CONTENTS Issue 1 Winter 2006

EDITORIAL

Edward Smith Introducing Te Iarere Wavelength Page 5

POINTS OF VIEW

Christine Fenton Pathogen paranoia 9

Edward Smith Where to publish 15

CREATIVE WORKS

Lesley Pitt Patriarchs, paddocks and the personal 7, 14, 61

Donna Willard-Moore Image details of Dragon 8, 22, 48

ACADEMIC FORUM

Rod Bentham Holistic influences on teaching 23

Ian M Clothier Hybrid cultures: what, where and how about us? 33

Megan Dixon 21st century plagiarism 49

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Pathogen paranoia by Christine Fenton This is a light-hearted yet factual look at personal health, how we perceive it and what we do, rightly or wrongly, to keep ourselves healthy. Some aspects are traced to the Middle Ages while others relate to developments in modern medicine. Chris- tine was formerly Head of Science at WITT. She is Convenor of the NZ Microbiological Society Education Group and is particularly interested in scientific journalism.

Where to publish by Edward Smith As a historical prologue, some of the publishing characteristics and habits of the great early atomic physicists are recounted. This is followed by a consideration of the pub- lishing options for academics. Edward is Director of Research, ICIARE at WITT. He is a mechanical engineer interested in industrial and applied research.

Patriarchs, paddocks and the personal - poems by Lesley Pitt These poems were written as part of Lesley’s Masters thesis entitled – “Patriarchs, paddocks and the personal”. She is a Tutor for the Diploma in Social Work and her academic interests include women’s issues, storytelling/life stories and post struc- tural ideology as a way of making meaning.

Image details of a Dragon by Donna Willard-Moore The Dragon project began as a technical exploration of new chemistry in sculptural concrete. The work now sits at the New Plymouth MacDonalds Toy Museum. Donna has both an MA and an MFA and her research interests include exhibiting painting, sculpture and installations; plus an academic interest in integral theory. She exhibits in New Zealand and regularly in the United States.

Holistic influences on teaching by Rod Bentham This article examines a number of external and internal factors that influence teach- ing and learning within a modern tertiary education institution. Rod leads the broad- casting division at WITT and has a particular interest in the philosophy of education. He is currently enrolled in a Graduate Diploma in Adult Learning and Teaching at Massey University.

Hybrid cultures: what, where and how about us? by Ian Clothier This paper asks the question whether New Zealand should be considered a hybrid culture, which is a contrast to the dominant cultural context of New Zealand as bi- cultural. Ian is an artist-writer and has an MA (First Class Honours) from AUT. His re- search foci are on cultural hybridity and nolinearity, and he has had nine international research credits in the past three years.

21st century plagiarism by Megan Dixon Plagiarism is not new and information technology makes it a temptation for today’s students. Plagiarism is described here by a model made up of five critical dimensions. Megan is a Learning Skills Tutor and has a special interest in helping international students. She also likes teaching mathematics. She has worked in China for two years, at a new academic institute near Beijing.

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Edward Smith

Recently, I was attended to by a young assistant in a baker’s shop. She spoke good English, but with a marked East European accent that signaled she was probably a visit- ing overseas student. Whilst waiting for my bread to cool, it having just come out of the oven, I asked her where she came from and why she was in New Zealand. She was from Hungary and wanted to study accountancy at university. In Hungary, at 21 she was past it. Hungary’s rigorous university system called on entry to university straight after leaving school, i.e. when you were 17 or 18 years old. If you missed out at that stage then there was little hope for reassessment. Thus, she saw a second chance here in New Zealand. With my walnut and wholemeal loaf under my arm I walked back home reflecting on the changes that had gone on in the New Zealand education system – some good, some bad. Certainly many restrictions have been removed so that anyone, of any age, from any country can study. In a sense, the only restriction that remains - other than money - is that the necessary academic pre-requisites are met, which is fair to both the student and the staff who will be teaching them.

Driven by the New Zealand Government, the tertiary education system in New Zealand has changed markedly over the past two decades. Students have much more choice and flexibility in terms of what, where, when and how they will study. Arguably students are better off because of this; yet more choice means more com- petition – both whilst studying and after the qualifications have been gained. It also means more competition between institutes to attract students to their courses. In particular, institutes have been forced to become financially accountable and to better meet the needs of today’s society, industry and business.

Universities are traditionally places of innovation and new ideas, but surprisingly they responded slowly to the government’s ef- forts to instill a new approach. Only now, some 20 years after it was first muted that change had to come have the universities adopted a more corporate approach. The reality is that tertiary education in New Zealand is a business and each sector must be run as such. It is now the turn of the polytechnics to adapt and because of their regional and vocational training emphasis, and closeness to the marketplace, changes ought to proceed faster and more smoothly than was the case with the universities. Will they?

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This journal, Te Iarere Wavelength is part of the change going on at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT). WITT is the polytechnic serving the Taranaki region. The region’s com- mercial centre is New Plymouth and geographically from there it extends to the South as far as Waverley, to the East as far as Tau- marunui and to the North East as far as Te Kuiti. To the North and West there is sea, the source for much of the region’s prosperity – it is a paradise for the surfer and yachtsman, and where most of New Zealand’s oil and gas reserves have been found and exploit- ed. On land, the abundant rainfall and volcanic soils make the region a rich agriculture revenue earner, with the milk processing plant at Hawera being the biggest in the Southern hemisphere. So the region is rich and diverse, and WITT, in serving it for the past 30 years has had to pass on this richness and diversity. The purpose of Te Iarere Wavelength is to give staff the opportunity to publish and market themselves, their academic interests and their institute, and contribute to the richness and diversity in the region’s vocational, academic and scholarly community.

Just before Christmas we put out a call for contributions from staff and received more than enough to fill this first edition. In choosing what to include we have tried to offer diversity – for- mal research articles, scholarly articles, points of view articles, poems, artwork and photographs. In particular we have tried to seek a range of seriousness in the articles; especially we did not want everything to be staid, formal and heavy reading. At the same time we didn’t see any call for chatty frivolous contributions and we did not receive any. We hope that this diversity in pres- entation and subject area will set the tone for future editions.

Originally we perceived that articles would be around 2500 words but soon saw this as too restrictive. In this edition the longest article runs to almost 4800 words; the shortest is one of Lesley Pitt’s poems at 31 words. At the risk of being misquoted, we’ve decided that size doesn’t matter. What we’ve tried to do is put forward a selection of articles, works and images which we hope everyone will enjoy. We seek to market WITT as a thriving di- verse tertiary institute of education where vocational training, artistic and scholarly work, degree level teaching, research, and innovative and original work progress in harmony.

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Foucault says we circulate between the threads of power. I visualize a loom with a woman weaving our social fabric in – out, up – down, in – out again and again and around again

sometimes powerful sometimes not, actors and acted upon dominant and submissive oppressor and victim within us the contradiction and confusion mixed in to the colors of our cloth.

Lesley Pitt

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Dragon detail, Donna Willard-Moore 2005

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 PATHOGEN PARANOIA P 

Christine Fenton

I suppose you brushed your teeth this morning. I even suppose that you had a shower – put on clean clothes, may have used deodorant. I suspect that before you left the house you put the milk back in the fridge – maybe even did some dishes, wiped down the bench. Then, when you got to work, did you put your yoghurt in the fridge?

Seventy years ago, we may have brushed our teeth but it would not have been with “tartar control, breath freshener, pearly white toothpaste”, we probably didn’t have a daily shower, nor put on clean clothes everyday and no one used deodorant. We didn’t have fridges then, but the dishes would have been done. The tea-towel that dried the dishes probably wiped the bench.

So what changed? Are we healthier because of it? Do these daily hygiene rituals help us avoid serious communicable disease? We want to avoid tooth decay, bad breath, body odour and food poi- soning but to what extent are we avoiding them? Are we subject- ing ourselves to other risks because of our fear of germs?

Fearing microbes or “bugs” is not new. People believed that sick- nesses were spontaneously generated out of “bad air”. The phy- sicians of old times had interesting cures for what ailed people because they did not understand the microorganisms they were dealing with. Leeching or “bleeding out the bad blood” was com- mon place. Burying personal items under the full moon and all sorts of strange and wonderful things were used in an attempt to “cure”. Sometimes, it would work (or it seemed to)! Mostly it wouldn’t of course. And so, inevitably, there was a huge mortal- ity rate.

Think of the “Black Death” that swept through Europe in the mid- dle ages. There were huge populations of rats that lived in the filth of the cities of the time and those rats carried fleas, and those fleas carried Yersinia pestis – a bacterium that caused bubonic plague or “black death” (called that because the body would turn black due to profuse bleeding under the skin). Do you remember the childhood nursery rhyme:

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Left: Between 1348 and 1352, twenty-five million people died - a third of the population of Europe. Image: University of Michigan. Right: Flea. Image: Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. Ring a ring o’ roses A pocket full of posies (posies would ward off black death) ATISHOO, ATISHOO (too late you’ve got it) We all fall down (dead).

The Great Fire of London ended the “Black Death” plague for Eng- land as it killed the rats. People soon realized that rats weren’t very nice to live close to. The “Pied Piper” was famously em- ployed to take away the rat population from one town. Today, we have the “Department of Sanitation” or its equivalent with vari- ous council agencies to remove our rubbish.

So, slowly people began to attribute illness to unseen organisms and developed practices or systems to attempt to reduce the like- lihood that serious infectious disease will result. In the 1840s, a physician in Germany by the name of Semmelweis cut down deaths from childbirth fever by instructing the medical staff to wash their hands between patients. It was a novel idea at the time. Now we wash our hands religiously – after going to the toi- let, before eating food ..... We also now have antibacterial soaps, chemicals that control microbial growth. We understand that our surfaces harbor unseen “germs”. We use disinfectants here, there and everywhere and if we pay attention to marketing, some are better at killing Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus than others. Most people probably don’t have any idea what E.coli and S.aureus are, but it seems that it might be good for us if we kill them. So we use chemicals.

We may even be encouraged to believe that things are more sanitized or even sterile in special packaging “sealed for fresh- ness/hygiene”. We have a huge industry and massive market forces working on our fear of “germs” to buy this type of tis- sue, this type of disinfectant, this type of toothpaste, this type of mouthwash, and it’s all packaged in some sort of plastic. Why

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plastic? Because it seems clean and also plastics do not rot. Hence, if the product in its wrapping does not rot, it lasts longer on the shelves. Coupled with this is our need to get perishable products to the consumer in an attractive and appealing state – hence preservatives, canning, plastic wrapping, vacuum pack- ing and all this generates a huge amount of waste. In our fear of germs we remove human wastes by plastic based disposable baby nappies (diapers) and put them in our land fills (10,000 tonnes/year of nappies in Auckland alone), along with our plastic bottles of mouth wash, our plastic tubes of toothpaste, our plastic meat containers, milk containers and a multitude of other prod- ucts. Plastics tend to be non-biodegradable – a real problem for our environment.

Rotting is a big problem for humans. Food technology invests millions in product preservation including processing of food to ensure it has a long use by date. But it is not just our food – it is our houses, our clothes, our building materials. We treat timber, leather, metals, all in an attempt to minimize rot. We all know that warmth and moisture makes mould and moulds are excellent recyclers. “Leaking building syndrome” or “sick building syndrome” is based on a mould called Stachybotrytis that pro- duces volatile chemicals that may make people sick. In the USA, microbiologists are making a lot of money inspecting houses and performing spore counts to ascertain if a house has too much mould in it or not. A little bit of bathroom mould could mean a house is unmarketable once the microbiologist writes the report. So we use all sorts of chemicals to preserve our wood, chemicals in our paint to preserve our structures, chemicals in our homes to kill the bathroom mould. Some of these chemicals are worse for those of us that are sensitive to them than the nasty Stachy- botrytis mould.

