of facilities,” and “lack of motivation”. Rising in popularity is a time-efficient form of exercise known as high-intensity functional training (HIFT), which provides workout design options that require minimal equipment and adaptability to various physical settings. HIFT has also shown to elicit positive psychological affect, leading to exercise adherence. HIFT shows promise as a strategy for mitigating the barriers to regular exercise participation. However, the effects of HIFT on cardiometabolic health are not fully understood. Thus, the primary focus of this PhD was to conduct a series of cohesive investigations in order to answer the overarching research question, What are the frequency dose effects of HIFT on cardiometabolic health in adults with MetS? This thesis is constructed in two sequential parts to reflect the flow of investigation of this novel modality of exercise. The aim of Part 1 was to determine the acute responses to a unique HIFT design in an untrained population with MetS. Part 1 established the process for the 3-week familiarization period that was implemented in Part 2. Part 1 ascertained that the exercise intensity of our 50-min HIFT design was considered vigorous, (72.8 ± 10.7% to 81.5 ± 8.8% of maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max)) and exercise-attributed energy expenditure was 270 ± 77.3 kcal. Furthermore, Part 1 explored the acute blood lipid, glucose and vascular endothelial responses, to inform potential chronic adaptations in Part 2. These outcomes demonstrated that a single session of our unique HIFT design had the potency to elicit lasting benefits in blood triglyceride (TG), very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C), triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-C), and vascular endothelial function for 24 hours after exercise. The aim of Part 2 was to explore the training effects of three different weekly frequencies (HIFT1 = one day/week; HIFT2 = two days/week; HIFT3 = three days/week) of our HIFT design in a 12-week, periodized intervention. Focusing on the overarching research question, no statistical difference was found between the three frequency dose groups in all primary outcome variables. However, effect size calculations demonstrated that HIFT2 elicited clinically meaningful improvements in blood glucose, waist circumference, vascular endothelial function, and the metabolic syndrome severity score (MSSS); greater than the improvements seen in HIFT1 and HIFT3. A secondary aim of Part 2 was to explore if the perceptions of “exercise enjoyment” and “intention to continue” were different between the frequency dose groups. No differences were found, as all three groups reported similarly high levels of enjoyment and intention to continue. The clinical implications of these results suggest that HIFT, a time-efficient, translatable, and enjoyable modality of exercise, shows promise as a strategy to lessening the worldwide MetS burden. If performed twice weekly, meaningful improvements in MetS can be seen within 12-weeks. This thesis, as a whole, contributes new knowledge to the emerging body of HIFT literature, with wider implications of informing future exercise recommendations for the public.
- ItemA Cloud Adoption Feasibility Assessment Framework (CAFAF) for E-government in Developing Countries: A Design Science Approach(Auckland University of Technology, 2022) Pokhrel, BikashThe purpose of the study was to determine whether cloud computing could be beneficial in improving the success of E-Government implementation in developing countries such as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. Cloud computing has often been reported in the literature as effective and efficient in managing IT resources at a national level. Developed countries have paid substantial attention to embracing technological innovations through cloud computing and catering to the potential for E-Government applications in the form of Government Private Cloud, also referred to as G-Cloud. In contrast, developing countries have been unable to take full advantage of the Government Private Cloud models adopted by developed countries due to underlying challenges, such as poor ICT infrastructure, skills shortages, and a lack of financial and internal resources. The literature on theoretical cloud concepts has overlooked the technological and economic feasibility needs of cloud computing in a practical E-Government context and considering the role of stakeholder involvement. Cloud vendor tools offered limited approaches to the cloud feasibility assessment - particularly those at an agency or department level. These vendor tools often ignored considerations of government agency-specific needs or their political context. Due to government agencies' varying business, political and technological needs in developing economies, cloud adoption feasibility differs from agency to agency. Despite the interest shown by several studies, no authors, to date, empirically studied the formulation of cloud adoption feasibility assessment tools based on a conceptual cloud computing framework. Therefore, this study was conceived to identify important factors influencing cloud adoption in developing countries through a literature review and then to develop a new framework that may be useful for E-Government cloud consideration. The study aimed to propose, evaluate, and refine a new Cloud Adoption Feasibility Assessment Framework (CAFAF) to assist agencies in deciding whether or not the cloud can be appropriate for implementation. The study followed the Design Science Research approach (guided by Johannesson and Perjons (2012) and Vaishnavi and Kuechler (2004). The Design Science Research (DSR) paradigm aligned well with the research motivation and objectives and ultimately provided an excellent research process for the resulting outcome in the framework. Four DSR design phases were used to improve the CAFAF and associated automated calculation spreadsheet tools, resulting in six artifacts, each composed of several constructs and sub-constructs. The core contribution of this study has been the creation of a new decision-making CAFAF framework and the associated calculation spreadsheet tools for a cloud feasibility assessment relevant to developing countries. Highly valuable are the spreadsheets that are directly accessible for decision-makers in government and others navigating feasibility planning for cloud migration and business case development. The CAFAF and its associated tools represent a significant new contribution to the design of service-oriented frameworks that can assist in E-Government agency decision-making. The findings identified that common industry cloud feasibility and migration frameworks needed to improve to take into consideration a more holistic view and to develop supporting tools that can investigate the relevance of cloud computing with stakeholders’ varying needs and their context in mind. This study addresses a gap in the absence of a vendor-independent feasibility assessment tool tailored to the context of developing countries and contributes to the emerging cloud computing research domain where the focus in the context of a developing country's government agencies has been found to be substantially scant in publications compared to those in developed economies.
