Postgraduate-students-with-Pacific-education-research-foci-Trends-in-thesis-acknowledgement-writing

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279567044Postgraduate students with Pacific education research foci: Trends i

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279567044

Postgraduate students with Pacific education research foci: Trends in thesis acknowledgement writing

Conference Paper · July 2012

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Greg Burnett

James Cook University

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Postgraduate students with Pacific education research foci:

Trends in thesis acknowledgement writing

Greg Burnett

University of Otago

New Zealand

Dedication:

This study is dedicated to my late father who even in the last moments

of his life gasped these words:”

Raluvequ, na nomu vuli!” (My daughter, remember to complete your study) (p iv)

Likuseniuwa, K (1999) A study of a

rural secondary school and its community Thesis submitted for the

degree of Master of Arts (Education), University of the South Pacific

i international

students from

Oceania on short

term study visas –

57% (Burnett

2011)

generation Pacific

diaspora – 43%

(Burnett 2011)

Pacific education postgraduate students in New Zealand:

Postgraduate students as a conduit

of change:

• real change is more likely to result from the way students’ educational thinking has changed and the research skills gained (Mullins & Kiley,

2002)

Set within a context marked by:

•low Pacific educational outcomes (MoE 2011)

•established linkages between social and educational disadvantage (Spoonley et al 2010)

•intensification of teachers work/quality teaching discourse (Smyth 2001)

•acute political, environmental and social challenges (Forum Secretariat 2010)

•lingering discourses of colonialism informing education (Teaero 2007)

•globalisation and Pacific languages, cultures and epistemologies under threat (Thaman 2003)

in NZ

in

Oceania

a most postgraduate research in education is interpretivist very little is socially critical

b most is done within a ethno-nationalist

framework

Building on research paradigm

research (Burnett 2011) that found:

Acknowledgements more than just giving thanks

(Hyland 2004)

1 identity work

2 constructing the research

experience

3 a autoethnographic (Ellis 2010)

shift unguarded text, beyond the academic discourses of the research text

4 valuable insights into the Pacific postgraduate experience for better support

Research design:

1 200 MA and PhD theses in education (out of 1200 in total done by Pacific students)

a titles

b abstracts

c acknowledgements

d contents

e reference lists

2 Thesis writing guides/Institutional web supports

3 Former student, supervisors and

examiners interviews

•NZ’s 7 universities

• between 1944-2009

Based on Hyland’s (2004) analysis

of Chinese postgraduate students acknowledgements from

University of Hong Kong

Hyland’s (2004) “moves” and

impression management:

iii announcing –

?

Tentative findings include

•the strength of

cultural

community in

terms of support

•God, a Christian faith and spirituality

•support from and dedication to:

1 family

2 children

3 village

4 nation

•a recognition that research benefits need to flow back

to participants and their communities

•the personal benefits that accrue from study overseas

Finally, I wish to

dedicate this work to

my parents Almost forty years ago, they also made the

journey to New

Zealand – like the

parents described in this study – for the sake of their

children’s education –

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