In many archeological digs, the skeletal remains of ancient man showed that they in general, had good teeth. They did not use toothbrushes, nor did they use mouthwashes. Modern day man does use all of the above and yet the teeth still suffer, so much so, we put one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man in our mouths, to try and patch up the dental work – amalgam or mercury. Bacteria can’t damage it further. We know it is because of our diet – too much sugar and the bacteria metabolize the sugar and produce an extremely strong acid as a waste product that strips the enamel off our teeth. An apple a day does not keep the dentist away as an apple contains sugar. So, we try to rub off the bacteria, we try to kill them. We fear tooth decay, and we fear bad breath and we know it is the bacteria in our mouths that

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is causing it. We also gargle chemicals to avoid the bacterium that causes sore throats. We wipe down our cooking areas with disinfectant to make sure we kill the microorganisms that cause food poisoning. We invent little rhymes to help people remember ways of protecting themselves from microbial dangers: ‘the four C’s - Clean, Cook, Cover, Chill’; and ‘Be Wise, Immunise.’

We tell our children to wash their hands before they eat, after going to the toilet, after patting the dog. It’s not quite the same nursery rhyme as during the middle ages – but is our modern equivalent of attempting to protect ourselves from these fearful germs.

So, do we overindulge in chemicals in our attempt to control mi- crobial activity? Is microbial activity so dangerous to us that we must control it by any means possible? After all, mankind has continually been plagued by disease – anthrax, HIV and lately, SARS and influenza. Do these chemicals protect us or do they wear down our defenses or worse, create “superbugs” of which none of our chemotherapeutic agents have any effect against?

The key is understanding. If we understand the microbe that is affecting us, we can usually control it. Yes, overuse of chemi- cals is causing a problem as the microbial population mutates and quickly adapts to everything we throw at it. Understanding which battles are worth fighting in order to win the war is more important than using an approach that all microbes are bad. We have some very powerful allies that modern man pretty much ignores. We carry around 1.5 kg of microbial partners with us at any one time. They are arguably the most neglected “system” of the human body.

From the moment you are born you are colonized by various microbial partners that will be present with you throughout your life until your death. The first microbial invaders colonize your skin, mucous membranes and gastrointestinal tract and this is so important that the body enhances these pioneers by leaving de- posits of nutrients on the vast uninhabited terrain that is a baby human. They quickly colonize all available space and go straight to work making vitamin K and various other nutrients that help with our health. They also make an extremely powerful arsenal of natural antibiotic weaponry that protects your surfaces from the some really nasty microbes – pathogens. There is evidence to suggest that those very first microbial partners stay with you throughout your life if you look after them well. Some of us take antibiotics early and our microbial partners begin to die and some

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of our membranes become exposed. Often, before our partners can recover we have been invaded by a pathogen who has op- portunistically taken up one of the spare spaces. In the throat, a common one is Streptococcus pyogenes – otherwise known as Strep throat. This infection can lead to serious health issues.

Every time you brush your teeth, your tongue, use mouthwash, you are stripping away your microbial partners. You remove one of nature’s most powerful allies in protecting your health. The same goes in the gut. Natural health practitioners would recom- mend that you try to replenish your natural flora by takingacido - philus or bifidus (live yoghurt bacteria: Lactobacilli species). This is because in the late 1980’s, these bacteria were isolated from the guts of healthy children that had no gastrointestinal upsets and it was suggested that these species of bacteria are repre- sentative of the best normal flora that colonize us as infants. It’s actually more complicated than this as recent research shows that these bacterial species may have some role in allergies and asthmas. Not as adults, but during that crucial first wave of colonization when the immune system is pumped up and ready to react to protect the newborn. A study has looked at the micro- flora of healthy children in African countries where allergies are very infrequent and find their guts are colonized by a different species. But, in general, after antibiotics, we need to replenish our microbial partners or else the human invaders, the pathogens will – and then our health will continue to fail. For the throat, a product known as Bliss is live Staphylococcus salivarious K12 that produces a powerful protectant chemical that kill invading pathogens.

So, do we brush our teeth? Yes, of course we do. While our diet is full of refined simple carbohydrates, our oral hygiene is always at risk. Do we use mouth wash? Sure, if you replenish with Bliss tablets – they also help reduce bad breath. Do we take antibiot- ics? If your health depends on it, yes, but you finish the course and take live supplements to replenish your gut bacteria. Do we use antibiotic soap? There is not much evidence to suggest that under normal household circumstances that this is anymore ef- fective than proper washing using normal soap, warm water and drying thoroughly. Normal hygiene like they used seventy years ago is fine. Minimize chemicals, eat well, exercise and be happy, and you are well on the way to supporting your most power- ful allies and managing the constant daily battle that pathogens present to us. Microbes are not a danger to us – they are part of us and by nurturing and understanding your microbes, your body will thank you for it.

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The Gargantuans stand in front of the oak door Arms roughly folded, legs splayed

“You can’t come in” they say “Look at you. Go away”

Blood drops out of my face Tears surge and prick at my eyes

“But I can be like you. Play by your rules. Please let me try”. Despite my best efforts to push it down, desperation oozes out.

The Gargantuans stare past me. I plod away and wonder if I exist, or if I am a trick I am playing on myself.

There is a whisper, to my left I centre on the sound and make out the words.

She beckons me to pass under the veil into asylum.

Lesley Pitt

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Edward W Smith

Prologue

I am sorry that I have unwittingly upset you by my reference to the thorium-neutron transfor- mations. Actually, I wrote my paper when I was in my cottage in Wiltshire on holiday, where I had no papers to refer to. I had glanced through the Joliots’ paper and thought the evidence rather vague and I gave expression to that view in my address. I had for the moment forgotten that you had actually published your letter in Naturwissenschaften before their paper appeared and I quite agree that they ought to have mentioned your definite statement about the 4n + 1 series... This is an extract, quoted by Jungk (1958, p. 72), from a letter written by Ernest Rutherford to Otto Hahn in the early 1930’s. It refers to three scientific papers written by three different people in three different countries and how they referred to each oth- er’s work, or didn’t as the case might be. Rutherford headed the Cavendish Laboratories in England, Hahn was Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin and the Joliots (Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie) were at the Radium Institute in Paris.

At the end of 1924 Frédéric Joliot started his research career at the Radium Institute as technical assistant to Marie Curie. Almost from the beginning he worked with Irène, Madame Curie’s daughter. On the 9th October 1926, Frédéric and Irène were married and together they were a formidable research partner- ship that culminated in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935 – “in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements”. In 1936 Joliot left the Radium Institute to become Professor at the prestigious Collège de France. This ended their formal re- search partnership but it did not stop progress. Irène was soon joined by a young Yugoslavian assistant – Paul Savitch. Joliot- Curie and Savitch continued to work on artificial radioactivity and in May 1938 published a paper in Comptes Rendus describing how, after bombarding uranium with slow neutrons, they found an isotope with a half-life of 3.5 hours. But it eluded identifica- tion. Though tentative, they proposed that it was a transuranic (i.e. above uranium in the periodic table); yet it did not fit in with the properties of the transuranics as formulated by Otto Hahn and his colleagues.

Later in May, Hahn discussed the interpretations of the Joliot-

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Curie & Savitch paper with Frédéric Joliot at the 10th International Congress of Chemistry in Rome. Hahn questioned the results and the methods, as in his work he had not seen anything with a half- life of 3.5 hours. He was heard to say: “That damned woman. Now I’ll have to go home and waste six mouths proving that she was wrong!” (Brian 2000, p. 269).

In September 1938, Joliot-Curie & Savitch published a further paper in Comptes Rendus, modifying their supposition by iden- tifying the isotope as having properties resembling lanthanum, half way down the periodic table! Until then Hahn had done nothing to disprove Joliot-Curie and Savitch, but the September paper fired him into action. He set to work with his assistant Fritz Strassman to repeat the experiments. Hahn and Strassman were baffled – they had expected to get a heavier element, but what they found was much lighter. They considered it to be Barium. Realising the significance of their findings they worked to pub- lish quickly. It was the week before Christmas and the editor of Naturwissenschaften promised to have their paper in the next edition if they could have the manuscript to him by Friday 23rd December. The paper was published on 6th January 1939.

Hahn and Strassman, as chemists, were certain they had found Barium; but what about the energy balance to bring this about. This was a matter of physics. Lise Meitner, an Austrian physi- cist had collaborated with Hahn over many years and in 1934 became head of the Physics Department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin where Hahn was Director. After Hitler’s take- over of Austria, Fraulein Meitner’s whole future was threatened and she fled to Holland, Denmark and finally Sweden. It was in Denmark, at Kungalv, just before Christmas that Meitner, lonely and unhappy, received a letter from Hahn describing the latest experiments. He asked for her help as a physicist to explain the changes which had taken place. Over Christmas Meitner was joined by her nephew, Otto Frisch – a neutron physicist at that time working in Copenhagen with Bohr, the ‘grand old man’ of atomic physics. With company and an exciting problem to solve she soon cheered up. By the end of their vacation together they had worked out the forces and energies involved to confirm the existence of Barium.

Hahn described the reaction of uranium changing to barium (and krypton) as ‘bursting’. Meitner and Frisch in their paper in Nature of February 1939 described it as ‘nuclear fission’. Hahn and Strassman had split the atom! They were not the first to do it,

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but they were the first to have the confidence to report that this is what they had done. In 1944 Otto Hahn received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry - “for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei”.

Silver Miner - From a stone façade on the front of a house in Jachymov in the Czech Rebublic. It was from the slag heaps of the old Joachim- sthal mines around Jachymov that Marie Curie salvaged pitchblende from which she recovered tiny amounts of radium. This radium became the radioactive source for atomic physics research conducted in the early part of the last century. Image: author’s collection.

HOW AND WHERE TO PUBLISH YOUR RESEARCH

In deciding how and where to publish your research you need to ask the question:

What is the motive? Hopefully it is not to prove a colleague wrong, as one could light- heartedly say of Otto Hahn in 1938. Generally there can be three straightforward responses to this question and each response will provide a different answer:

(1) To meet fellow researchers. (2) To maximise exposure of your work.

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(3) To “publish or perish”.

If your motive is primarily to meet fellow researchers then pub- lishing at a conference is the way to go. If you want to maximise exposure then publication in the pre-eminent journal for your subject is the aim. If your motive is quantity of publications, then you publish where you can, how you can, as much as you can, come what may. Each of these three ways of publishing has its advantages, disadvantages and foibles.

(1) Publishing at a conference For a young or inexperienced researcher this is often the way to start. Unfortunately in the eyes of one’s peers and seniors it is seen as inferior to publishing in a refereed journal. This is un- fortunate as there is so much to gain from representing yourself and your institute at a good, well organised conference. You can meet face to face the key people in your field (if there are no key people at the conference then you shouldn’t be there either) who will inspire and will be only too pleased for you to visit their own facilities. You can meet people you have never heard of, who have similar interests and aspirations; and who have all the same problems you have, and probably more. Usually you can join organised visits to other institutes, laboratories, field sites and industries; and have the opportunity to follow up these visits. There is the opportunity to socialise with your peers, such as at the conference dinner, which can turn into unexpected meetings with like-minded researchers. If you can’t afford the conference dinner then it is likely that others won’t be able to either and it is not unknown for there to be an unofficial breakaway eating venue where impoverished research students and the like will gather.