- ItemDevelopment of an Ultrasound Imaging Atlas to Grade the Severity of First Metatarsophalangeal Joint Osteoarthritis(Auckland University of Technology, 2024) Molyneux, PrudenceOsteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent, chronic, and disabling joint disease that imposes a significant global health burden. The foot is a target region for OA, but foot research is a novel and evolving discipline within the broader field of OA. The most commonly reported affected area in the foot is the first metatarsophalangeal joint (MTPJ). The current method of diagnosing OA using conventional radiography is reactive, detecting OA later in the disease process when irreversible structural damage has already occurred. Ultrasound imaging (USI) represents an alternative for the diagnosis of OA with potentially inherent advantages, in its ability to detect tissue-specific morphological changes before pain and irreversible structural damage occur. USI can play a fundamental role in the early detection and assessment of foot OA. However, the role of USI for OA diagnosis in foot joints such as the first MTPJ is not clearly defined. The aim of the thesis was to (i) critically evaluate and summarise relevant studies that have used USI to examine foot OA, (ii) develop a USI acquisition procedure and grading system to examine OA features in the first MTPJ, and (iii) develop a USI atlas to grade the degree of osteoarthritic change in the first MTPJ and determine its reproducibility. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the thesis with Chapter 2 introducing the basic concepts of OA and Chapter 3 introduces the role of imaging in the diagnosis of OA. Chapter 4 reports a systematic review showing the wide degree of variation in which OA features were assessed, how features were defined, and what grading system was applied. Chapter 5 reports a scoping review that showed limited implementation of consensus-based recommendations to guide the development and implementation of USI procedures to assess the first MTPJ. Chapter 6 reports a bibliometric analysis that revealed that MRI, CT, and USI studies continue to evolve in research in this field. Chapter 7 presents an international multispecialty Delphi study that identified 16 essential items that the USI acquisition procedure should encompass when examining the first MTPJ. Chapter 8 describes the development of a USI acquisition procedure and grading system for examining OA features in the first MTPJ. The USI acquisition procedure and grading system were reliable in assessing first MTPJ OA features in participants with radiologically confirmed OA. Chapter 9 describes the development of a semiquantitative USI atlas (called the AUTUSI atlas) to grade the extent of osteoarthritic change at the first MTPJ and assess the intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility of using the AUTUSI atlas. The AUTUSI atlas demonstrated excellent intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility for evaluating first MTPJ joint effusion, synovial hypertrophy, synovitis, joint space narrowing, osteophytes, and cartilage thickness. The research successfully developed a reliable procedure to assess both structural and inflammatory features specific to first MTPJ OA. The AUTUSI atlas offers the opportunity to identify prognostic inflammatory features earlier in the course of the disease, before potentially irreversible damage or disability occurs. The AUTUSI atlas may be the catalyst for the development of a USI classification criterion for defining and detecting early first MTPJ OA. Ultimately, the AUTUSI atlas will improve understanding of OA, provide capacity for earlier detection and standardisation of diagnosis, and provide a more sensitive method for classifying and grade the disease process.