For the more experienced researcher there is the opportunity to be invited to chair a session; and when you have made it, to be invited as a key-note speaker.

Offset against these very useful advantages is the big drawback that conference proceedings can have very limited circulation. A specialised conference, run by a university department say, may order a print run to circulate to the conference delegates and nothing more. Not only does this mean limited exposure at the time of the conference, but most important, it also means making any reference to your conference publication in your future writ- ing has little hope of follow-up as there is no chance of the work being available for others to consult. However this may not be the case if the conference is carefully chosen. Some conferences which belong to a long running series can have a fair publish-

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ing circulation and over the past five years there has been an increasing trend to publish on-line. An excellent example of the latter is the annual series Winter Simulation Conference which has been running for more than three decades and has all papers on-line since 1997 (see www.wintersim.org). Not only are they available and clearly presented in .pdf format but also they can be accessed at no cost. Finding appropriate conferences in your own field should not require any special research activity as such information should be readily apparent through your literature surveys.

Attending a conference is an expensive undertaking. As well as the conference fees (worthwhile conferences have fees around US$500 and €400) there is accommodation (US$100+ per night, if you stay at the conference venue; but can be much less if you ask for alternatives), sustenance and travel. To go to a single conference in Europe or the USA and do nothing else is hardly cost-effective – one is looking at NZ$4000+ to present one pa- per! Can you combine it with other things? Are there appropri- ate tutorial sessions connected with the conference (more fees but it could make the whole venture much more cost-effective)? Are there other universities and research institutes that you could visit with just a little extra travel? Are there appropriate indus- tries nearby or is there appropriate field-work to be done? Is there another conference you could attend nearby or in a neigh- bouring country – often organisers of smaller conferences will time theirs to be just before or after the big one.

When publishing, the rule is that you must not have published the work elsewhere before. If you present a paper at a small con- ference with the likelihood that the conference proceedings will be seen only by the attendees and their colleagues, then bear- ing in mind that you cannot publish the same work twice, there is the temptation to disclose as little as possible that is original. Organisers of small conferences recognise this and can have an arrangement with a journal of wide circulation that selected pa- pers be published again in an edited and/or extended form. This is an extremely attractive arrangement as you not only get two publications for the price of one, but you get a critical peer review at the conference, and can then fine-tune your paper accord- ingly.

(2) Publishing in the pre-eminent journal To publish in the pre-eminent journal of your field is not just about prestige; it also means, from one publication, that your work is available to be read in libraries and institutes all over the

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world. Consequently it is the way to publish your best piece(s) of work. How do you get your paper accepted by the best journals – you are probably little known, as is your institute? Editors of good journals, like editors of good newspapers appreciate good copy. Presentation of your manuscript should be perfect. Read the “Notes for Authors” very carefully and conform to the small- est detail. It is said that nothing is perfect, but if you don’t aspire to making it perfect then you’ll go nowhere. Study papers in the journal of your choice – what is the writing style, do they like lots of figures or pictures (both cost to produce)? Most important, what is the average or common length of the papers? If they are all of 4 pages in length, make sure your manuscript will fill 4 pages too.

If you are a research student with a noted supervisor as co-au- thor then publishing in a good journal is not difficult. If not, and you are very much on your own then a perusal of the names on the editorial committee of the journal of your choice may lead to someone that you know or have met at a conference. They can advise you on how best to present your paper for this particular journal and even whether the journal of your choice is the best one for your work.

When considering who you know in your research field there is a very important question to ask – when publishing, should you have a co-author(s) and who should it be? If you have a research supervisor or a research student then the answer is easy, and the person who has done the bulk of the work should be the principal author. If you have done everything, or almost everything on your own then why should you share the credit with someone else? Elsevier is a major publisher of scientific journals and their web site www.sciencedirect.com lists the content of all their jour- nals. A quick browse will show that most papers have more than one author and it is not unusual for co-authors to come from dif- ferent affiliations or even countries. Co-authorship is encouraged and as a researcher it not only means a little less work (though the principal author usually does most of it) but also guarantees an interested second opinion and an extra pair of eyes to spot the little errors which seem to evade that final scrutiny.

(3) Maximising publishing output “Publish or perish” is an often quoted academics’ slogan and there are many people who take it to heart. Writing papers is hard work; especially after the objectives or findings of the re- search have been made and you are keen to enter a new arena. Many people who find pleasure in proving or doing good original

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research can also find pleasure in writing up. However, there are many more who see the writing up as a chore – something which has to be done in order to be recognised and so attract funding for further research.

There are fabulous rewards in attending a good conference or see- ing your paper in the top journal for your subject. If your real motive for doing this is to be recognised and you feel you must continue to publish to maintain or increase that reputation then the quality must be enhanced and not just simply maintained. The leading researchers are bright people with inexhaustible energy and when they are in that leading position will head a team of up and coming researchers. Publish quality – if quantity takes over from quality then that loss will soon become apparent and the reputation will be lost also. There are times when it is also neces- sary to publish quickly.

IN CONCLUSION

The hard work which is required to publish means that you must have a real motive. That motive may be as outlined above; or maybe quite honestly, simply to satisfy your own ego. But what- ever it is, the reality is that you need funding to do good research. Today, even the philosophical research theorist needs funding – to buy the time in which to philosophise! For the more down to earth researcher the need for funding is paramount – equipment, consumables, research students, time, etc. In writing your paper your main objective is obviously to report your findings, but this should be done bearing in mind that an important secondary ob- jective is to attract people to support your work - your theory or your findings. It is a marketing exercise and without the support of others you will find it difficult to proceed. But also it is part of the process of research. Otto Hahn and his close colleagues Lise Meitner, Fritz Strassman and Otto Frisch published to help discover new things in science. They were excited by what was ahead. Why should we not be as excited about our own research?

References

Jungk, R.(1958). Brighter than a thousand suns. London: Gollancz.

Brian, D. (2005). The Curies. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.

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Dragon detail, Donna Willard-Moore 2005

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 AN EXAMINATION OF HOLISTIC INFLUENCES ON P 23 TEACHING IN A TERTIARY EDUCATION CONTEXT

Rod Bentham

Abstract

There are a large number of extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing the areas of cur- riculum development, teaching and assessment in the context of tertiary education and training. Extrinsic factors include over forty agencies ranging from Industry Training Organisations through Unions to Polytechnic Associations, all lobbying the government on their particular concerns for the future of tertiary education. Intrinsic factors relate to the administrative requirements of the particular institution with respect to programme development and delivery. The net effect of these factors is to exert both an indirect and direct influence on teaching and learning within a modern tertiary institution.

1. SIGNIFICANT FACTORS

Undoubtedly the most significant factor influencing the tertiary landscape is the document that signals government policy and shapes the direction of the future of tertiary training, namely: the Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) and accompanying Statement of Tertiary Education Priorities (STEP). The STEP 2005 – 2007 outlines four major themes: investing in excellence; increasing relevance; enabling access and progress; and enhancing capa- bility. It also emphasises the need for increased clarity of roles among tertiary providers. In the case of the ITP sector, polytech- nics are characterised by terms including “vocational training and education”, “regional need[s]”, “applied degree[s]”, “pathways”, preparing students to achieve “at higher levels”, and “niche train- ing for particular industries”.

The STEP also proposes to introduce systems of measurement based on outcomes, as a measure of teaching quality. This pro- posal could impact on assessment as pressure increases to en- sure that programmes meet or exceed guidelines yet to be set by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). The theme of out- comes is touched upon later in the STEP document where a link is made between relevance and quality in terms of outcomes.

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While a critical analysis of the TES and STEP documents would be a project in itself, Duncan (2004) examines the language used within them and cites Lyotard’s concept of “performativity” viewed against the theory of knowledge acquisition. Although Duncan’s study is undertaken in the context of a university’s Faculty of Hu- manities and focuses on the ideology of knowledge as truth, his assertion that the TES describes knowledge as a commodity that adds value and requires efficient competitive management, is relevant across the wider tertiary sector. Hinchcliff (1996, p.46) also discusses the idea of learning becoming a commodity, by dissecting the language of total quality management and its ten- ets of uniformity and predictability. When viewed alongside other contemporary terms such as “benchmarking”, “best practice” or “teaching smarter”, and with the push towards what the STEP describes as a “shared language” about competencies, it could be argued that the role of the ITP tutor has been reduced to that of a certifier of student competency within a regime of technical production. While there may be some justification for this stance, the tutor has a professional responsibility to plan, deliver and as- sess using methods that encourage high level cognitive learning (Bloom, 1956) and which respect diversity: themes that will be balanced and discussed against contemporary influences in this article.

2. THE TEACHING ENVIRONMENT

The traditional view of the tutor as a facilitator of learning in a particular discipline is one that is challenged in the current cli- mate. The expectation to provide quality teaching using contem- porary thinking is almost eclipsed by a need to be technologically aware and politically “savvy”. Alongside the base skills of inter- personal communication and organisation, there is pressure on tutors to take on more administrative tasks in areas such as mar- keting, budget management, academic auditing, negotiation and reporting, and to develop the relevant skills necessary to com- plete these tasks. The pressure to take on these tasks is driven twofold: by the administrative requirements of an institution’s quality management system, and by programme viability analy- sis measurements. Leach and Graham (1996) cite factors of eco- nomic efficiency and financial constraints as major influences in this new development. Translating these factors into real terms, these new tasks include analyses of: EFTS values, retention and success rates, tutor/student ratios, graduate satisfaction, strate- gic value, and institutional risk.

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A number of these administrative tasks could be viewed as crucial to the measurement of the quality of a programme. It could also be argued, however, that as tutors’ administrative loads increase, the time available to individualise a learning experience for the student, critically reflect on practice, complete action research, and critique assessment material decreases, and – ironically – impacts negatively on the quality of teaching and learning.

A common cliché used when discussing these issues is “teach- ing smarter”. Zollo (1999, p.17) interprets this phrase to imply a minimisation of tutor/ student contact time, thus freeing up tutors for non-teaching activities. With this approach comes the need to implement more self-directed learning and to develop re- sources to facilitate this learning. This, in itself, creates a dilem- ma, as development of these resources requires expertise and evaluation in order to be effective. It is also assumed that the tutor will possess the knowledge and skills to select effective and appropriate methodologies and design effective resources within a climate where there are already pressures on time and capital expenditure; and further, that students are capable of adapting readily to self-directed activities. The ideal of “teaching smarter” is often linked to practice through the notion of offering flexible learning, being innovative, and using technology to assist in de- livery. These factors, given below, raise a number of questions in relation to the learner, the methodologies used, and cognitive theory.

i. Who are my learners and what developmental stage are they at?

The one given about students is that each one will be unique. Every group of learners will exhibit a range of values, learning styles, pre-requisite knowledge, learning disabilities, motiva- tions, expectations, experiences and beliefs. They will all have opinions about what they believe teaching and learning involves, based on past experiences. Some students are immediately both independent and interdependent, and others will require direc- tion, guidance and support to complete self-directed and group work. Students’ self-critique skills may vary from well developed to non-existent, and their personalities from extrovert to insular. Recognising and valuing these differences, and accepting that there is no one size fits all when working with students, are es- sential viewpoints when developing effective and equitable teach- ing strategies.

While we tend to group adult learners demographically as any-

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one over eighteen years of age, other research suggests that there are further factors and developmental stages that will af- fect a learner’s cognitive ability. In discussing instructional de- sign, Richey (1992, pp.14-16) examines the psychological and social factors that affect learning processes and groups them into four effects: demographic effect; capacity effect; competence ef- fect; and attitude effect. It is also suggested that learners’ social status will have an initial bearing on whether they will be active learners; and that as they age their fluid intelligence and abil- ity to adopt new cognitive skills reduces, while their crystallised intelligence and tendency to focus on specialised skill areas in- creases (Cattell, 1963). Further, as learners age, their attitudes toward learning and application narrow, making unlearning (Apps 1988, pp.101-102) and the development of varied dispositions harder to achieve (Toohey, 1999, p.118).

...there are many attributes of human learning which seem to be a re- flection of lifespan development. These include changes in cognitive processing represented by levels of fluid and crystallised intelligence, effects of life experiences at the various stages of development, atti- tude stabilisation, and ease of altering general and specific prerequisite skills (Richey, 1992).

McBeath and Siragusa (2000) also discuss instructional design in terms of underlying theories in the development of cognitive psychology. They cite Briggs and Moore’s theory of developmen- talism as representing the foundation to good design, with the four modes of learning: sensory-motor, iconic, concrete symbolic, and formal and post formal developing through time, experience and practice.

ii. What learning environment will enhance the students’ learning?

In discussing the learning environment, first we need to examine what comprises the environment. This can be the physical na- ture of the environment: the layout and acoustics of the teach- ing space, the furniture and fittings, and access to technical re- sources. Is the space accessible for everyone? Is this space too cramped, formal or informal, and what distractions are present? There will almost always be limitations and frustrations with the physical resources available, over which we – as tutors – will have little or no control. Understanding this situation and developing a range of methods that allows for the nature of the physical envi- ronment while promoting deep level thinking, becomes an impor- tant aspect of the planning process. Stein (1998) outlines situ-

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ated learning – involving creating conditions that reflect the real world – as one methodology that can usefully be adopted. Using cooperative and participative methods, and integrating content in a context while participating in a community of practice, creates an environment where interaction and problem solving are key aspects of the learning experience.

Within the physical learning environment there has been an in- crease in the use of technology to complement learning. In the area of training in broadcasting – my particular subject speciali- sation – basic information technology skills are now viewed as an essential pre-requisite, and the curriculum requires skills ranging from word processing and database management to web page development. While this change brings technology directly into curriculum (Imel, 1998), technology as complementary to – and a tool to use for – learning, is also being adopted. The challenge in using these resources is that rather than developing knowl- edge via drill and practice (Imel, 1998), interactive materials are developed, based on constructivist strategies that promote cog- nitive skills (McBeath and Siragusa, 2000, p. 5).

Alongside the physical environment is the psychological environ- ment. How do we, as tutors, treat the students? Are we equitable in working with them, or do we hold bias or prejudice? What is our stance and way of thinking (Scott, 1992)? It is generally ac- cepted that students will bring their life experiences to the learn- ing environment. As tutors we need to support this reality, while recognising that these experiences include cultural values and customs (Imel, 1995). Recognising and valuing these experi- ences will assist in creating an environment of inclusiveness, fos- ter students’ contributions, and help to develop their independent and interdependent skills (Imel, 1998).

iii. How will developing a flexible learning programme benefit or disadvantage my students?

Along with the drive to “teach smarter” and be innovative there has been a move to make programmes of learning more flexible. This move has been driven both by government policy with a push for greater access to learning; and by the EFTS funding model as institutions look to increase access by offering programmes on a part-time or modular basis. With more flexible learning modes comes more recognition of prior learning, review of entry criteria, modularisation of learning, introduction of multiple entry and exit points, and workplace assessment. New forms of resources have been introduced such as self-paced workbooks, computer assist-

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ed learning, e-learning and blended learning. While the move to flexibility has merit and in theory should allow learners greater control over their learning experience, there are a number of is- sues that have impacted on both tutors and learners when flex- ible learning has been introduced. While the idea of recognition of prior learning is meritorious it can impact on students’ eligibility to access loans and allowances, and therefore their ability to par- ticipate in a programme of study.

The provision for students to select modules to construct their own content works well within a single programme, but when attempted across programmes leads to issues with timetabling, results reporting, and loans and allowances. These weakness- es are highlighted within an analysis of the “access” model of curriculum, where the question is raised as to whether students are equipped to make decisions about the selection of learning, which may lead to fragmentation (Young, 1998, p. 148, and Visk- ovic, 2000). Developing the materials required for these flexible methodologies is also time consuming, and requires specialised skills in writing, design and production that tutors may not neces- sarily possess (Toohey, 1999, p. 128).

3. CURRICULUM COMPETENCY AND ASSESSMENT

While the TES sets out an overarching strategic direction, the key influences in the development of curriculum and assessment are the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and an insti- tution’s particular quality management system. In terms of my main teaching programme (Certificate in Advanced Radio), this curriculum is unit standards based and was developed by an in- dustry body, independently of any education institutions. The in- dustry body has since dissolved, and there has been no revision of the unit standards since their inception. Any development or major change to curriculum takes place under the provision of the institute’s policies and procedures.

Assessment is competency based and is designed to meet the performance criteria and learning outcomes of the unit standards. Assessments are subject to both internal and external modera- tion processes to confirm that they are valid, fair and sufficient. They are judged internally by the unit standard requirements as per the assessment guide and marking schedule, and externally by the assessment guide marking schedule and a broad range of students’ work.

From my involvement with delivering unit standards (competency

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based) programmes since the late 1990s, a recurring issue has been confusion about exactly what unit standards represent. On a continuum basis, at one end is the viewpoint that they represent the total sum of content to be delivered and assessed; while at the other is the viewpoint that they are a guide only. Tutors who adopt the latter stance deliver content that they judge to be re- quired within the particular discipline, and base assessment on a subjective judgement of students’ ability. In the middle ground is the New Zealand Qualifications Authority’s stance that they are to be used as an assessment measurement tool. As a result of these differing interpretations, assessment methods can vary from the behaviourist tick sheet of satisfactory or unsatisfactory perform- ance of a series of tasks (Hager and Butler, 1996), through to a holistic group project where students are responsible for the output and design of both self and peer assessments.

At the heart of the debate around the merits of competency as- sessment is their suitability vis-à-vis general and vocational edu- cation. An examination of the nature of competence when applied to theories of knowledge identifies a tension between a view of knowledge as identifying truth and using intelligent skill acquisi- tion, and a view of knowledge that is concerned with “how” and using habitual skill acquisition (Hager and Butler, 1996, pp. 5-6). Critics will suggest that unit standards are atomistic, while sup- porters will suggest that this view is valid only if the unit stand- ards are viewed as isolated tasks rather than holistically. Hager and Butler (1996) suggest that the answer lies in the middle ground which combines holistic and atomistic approaches – the integrated approach.

Competency standards offer educational and assessment benefits. The competency standards themselves are a powerful guide to providers of professional education. However it needs to be emphasised they are not a curriculum document...for providers, there is as much flexibility as ever to decide what to teach, how to teach it and how to assess it. However, assuming there is room for improvement in most existing courses, a good set of competency standards will provide invaluable guidance on content changes as well as new methods of delivery and assessment (Hager and Butler, 1996).

Assessment of competency-based programmes, when examined in the context of an institution’s quality management system, raises issues. While humanist thinking suggests that assessment is an integral part of the learning process (Leach et al, 1998), moderation processes view assessment in isolation. The prescrip- tive nature of moderation policy with its requirements for clear

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and measurable evidence and judgement statements creates a restrictive setting that forces aspects of the assessment into the scientific measurement model (Hager and Butler, 1996). Pre-as- sessment moderation requirements make it impossible for stu- dents to become involved in the design of summative assess- ments, however there is scope for their involvement in formative assessments.

CONCLUSION

Curriculum development, teaching and assessment in a modern tertiary education setting is inherently political, market oriented, and subject to quality management oversight. While these factors will influence tutors’ practice, ultimately we – as tutors – hold the key to developing good learning experiences while operating with an awareness of the system. This awareness comes about via an understanding of the theory of learning and cognitive devel- opment, and through applying it in the design of resources and assessment. It also involves a recognition that the environment – both physical and emotional – alongside the developmental stage of the learner, influences the learning process.

Catch phrases have become de rigueur of late, including the phrase “best practice”. How is “best practice” to be defined when applied within an education setting? Is it the efficient delivery of an educational package, or the development of the learner as a whole? Or are these two interpretations inherently opposed? At the start of this article, I noted the number of extrinsic and intrinsic factors that are influencing modern curriculum develop- ment, teaching and assessment. Perhaps the “answer” lies in evaluating and selecting the best elements of diverse methodolo- gies and approaches that will promote both the developmental needs of the learner, and concurrently, sustain an effective and efficient approach to curriculum delivery. In this current climate of change, it may not even be possible to talk of “answers”. But without a doubt, “questions” will continue to be asked now, and within the foreseeable future.

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References

Apps, J.W. (1988). Higher Education in a Learning Society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bloom, B. (ed). (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers.

Cattell, R.B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: a critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54, 1- 22.

Duncan, G. (2004). Pouvoir et Savoir: The Tertiary Education Strategy and the Will to Know. New Zealand Journal of Education Policy, Vol.1.

Hager, P. and Butler, J. (1996). Two models of educational assess- ment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 21(4), 367-378.

Hinchcliff, J. (1996). Quality: an alternative perspective. Connec- tions, Vol.44, 41-47.

Imel, S. (1995). Inclusive Adult Learning Environments. ERIC Di- gest.

Imel, S. (1998). Technology and Adult Learning: Current Per- spectives. ERIC Digest.

Leach, L., and Graham, S. (1996). Reframing the future: para- digm shifts and the implications for education and funding. Un- published paper; later published in Journal of Institutional Re- search and Administration, 4(1).

Leach, L., Neutze, G., and Zepke, N. (1998). Motivation in as- sessment. Chapter 20 in G. Thomson, S. Armstrong and S. Brown (eds.). Motivating Students. London: Kogan Page, pp.201-209.

McBeath, C. and Siragusa, L. (2000). The place of instructional design in higher education in the computer age. Sourced 30 De- cember 2005. http://www.aset.org.au/confs/aset-herdsa2000/ procs/mcbeath.html.

Richey, R. (1992). Designing Instruction for the Adult Learner. London: Kogan Page.

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Scott, G. (1992). Challenges facing vocational teachers and train- ers in the 1990s. Chapter 3 in Gonczi, A. (ed.) (1992). Developing a Competent Workforce: Adult Learning Strategies for Vocational Educators and Trainers. Adelaide: NCVER.

Statement of Tertiary Education Priorities 2005/07. Ministry of Education, New Zealand.

Stein, D. (1998). Situated Learning in Adult Education. ERIC Digest.

Tertiary Education Strategy 2002/07. Ministry of Education, New Zealand.

Toohey, S. (1999). Designing Courses for Higher Education. Buck- ingham: Open University. Chapter 6: Making learning opportuni- ties more flexible.

Viscovic, A. (2000). NZQA at the turn of the century: What hap- pened to the grand vision? New Zealand Journal of Adult Learn- ing, 28(1), May 2000, 68-85.

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 HYBRID CULTURES: WHAT, WHERE AND HOW ABOUT US? P 33

Ian Clothier

Abstract

Among the many cultures of Polynesia is the distinctive hybrid Pitcairn-Norfolk culture. Power in hybrid cultures is authorised on the basis of ‘contingency rather than tradition’ in the words of Homi Bhabha. This will be demonstrated in the context of Pitcairn-Norfolk, as a means of introducing and then discussing cultural hybridity. The increasing percep- tion that some contemporary Asian and Polynesian cultures are hybrids will be reviewed and the question posed: is Aotearoa New Zealand culture a hybrid, or not?

PRELIMINARY NOTES

As a preliminary note I wish to point out that I am a descendent via my mother of the hybrid culture that developed on Pitcairn Island after the mutiny on HMAV Bounty in 1789. In 1856, when the population was too large to be supported by Pitcairn, the entire community moved to Norfolk Island. Given this historical background, I refer to my culture as Pitcairn-Norfolk. My father’s family is of British descent, my great grandfather being one of three brothers who settled in three countries – Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Secondly, it is my wish here to invite discussion. Therefore, this paper has been written with several gaps. I would also ask to be granted the following assertion: that New Zealand European culture has been both master majority culture in this country and some Pacific nations, and also minority border culture in terms of its European roots. As Tony Green (Green 1992, p 147) in the catalogue to Headlands wrote of Pakeha New Zealanders between 1920 and 1960, ‘Their need was for tokens of their difference from the British, for an independent culture of their own, rooted in new origins. But theirs had to be just as good as the British model, by which it was always being measured.’ The isolation of this land from Europe places us on the border of the European

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colonial venture – literally the furthest of cultural hybridity.

1. WHAT? HYBRID CULTURE

The Pocket Oxford Dictionary (2000, p 430) gives the meaning of ‘hybrid’ as ‘1 offspring of two plants or animals of different spe- cies or varieties. 2 thing composed of diverse elements, e.g. a word with parts taken from different languages.’

The root of the term ‘hybrid’ is the Latin hybrida. According to the Wolters’ Latin-Dutch dictionary ‘hybrida’ means: ‘bastard, Child of a Roman and a foreigner, or of a free person and a slave,’ and the Grote van Dale dictionary adds: ‘something that comprises heterogeneous elements’ (cited in Europan, 2001).

According to Homi Bhabha (1994, p 2), authorized power in a hybrid culture ‘does not depend on the persistence of tradition; it is resourced by the power of tradition to be reinscribed through conditions of contingency and contradictoriness that attend upon those who are “in the minority”’1 adding that the process can be both ‘consensual and conflictual’ (ibid. p 66).

In discussing the work of Renee Green, Bhabha (1994, p 4) re- lates her description of architecture to hybridity: ‘This interstitial passage [i.e. of the stairwell] between fixed identifications opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.’

Cultures in the process of hybridising can also involve the recom- bination of cultural traditions. Eduardo Manuel Duarte (1997, p 1) of Hofstra University pointed out that:

As Cornel West reminds us, analyzing multiculturalism from a contem- porary philosophical perspective means situating oneself within hybrid culture and giving up on the “quest for pure traditions and pristine herit- ages” (West 1992, pp. 326-27).

Duarte (1997, p 1) began his essay Self as Post-Colonial Pas- tiche: Historical Artifact and Multicultural Ideal with the state- ment that ‘The current leitmotif of multicultural discourse is hy- bridity. To speak today as a multiculturalist is to speak of culture as open-ended, permeable, and continuously (re)produced by cross-cultural encounters.’ There is therefore in the discussion of culture taking place internationally, a view of culture as active and evolving rather than authorized by traditions and fixed within boundaries. To answer the question that is the subject of this

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Figure 1. Steve Aishmann. Selling 1/2 Japanese 2000. © Steve Aishman.

paper, rather than seeking any proposed ‘pure’ characteristics of cultural hybridity, the question becomes is there a sense in which our culture can be seen to be hybridizing? This requires a search for cross-cultural and similar encounters.

Prior to beginning that search, I will review a number of cultures that have been written of as hybrids, so that the questioning can proceed based on clarity as to the process of hybridization. Hy- bridity as has just been described has meanings related to genet- ics, genetic distortion and impurity, heterogeneity, the crossing of plant lines and cultural borders, unique authenticity, power structures based on contingency, and geo-political spatiality. So- lutions in hybrid cultures are provided as time and experience ac- cumulate rather than by reference to (master culture) traditions. I have suggested elsewhere (Clothier, 2002) that the Pitcairn- Norfolk culture is one such hybrid, and the Pitcairn Laws of 1838 are offered as a significant example.

One hybrid culture: Pitcairn-Norfolk

In 1838, Pitcairn Islanders made their own laws which codified having an elected Magistrate ‘who is not to assume any authority of their own,’ that women voted, and that education was com- pulsory for both sexes. White birds, public monuments and cats were protected; wood conservation measures agreed to, there were sections on resolving disputes, and an attempt to leave past issues out of present ones. In the laws, fines were given in shillings and pence for minor offences, and in dollars for serious offences. The gravest criminal act on Pitcairn was to kill a cat for

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which the fine was US$50; there were no laws against theft or assault as these were unknown.

Bhabha (1994, p 2) writes of ‘an ongoing negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of his- torical transformation.’ Whilst this passage of historical transfor- mation is perhaps a reference to the transformation of cultures at shared boundaries in cities, it is applicable to Pitcairn-Norfolk cultural heritage, where the transformation was simply explosive in the first instance. The sense of contingency providing solutions in an on-going way is described by Roy Sanders (1953, p 274) who visited Pitcairn between 1951 and 1953:

Pitcairn culture then provides a complex and often paradoxical stand- ard of status measurement... Social cohesion lies only in kinship bonds and economic goods. The sea determines the extent of cooperative behaviour. In order to gain access to food supplies aboard ships, the islanders, to use their own term ‘pull together.’

In not adopting either an assumed or imposed hierarchy, but in- stead establishing their own laws in 1838, and following a pat- tern of contingent solutions, Pitcairners created, maintained and progressed their hybrid culture.

2. WHERE?

A re-evaluation of cultures worldwide is currently taking place with a number of commentators, artists and individuals acknowl- edging cultural hybridity. Professor of Chinese at Harvard Univer- sity, Stephen Owen (n.d.), wrote of Chinese culture: ‘Let us begin by dispelling a myth: there never was a single thing called “Chi- nese culture,” in the way we often use the term. There never was a single body of values, beliefs, and practices to be characterized, as internally coherent and consistent through time.’ Owen (ibid.) then goes on to say with regard to contemporary Chinese culture that ‘at present, it is a vigorous hybrid that is increasingly com- pelled to define itself within an international context.’

Steve Aishman (Fig. 1), a photographer who grew up in the Unit- ed States with a Japanese mother and an American father, was encouraged to ‘retain aspects of both my Japanese and my Amer- ican heritage as separate origins of identity’ (Aishman, 2001). The photographer believes that he ‘lives in a hybrid culture where intersection matters more than separation’ (ibid.). The intersec- tion is not a composite of two parent cultures but a separate, third entity:

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Figure 2. Gordon Walters. Kahukura 1968. PVA and acrylic on canvas, 114 x 152. Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection.

It is at this intersection where I try to find things that are truly original and cannot be traced back to either culture. By creating still-life self-portraits that contain elements of a “trash” culture that draws from both cultures, but is not distinctly of either, I try to highlight and advertise a new place of cultural growth which is not encumbered by notions of a traditional origin. (Aishman, 2001).

At San Fransisco State University, Professor Yukihiro Goto teach- es acting with cultural hybridity in mind, and remarked regarding American culture – ‘Today we have a global or hybrid culture; we’ve gone beyond multicultural... you may watch a Sony TV, drive a Honda or ride a Nishiki bicycle to work. Once in a while you go out for sushi. But to you all this is not Japanese any more; it’s part of American living’ (quoted in Skoczek n.d., p 1). Professor Goto teaches a hybrid mix of Western and Asian acting techniques ‘in order to match the realities of our global cultural experience’ (ibid.).

The root of hybrid cultures is not always traceable to originating master cultures – the Times-Chambers Essential English diction- ary for speakers of English in Malaysia and Singapore included words in five categories, some of which have roots in neither culture. The first two categories are core English (which contains many non-English words such as bungalow), and English words only found in Singaporean and Malay English (such as airflown, meaning freshly imported, high quality). The third category is for words that represent concepts or things for which no English word exists, an example is silat, the Malaysian equivalent of ka- rate or kung fu. The final two categories are informal English and informal words from other cultures. (Landow, n.d.).

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Megan Rosenfield (n.d., p 1) of the Washington Post wrote of the extent of hybridity in Malaysian culture ‘In the past decade, thousands of rural residents have moved to the city, dislodged from their villages, dazzled by the new malls and cineplexes and looking for a place to belong. With urbanization has come a roster of social ills familiar to Americans: rises in the rates of divorce, crime, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, drug abuse and HIV infection.’ Rosenfield (ibid.) reported that ‘most TV ads are modelled on American versions, and usually feature actors of indeterminate ethnicity.’

The distinction between traditional and hybrid culture is appar- ent to individuals within cultures, who may not even be looking with an academic perspective, such as the organiser of Stanford University’s Hawai’ian social clubs: ‘While Hui `O Hawai’i focuses more on the Native Hawaiian culture, the Hawai’i Club focuses more on the hybrid culture existing in Hawai’i known as the local culture’ (Shishido, 2001).

The hybridisation of culture that is apparent in some Asian and Pacific cultures occurs at the boundary point where cultures meet, and entails a view of culture alternate to the view that culture is fixed. Duarte (1997, p 1) wrote of:

a borderland topos where the lives of people from a multiplicity of back- grounds are constantly intersecting and crisscrossing and thereby pro- ducing [in the words of McLaren 1995, p 57] “a polyvalent assemblage of new cultural meanings.”

The mixing of cultural symbols implies cultural illegitimacy, the ‘bastardization’ referred to in the Latin definition of hybrida. Con- sider for example this discussion by a United States of America law enforcement authority (Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 2001) re- garding hybrid gang culture:

Modern hybrid gangs do not operate by traditional gang rules. Their affiliation with gangs based in Chicago or Los Angeles is likely to be in name only. They tend to “cut and paste” gang culture from tradition- al gangs, and they may display symbols traditionally associated with several gangs. They may form alliances with rival gangs to carry out criminal activity, but their independent mode of operating makes them difficult for law enforcement to classify.

Classifying hybrid cultures is difficult for similar reasons: the in- fluence of one or more cultures is at play, and traditions are dis- located from originating context, making distinctions difficult. In

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 HYBRID CULTURES:WHAT, WHERE AND HOW ABOUT US? P 39

the case of Pitcairn-Norfolk culture, the Tahitian tamare is per- formed, but at parties rather than in traditional costume at for- mal occasions. The Pitcairn craft heritage progressed in time in that practitioners assimilated styles and techniques from visiting craftspeople regardless of ethnicity. But that is not to say there is no culture; clearly there is, located in the first instance at the intersection of Old English and Tahitian cultures, a hybrid culture with parameters of its own creation and definition.

From this simple review of cultural hybridity in Asia and the Pacif- ic, it is apparent that what is being referred to is a cultural space where borders are indistinct and permeable, subject to flux and change, with contingency and relocated tradition a guiding influ- ence. Some of the recontextualised traditions are recognisable, but there is also a distinct sense of a third cultural space, where ‘intersection matters more than separation’ (Aishman, 2001).

3. HOW ABOUT US?

Government cultural policy as expressed in law in New Zealand- Aotearoa for most of the twentieth century was biculturalism. Biculturalism had its basis in the Treaty of Waitangi, and rein- forces the distinctive differences between the two numerically larger cultures of this land. If this was to be visually represented, we would perhaps use two single, vertical, upright poles. The two cultures have separate traditions, visual expressions and orienta- tions: one Polynesian Maori and the other, European – these are ‘pure traditions and pristine heritages.’ There is a sense in which biculturalism extends colonialism, for as Bhabha (1994, p 66) writes ‘an important feature of colonial discourse is its depend- ence on the concept of ‘fixity’ in the ideological construction of otherness,’ before going on to discuss the ambivalent paradox of such an ideological basis.

What would happen if rather than seeking ‘pure tradition,’ our culture was examined with a view to culture as ‘open-ended, permeable, and continuously (re)produced by cross-cultural en- counters’ (Duarte, 1997). To seek ‘a borderland topos where the lives of people... are constantly intersecting and crisscrossing’ (ibid.) in Aotearoa New Zealand cultural products is to arrive in the midst of a site of ongoing negotiation: the boundary between Maori and New Zealand European culture.

In discussing Maori culture, Rangihiroa Panoho (Panoho 1992, p 124) pointed to a frequently held misconception of Maori art – the lack of Western acceptance of change in indigenous art

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‘Te ao Maori – the Maori world – has always been in a state of flux; the boundaries between Maori and Pakeha art and culture have always been transmutable.’ Panoho then outlined the flux in terms of the adoption of the steel chisel in the 1840’s, the appropriation of European symbols by figures such as Te Kooti, Te Whiti, and Rua Kenana, and the re-examination of symbols and text by artists such as Paratene Matchitt and Emily Karaka, before looking at the work of New Zealand Europeans Colin Mc- Cahon, Gordon Walters (Fig. 2) and Theo Scoon and the relation these three have to Maori cultural output.

Examining issues around appropriation necessitated a review of the nature of Maori cultural practice as it is understood by West- erners, and Panoho also pointed to a misconception regarding cultural hybridities – that hybridisation has a negative impact on culture. He quoted the critic Benjamin Buchloh on the sub- ject of the Magiciens de la terre exhibition in Paris describing cross-cultural artforms as ‘hybridized cultural practices in disin- tegration and extinction.’ This is of course, the re-emergence of the bastard sense of hybridity, and Panoho rightly argues that ‘indigenous cultures have had to adapt rapidly and selectively appropriate Western art and culture’ (Panoho 1992, p 129). It is capacity to adapt that ensures culture persists.

This ‘borderland topos’ bounds a distinctive cultural arena. In the indicatively titled The space between: Pakeha use of Maori motifs in modernist New Zealand art, Francis Pound (1994) discussed appropriation of Maori cultural output in New Zealand modern- ist art, frequently referring to ‘The intercultural space itself, the space I call “the space between.”’

Pound (1994) recited the arguments for and against appropria- tors: Ngahuia Te Awekotuku expressed surprise at the ‘anti-tour, anti-racist, anti-Waitangi generation who should know better or at least be receptive to hearing our pain and sensitivities’ (cited in Pound 1994, p 107). Paratene Matchitt, Arnold Manaaki Wilson and Sidney Moko Mead are quoted by Pound as Maori who have spoken in support of appropriators given the artist approaches the subject with respect (ibid. p 114-115).

References to cultural interaction litter Pound’s text (citing Sidney Mead on p 118, with reference to Cliff Whiting on p 119, citing Leonard Bell on p 163, and Gordon Walters on p 189) for example the comment that ‘Whiting’s larger point remains: that a symbol- ic space exists where an “overlap” between two cultures occurs. This seems to me an immensely important and productive reali-

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Figure 3. Paratene Matchitt. Taunga waka 1971. Wood, epoxy and PVA, 2285 x 2295 x 745. 2ZG Radio Station Collection, Gisborne. Photo: National Art Gallery.

sation’ (ibid. p 119). Pound remarks shortly after that ‘we might speak of Walter’s work then, as a visual act of symbolic mediation between two cultures.... as existing in the space of a bicultural overlap...’ This space of bicultural overlap flows in both direc- tions, with Pound (ibid., p 121) describing how Paratene Matchitt (fig. 3) absorbed Gordon Walter’s Western aestheticisation of the koru, and the appropriation by Maori of the English semicolon for use in the war flag of Te Ua (ibid., p 145).

It seems clear from the positing of this in-between, interstitial cultural space with energies flowing in both directions, that cul- tural hybridisation is being discussed, albeit in the guise of a discourse on appropriation. Indeed on reflection, the process of cultural appropriation across the border between New Zealand European and Maori is not simply an instance of hybridisation, but can be seen as a par excellence example. It is worthwhile to reverse the proposition under discussion. Rather than seeing ap- propriation as an instance of hybridity, if a culture is understood to be a hybrid, cross fertilisation is exactly what would arise as a matter of course.

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Indeed it is fascinating to follow and widen Pound’s discussion of the New Zealand European artists who have absorbed Maori or Polynesian influences and Maori artists who have absorbed European influences. Len Lye, Colin McCahon, Gordon Walters, Theo Scoon, John Reynolds and Richard Killeen have all directly utilised Maori or Polynesian motifs in their work whilst Ralph Ho- tere, Kiri Te Kanawa, Cliff Whiting, Paratene Matchitt and Robyn Kahukiwa have absorbed European styles and/or practice in their work. Also of note are the Maori writers who are celebrated au- thors in English: Hone Tuwhare and Witi Ihimaera. These lists could probably be substantially expanded given further research, but it is worth noting that those listed here represent a significant number of important creators. Significantly, the core period of cultural interchange is now part of our heritage; whilst informed creators may not necessarily inhabit the space between in their work, they will be aware the exchange has taken place.

Whilst Pound mapped an in-between space in modernist art, in recent times, Michael Parekowhai has explored this middle terri- tory, with works such as Ten guitars (Fig. 3) where kowhaiwhai type paua panelling is inlaid into guitars (when shown in Auck- land at Artspace, The Bosom of Abraham was displayed on the wall behind - curved light boxes with kowhaiwhai variations, lo- cating the exhibiting space as in between the Whare Nui and Western technology).

In website documentation of the phenomenon around ‘the Maori national anthem’ (Archer, 2001) the path taken by the UK song is traced, with interviews of important figures in the dissemination of the song, and it’s population of the Maori cultural landscape. DJ and band member Eddie O’Strange wrote out the lyrics and cords, which was distributed to bands playing in pubs, where the song was increasingly requested by patrons. Also documented are the variations of the song: it was not transposed ‘true’ to the original, but spontaneous alterations to chorus and verses were made, which have become ingrained. (ibid.).

The opening of Parekowhai’s work at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth is reviewed on Artmaori.com, where Ju- lie Kipa describes an initial confrontation with the huge white Eu- ropean space, imposing entranceway and ‘power dressed black’ gallery patrons sipping wine. Parekowhai had arranged for Ten guitars to be played on five of the ten guitars, and what started as a few Maori on a lower level of the gallery strumming guitars gradually became, with the consumption of a little more beer and the gradual clearing off of some of the traditional gallery audi-

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Figure 4. Michael Parekowhai. Ten guitars. Installation view.

ence, an enjoyable session for all who remained. Kipa on reflec- tion felt that Parekowhai had ‘transformed a Gallery space into a Maori space.’

The placement of Maori at the centre rather than the periphery of our culture, which appears to have occurred at the Govett- Brewster that night, is just what Panoho was asking for, and is indicative of a cultural boundary that is not fixed but permeable and subject to tidal alteration dependent on circumstances. What Bhabha’s refers to as an ‘ongoing negotiation’ is persisting in our culture.

Michael Parekowhai has remarked on his desire to bridge the space between cultures: One of the things I do is that I try to keep a balance between, because I’m a bit of a brownie, I mean I wouldn’t say I’m a dark, dark, but I’m definitely off-white and I guess once you realise that, once you realise you can’t be white then you have to be something else, and for me my identity is steeped in both Pakeha or European and Maori history and I have to work out a position where I can sort of like bridge that gap. So that’s why my work sort of looks like it does (Genoux, 2000).

THE SPACE BETWEEN

The question that guided this discussion has become the one of whether our culture can be seen to be hybridising. That query drove us to consider our culture from the point of view of the interaction between the two numerically dominant ones: Maori and New Zealand European. A view of Maori culture was clarified by Panoho and ‘the space between’ was nominated by Francis Pound citing several practitioners, as being a space of cultural

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overlap – itself an ‘immensely important and productive realisa- tion.’ This overlap has been explored or utilised in several ways by a number of significant cultural practitioners from each side of the bicultural border.

Visually this ‘space between’ could be represented by a cross piece running between the twin totems of biculturalism. The question can then be asked, who or what sits on the cross bar? The an- swer to that question reflects our culture today much better than the twin totems. For on the cross bar sit not just Maori and NZ European in their varying shades of influence, but also Chinese, Samoan, Tongan, Fijians, Tahitians, Indians, Vietnamese, Singa- porean, Thais – cultures that are displaced by biculturalism.

Moving from a view of the creative and professional practice of a number of cultural practitioners to talking of the characteristics of entire culture is a tenuous step subject to a number of questions. However framing the discussion within such terms allows for an investigation that can be informative if not necessarily definitive. Viewing our culture from the perspective of cultural hybridisation is quite different from an understanding of our culture as simply bicultural, but places us, I believe, in a better space to see more clearly and understand ourselves.

A SUMMARY OF THE PROPOSITION

What is being proposed for discussion is that:

New Zealand European culture is both master majority culture in this land (and some Pacific countries) and minority border culture with regard to its European roots. In terms of its border location, it exists in a space of cultural overlap. The main contributing cul- tures in this space between are Maori and New Zealand Europe- an. Within the overlap a third culture has arisen and substantial exchange has taken place, with cultural energy flowing in both directions. This energy can be mapped in the work and profes- sional life of a significant number of important creators, and can be read as an indicator that the culture is hybridising. Given the culture is hybridising, the multicultural condition of contemporary society is well explained.

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Notes

1. Bhabha’s paragraph in full is: Terms of cultural engagement, whether antagonistic or affilative, are produced performatively. The representation of difference must not be hastily read as the reflection of pre-given or cultural traits set in the fixed tablet of tradition. The social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation. The “right” to signify from the periphery of authorised power and privi- lege does not depend on the persistence of tradition; it is resourced by the power of tradition to be reinscribed through the conditions of contin- gency and contradictoriness that attend upon the lives of those who are ‘in the minority.’ The recognition that tradition bestows is a partial form of identification. In restaging the past it introduces other, incommensu- rable cultural temporalities into the invention of tradition. This process estranges any immediate access to an originary identity or “received” tradition. The borderline engagements of cultural difference may as of- ten be consensual and conflictual; they may confound our definitions of tradition and modernity; realign the customary boundaries between the private and the public, high and low; and challenge normative expecta- tions of development and progress.

List of illustrations

Figure 1. Steve Aishman Selling 1/2 Japanese 2000. © Steve Aishman (Aishman, 2001).

Figure 2. Gordon Walters. Kahukura 1968. PVA and acrylic on canvas, 114 x 152. Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection (Victoria University, n.d.).

Figure 3. Paratene Matchitt. Taunga waka 1971. Wood, epoxy and PVA, 2285 x 2295 x 745. 2ZG Radio Station Collection, Gisborne. Photo: National Art Gallery (Barr 1992, p 13).

Figure 4. Michael Parekowhai. Ten guitars. Installation view. Source: Artspace, 1999.

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References

Aishman, Steve. (2001). Selling Half Japanese. In The Georgia Review. Retrieved March 06, 2003 from http://www.uga.edu/ garev/fall02/aishman.htm

Archer, John (Ed). (2001). Ten Guitars. Retrieved March 27, 2003 from http://folksong.org.nz/tenguitars/

Artspace. (1999). Ten guitars. Auckland: Artspace.

Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.

Barr, Mary (Ed). (1992). Headlands: thinking through New Zea- land art. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Clothier, Ian M. (2002). Hybrid culture, nonlinearity and creative practice. Unpublished manuscript.

Duarte, Eduardo Manuel (1997). Self as post-colonial pastiche: historical artifact and multicultural ideal. Retrieved March 06, 2003 from http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/97_docs/ duarte.html

Genoux, Isabelle. (2000). Ten Guitars. Retrieved March 27, 2003 from http://www.abc.net.au/arts/artok/visual/s209772.htm

Green, Tony. (1992). Modernism and modernization. In In Barr, Mary (Ed.). Headlands: thinking through New Zealand art. Syd- ney: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Juvenile Justice Bulletin. (2001). Hybrid and Other Modern Gangs. Retrieved March 6, 2003 from http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/ jjbul2001_12_1/conclusion.html

Kipa, Julie. (n.d.). Playing Maori at the Gallery. Retrieved March 27, 2003 from http://www.artmaori.com/reviewplay.htm

Landow, George P. (n.d.). Linguistic Hybridity: making a Diction- ary of Singaporean and Malaysian English. Retrieved May 05, 2002 from http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/singa- pore/people/language/sme.html

McLaren, Peter. (1995). Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture.

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New York: Routledge.

Owen, Stephen. (2002). Rethinking “Chinese Culture” The Task for Chinese Humanities. In Harvard Asia Pacific Review. Retrieved March 06, 2003 from http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hapr/summer97_ culture/chineseculture.html

Panoho, Rangihiroa. (1992). Maori: at the centre, on the mar- gins. In Barr, Mary (Ed.). Headlands: thinking through New Zea- land art. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Pound, Francis. (1994). The space between: Pakeha use of Maori motifs in modernist New Zealand art. Auckland: Workshop Press.

Shishido, Scott. (2001). Hui ‘O Hawai’i. Retrieved March 06, 2003 from http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nacc/group-hawaii/hawaii. html

Skoczek, Marianne. (n.d.). Yuki Goto: Effective theatre for a Hy- brid Culture. Retrieved May 15 2002 from http://www.sfsu.edu/ ~allarts/faculty/yukigoto.html

Victoria University. (n.d.). Adam Art Gallery Collection. Retrieved

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Dragon detail, Donna Willard-Moore 2005

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 21st CENTURY PLAGIARISM: THE FACTORS, THE PLAYERS AND THE P 49 IMPROVEMENTS WE CAN MAKE

Megan Dixon

Abstract

‘Plagiarism’ is a common cry from educators who are teaching NESB [Non English Speak- ing Background] students, particularly students from Asia. Plagiarism can be modeled as the overlap of 5 dimensions; class and content factors, personal factors, academic skills, cultural, and language elements. By using this model we can explore factors in- fluencing student plagiarism and discuss possible roles subject tutors and learning advi- sors can play in these areas to improve the learning environment for students as they tackle plagiarism. PERCEPTIONS OF PLAGIARISM

Traditional perceptions of plagiarism are changing as the ideas underpinning it stretch to support an increasingly diverse student body. Tertiary educational institutes need methods of viewing plagiarism that are free from cultural bias, intent and emotion. We need to analyse and model the factors influencing plagiarism in order to help educate students and staff, to change institute perceptions, and to eventually decrease the number of cases.

What constitutes plagiarism is part of the cultural weave of west- ern academic writing and research, but not necessary that of other countries. With the arrival of students from Non English Speaking Backgrounds (NESB), ideas on plagiarism have been challenged and are changing. Park (2003) writes that “it must be taken into account when dealing appropriately with plagiarism by students from different cultural backgrounds, grounded in dif- ferent notions of respect for authority and different traditions of academic writing” (p. 473). Not all researchers agree that inter- national students are more likely to plagiarise. Alam (2004) uses self reporting to conclude NESB and domestic students plagiarise equally, this is based on NESB student and domestic students having the same understanding of what constitutes plagiarism.

The debate as to the extent plagiarism is cultural or language based for NESB students clouds other aspects, such as class management and personal issues. This paper seeks to expand plagiarism into a model made up of five critical dimensions. The five dimensions are:

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• Class and Content • Personal and Personal-Political • Academic Skills • Cultural Perspectives • Language and Literacy.

1. CREATING THE PLAGIARISM MODEL

The Plagiarism Model was initially created by analysing plagia- rism case studies within my teaching institute. A ‘case’ was de- termined to be plagiarism if it met Larkham and Manns’ defini- tion of plagiarism (as cited in Martin, 2005) of poor scholarship, carelessness or deliberate intent. This definition encompasses a wide range of situations and therefore a wider range of factors could be included in the model. The majority of cases centered on cut and copying tracts from the internet for assignments, al- though other cases were examined, including cheating in tests and collaboration on individual work. Conversations with subject tutors and students generated possible reasons for the plagia- rism behaviour, termed ‘factors’. These factors were grouped

Figure 1: The Five Dimensions of Plagiarism

Limitations & Characteristics of the Plagiarism Model Each of the circles in the model (Figure 1) represents a dimension of plagiarism. The dimensions overlap, that is, each dimension influences others. For example, the Personal Dimension will influ-

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ence how the student perceives their class and how readily they take on academic skills. This means that the model is a simplifi- cation of reality because it does not seek to analyse the relation- ship between the dimensions or between the factors within these. The extent to which the dimensions overlap is unknown and so an area for further study.

A single cause of plagiarism may be present in a number of di- mensions i.e. a student who is “running out of time” on an as- signment, and consequently plagiarises, the plagiarism could be from a lack of time management skills (Academic Skill) and/or an unreasonable workload (Class and Content). For this reason, elimination of a single dimension may not necessarily reduce pla- giarism; however an understanding by staff about these dimen- sions and a reduction across the institute of all the factors will reduce the incidence of plagiarism.

2. DISCUSSION OF THE FIVE DIMENSIONS OF THE PLAGIARISM MODEL

i. The Class and Content Dimension

The Class and Content dimension is how students perceive the classroom environment and how ‘student friendly’ the lesson is. Mawdsley points out that this also means the agreement between the student and tutor on the subject matter and the use of that subject matter (as cited in Myers, 1998). Factors which contrib- ute to plagiarism within this dimension are course difficulty and workload (Thomas, 2004; Dawson, 2004; Lipson & McGavern, 1993), unfamiliar discourse; competition for grades (Love & Sim- mons, 1998; Lipson & McGavern, 1993); assignment type (Love & Simmons, 1998; Alam, 2004); and a lack of knowledge, inter- est and understanding in the course (Alam, 2004).

The largest factor in the Class and Content dimension is a lack of knowledge, interest and or understanding in the course. Alam found 41% of students cited this as a major factor in plagiaris- ing. To address this, institutes need to review their course and assessment design focusing on these three aspects. As part of this review, the roles of faculty need to be clearly defined. Han- nabuss (2001) notes two roles, one as gatekeepers, the other as facilitators. As gatekeepers, the emphasis on plagiarism is on detection and punishment with little self-reflection of the course content and design. Conversely, as facilitators the aim is to edu- cate students, training them in the discipline and drawing them into a ‘culture of enquiry’. It is crucial that tutors hold this view

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as it affects the way students view the course and the extent to which tutors encourage students with their learning.

The key here is for teachers and tutors to provide information, models and samples to assist students to feel confident of what is expected and their ability to do it. Learning advisors and subject tutors who scaffold assessments build confidence in their stu- dents by breaking daunting tasks into more manageable learning units. Subject tutors need to arrive at a consensus with students on the subject matter and its use. Learning advisors can provide models of the assessment types, clarify the learning outcomes for the course, and help students manage their assessments.

ii. The Language and Literacy Dimension

Literacy is the involvement and interaction in knowledge commu- nities (Kuhn as cited in Singh, 2003); language is the vehicle to enable these interactions. Without language skills, students will struggle to interact in knowledge communities. Students need an ability to understand context and details of information and translate these into coherent, mainly written, work. Therefore, low English skills will accompany plagiarism (Lahur, 2004).

Language often dominates the discussions of international stu- dent success, and for good reason, as international students in particular are still acquiring skills with syntax and effective expression. After analysing six courses, Bretag, Horrocks and Smith confirm, “without exception, each of the case studies con- cludes that English proficiency is the dominant issue faced by international students” (2002, p. 61). This raises many questions for institutes regarding what English proficiency level is required and what language development is anticipated over the course. Institutes need to examine their entry criteria so students are not set up to fail by being in a position which requires them to plagiarise in order to pass. In relation to this, what responsibility do departments and student support services have once students are accepted onto a course with an English level of IELTS 6 or a TOFEL of 580 (a common English language entry level for an un- dergraduate degree)?

However, this dimension does not only affect NESB students, Dawson (2004) discusses difficulty in reading “boring” and “ab- stract” text and academic vocabulary. Students need to be effec- tive critical readers able to identify key points, yet texts are sel- dom elaborated on during lessons. Torres and Roigs’ 2005 study found difficult texts do not significantly assist learning whether

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the student paraphrases or plagiarises the text. Subject Tutors and Learning Advisors should provide reading and information at different language levels, assisting students to interact with texts, and to practice language and literacy outside of assess- ment tasks.

iii. Cultural Perspectives Dimension

Cultural perspectives with regard to plagiarism are the differing roles, expectations and behaviours of tutors and students due to the different backgrounds and cultural values of these groups.

Often when examining cultural perspectives we look into the his- tory of copyright from a western perspective. That plagiarism is ‘wrong’ has been built into many centuries of western thinking. The rights of an individual, or a publisher, to an ‘idea’ or ‘thought’ (from the 17th Century) were the beginnings of intellectual prop- erty laws – noticeably all born in ‘the west’. It is interesting to examine recent perspectives on plagiarism in Asia. A recent pla- giarism case at Beijing University shows differences in thinking with regard to ownership and scholarship. The case centers on an anthropology professor, Wang Mingming, who was accused of plagiarising 100,000 words from an American academic. A very public debate in Chinese academic circles ensued in Janu- ary 2002. Jiang (2002) elaborated on this situation because it highlights plagiarism policy in China, and responses from Wang’s contemporaries and Chinese student’s on plagiarism. In 2002, Beijing University adopted a written rule on plagiarism; the first time that a Chinese university had done so. This is surprising given that Beijing University is one of China’s most prestigious universities and most likely to have such policies. Students at Beijing said plagiarism generally goes “undetected and unpun- ished” (Jiang, 2002, p. A45). The reasons for this may lie in the attitudes of staff towards plagiarism. The responses of Wang’s contemporaries show plagiarism in terms of social relations rath- er than Western reactions of ethics. Cited in the article was Deng Miaomang, philosophy professor at Wuhan University, who said “Mr Wang was a victim of jealous peers, and that Mr Wang’s real crime was arrogance. If Mr Wang has better relations with his peers, this would not have happened.” Huang Jisu, a sociologist, stated, “I’m not surprised that Wang Mingming finds himself in such a mess. He has plenty of enemies, but no friends” and a professor from Beijing Normal suggested the centre had “too much power and independence, which led to the accusations”. The thinking, responses and repercussions for students engaging in plagiarism in China are different from New Zealand. For stu-

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dents moving to a new culture to study, there can be a wide gap between past and present acceptable behaviour and educational experience.

The key to improved cultural understanding is initially an aware- ness of the different perspectives, flexibility and time as students move towards new expectations. Most importantly, these expec- tations must be made known to students. Learning advisors must model good practice and encourage modelling of good practice at their institute. They have to provide support early so students do not find themselves unknowingly accused of plagiarism.

The onus is also on NESB students to decide whether to learn new skills and choose whether to incorporate western plagiarism thinking into their value system. As Myers (1998) points out, “teaching the conventions of writing in English is also a form of social instruction; and the conventions surrounding the notions of plagiarism and intellectual property have especially powerful economic and political ramifications” (p.3). If students choose to make changes, learning advisors can support them by making the NZ education culture known to students and help students with academic writing and construction.

iv. Personal and Personal-Political Dimension

Personal and personal-political factors are internally driven. Per- sonal factors include the motivation of the student, their drive for efficiency, personal confidence levels and the desire to learn (Love & Simmons, 1998; Dawson, 2004). Love and Simmons state that other factors are more significant in leading to pla- giarism than personal factors. Therefore, a student’s personal- ity will enhance or negate the likelihood of plagiarism in other dimensions. For example, a student’s confidence in language and literacy or his or her willingness to improve academic skills is based on a personal dimension.

Personal-political factors arise when a student examines the val- ue of learning and the assessment processes. Sara Biggs Chaney (2004) describes a situation when teaching in an American uni- versity where one of her students plagiarised to challenge the assessment procedures (the student believed tutors overused essays for assessments). In a teaching reflection, Biggs Chaney discusses why the student may have chosen to plagiarise listing; “lived reality versus academic expectations”(p.35), “fundamen- tally negative attitude” (p.31), and power issues. As a solution, she suggests the importance of listening and helping students

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to express their discontentment through other channels within the institute; ones in which students can receive an authentic reply. International students and students from non-traditional backgrounds may also face a tension to ‘retain linguistic and cul- tural identity” (Dawson, 2004; Evans & Youmans, 2002; Maizey, 2001). This is heightened when they perceive their views as be- ing absent or under represented at the institute (Mills, 2004).

These factors will never be eliminated; however, improvements can be made in matching expectations of the course with the stu- dent. Subject tutors may provide incentives and allow for self- determination, where possible (Lahur, 2004). Learning advisors can emphasise learning to enhance student motivation, and help students seek solutions by having their views represented within the institute.

v. Academic Skills

The final dimension of the plagiarism model is academic skills. This is a dimension on which learning advisors particularly want to improve. Students with academic skills need to be able to display their knowledge and competences to the subject tutor. Failure in this area is a significant cause of plagiarism. Research diverges on the most significant factor within this dimension. Mollers and Grootheddes’ survey (2003), found time management and dead- lines were the key factors in the decision to plagiarise; while Lahur’s study of NESB students found referencing skills were the main problem (2003).

Students need to know and use, the sometimes-complex aca- demic writing conventions, such as referencing and use of ‘voice’. As an example of the complexity of western writing conventions, the Purdue University website on plagiarism offers students ad- vice that may be viewed as contradictory and complex. The site advises using research and reading authorities, to contribute to original work and if necessary to disagree with experts. It advis- es on when to document sources and on making decisions about what is common knowledge (OWL at Purdue University and Pur- due University, 1995-2003). Considering many NESB students have not heard the terms ‘referencing’ ‘citation’ and even ‘plagia- rism’, there is additional difficulty with navigating these conven- tions (Dixon, 2005).

A further example of academic skills is the use of ‘voice’ in stu- dent writing. Strauss and Walton (2005) describe voice as the author’s perspective. The use of voice in writing is based on

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culture and language. In an experiment with young Chinese and American children, Chinese children used three times less “I” statements than American children when reporting daily events, and American children made more references to their own prefer- ences and emotions (Nisbett, 2003). This early training in voice may make layering of texts and voice simpler in tertiary study for domestic students.

Students obviously need skills in paraphrasing and citation. Once students understand the rules and processes governing para- phrasing they need to know how to apply them. Unfortunately, many students misunderstand paraphrasing and a significant number can not identify differences in paraphrased and plagia- rised work. These students are unlikely to be able to write cor- rectly cited work. Focus group discussion confirmed the preva- lence of the misconception among students (especially among students whose first language is not English) that paraphrasing is essentially a process of omitting and changing words in the text, rather than the intellectual assimilation, reprocessing and rearticulation of source material (Ventola, 1996 as cited in Daw- son, 2004, p. 4). Roig (1997) used 2 studies of undergradu- ate students, NESB and domestic, to determine if students could identify plagiarised paragraphs from correctly paraphrased ones. He found a quarter of the students could not correctly identify plagiarised paragraphs. In fact, only 4% managed to categorise all the paragraphs correctly. There was mass confusion in ability to determine plagiarized text. Work by Alam (2004), Anyanwu (2004), Lahur (2004) and Dawson (2004) confirm this difficulty. Students need interaction and discourse with tutors and to prac- tice paraphrasing outside of assessment tasks.

As students may not realise they are paraphrasing and citing incorrectly, improving outcomes in the Learning Skills dimen- sion is particularly important for reducing non-deliberate plagia- rism. Learning advisors have important work to do in enhancing students’ learning skills; supporting students with planning and managing their time, researching, note taking, correcting mis- conceptions of paraphrasing processes, and creating opportuni- ties for dialogue with students regarding correct paraphrasing and referencing.

3. USE OF THE PLAGIARISM MODEL

The onus is often on students to make changes; however, exam- ining these dimensions it is obvious that there are also obliga- tions on the institutes to transform courses, to educate staff and

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to open the discussion of plagiarism into the realms of education and out of the detection and punishment paradigm. Education may be reactive - analysing plagiarism cases as they present; and proactive - looking at what institutes can do within each di- mension.

The Plagiarism Model can be used to evaluate alleged plagiarism offences. Analyzing a plagiarism case according to all the dimen- sions ensures solutions for the student, and the institute, cover all the factors likely to make a difference for that student. The student can then be provided with opportunities to develop skills needed in these areas, which opens the doors for educational success for the student.

The Plagiarism Model can also be used to examine what students, institutes, tutors, and learning advisors can do to improve stu- dent and staff work within the area of plagiarism. The Learning Centre at WITT provides a range of excellent resources on refer- encing but more focus is needed on helping students to actively practise paraphrasing. Within the Class and Content dimension we provide samples of student essays which have been marked with comments to help students understand the discourse re- quired, however, we do little to help students negotiate workload with their departments or work with departments to examine workload issues. In this way the model becomes a vehicle for proactive improvements in student success by reducing factors for plagiarism.

Further, the model could be developed to enable institutes to rank their courses to estimate which courses are likely to suffer plagiarism. Then these courses could be targeted for plagiarism improvement strategies.

CONCLUSION

Plagiarism cannot be reduced to a single dimension, it is multi- faceted and to single out one issue will not improve outcomes for students and institutes. Twenty-first century plagiarism is going beyond the ideas of intent and moral – it must look into the fac- tors that contribute to student plagiarism and develop strategies that help institutes, staff and students to move forward in educa- tion.

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References

Alam, L. S. (2004). Is plagiarism more prevalent in some form of assessment than others? [Electronic version]. In R. Atkin- son, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds.), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 48-57). Perth, Australia: ASCILITE.

Anyanwu, R. (2004). Lessons on plagiarism: Issues for teach- ers and learners. [Electronic version]. In International Education Journal, Educational Research Conference 2005, Special Issue, 4 (4), 178-187.

Biggs Chaney, S. (2004). Study of teacher error: Misreading re- sistance in the basic writing classroom. Journal of Basic Writing 23(1) 25-38. Retrieved August 21, 2005, from ProQuest data- base.

Bretag, T., Horrocks, S., & Smith, J. (2002). Developing class- room practices to support NESB students in Information Systems Courses: Some preliminary findings. International Education Journal, 3(4), 57-69.

Dawson, J. (2004). Plagiarism: What’s really going on? In Seeking Educational Excellence proceedings of the 13th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 9-10 February 2004. Perth, Australia: Murdoch University.

Dixon, M. (2005). Classroom shock: Your guide to teaching Asian students. New Plymouth, New Zealand: Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki.

Evans, B., & Youmans, M. (2002). ESL writers discuss plagiarism: The social construction of ideologies in Boston University Journal of Education 182(3), 49-65. Retrieved February 23, 2005, from ProQuest database.

Hannabuss, S. (2001). Contested texts: Issues of plagiarism. In Library Management, 22(6-7), 311-318. Retrieved September 5, 2005, from ProQuest database.

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Jiang, X. (2002, May 17). Chinese academics consider a ‘culture of copying’. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, 48 (36), pg. A45.

Lahur, A. M. (2004). Plagiarism among Asian students at an Aus- tralian university offshore campus: Is it a cultural issue? A pilot study. [Electronic version]. In HERDSA 2005 Conference proceed- ings, 3-6 July. Sydney, Australia: HERDSA.

Lipson, A. B., & McGavern, N. (1993). Undergraduate academic dishonesty at MIT: Results of a study of attitudes and behav- iour of undergraduates, faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED368272).

Love, P. G., & Simmons, J. (1998). Factors influencing cheating and plagiarism among graduate students in a college of educa- tion. In College Student Journal, 32 (4), 539-551. Retrieved Oc- tober 18, 2005, from ProQuest database.

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Mills, S. (2004). Chasing the learning curve: Challenges and strategies of academic support staff who work with indigenous tertiary students in off campus study centres in regional south Australia. Changing Identities.

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Nisbett, R.E. (2003). The geography of thought; How Asians and Westerners think differently and why. New York: The Free Press. OWL at Purdue University and Purdue University (1995-2003). Avoiding plagiarism. Retrieved August 18, 2003, from http:// owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ print/research/r_plagiar.html

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versity students – Literature and lessons. In Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28 (5), 471-488. Retrieved May 3, 2005, from ProQuest database.

Roig, M. (1997). Can undergraduate students determine whether text has been plagiarized? In Psychological Record, 47 (1), 113- 123. Retrieved October 18, 2005, from ProQuest database.

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Strauss, P., & Walton, J. (2005). Authorship, voice and the EAL thesis. In E. Manalo & G. Wong-Toi (Eds.) (2005), Communication Skills in University Education (pp57-61). Auckland, New Zealand: Pearson Education.

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There is a she inside of me deep, deep down locked away screaming screeching seeking a voice some words so she can tell the world the stories she knows.

Lesley Pitt

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES P 62

Aim Te Iarere Wavelength provides a forum for the publication of articles and creative works by current WITT staff members. Co-authored articles, in which one or more of the au- thors is either a WITT student or a non-WITT employee, will also be considered.

Submissions are not limited to activity related directly or indirectly to WITT programmes of study. Any subject of general interest on which sensible and well-informed opinions may be expressed, and creative works e.g. short stories and graphic images, will be considered for publication.

Readership Te Iarere Wavelength is published in twice yearly. A limited number of copies are distributed to WITT departments, divisions and service areas; some are distributed externally. Additional copies are printed if required.

Editorial Committee An editorial committee drawn from Research Committee members receive and peer- review each work submitted for publication. The committee may seek specialist exter- nal opinion where this is deemed to be helpful or necessary.

The editorial committee reserves the right to accept, edit or decline any piece of work submitted for consideration, and to seek clarification of meaning, where appropriate. A call for submissions is made three months prior to publication.

Articles (including print based creative works) Articles may be submitted by an individual author, or under joint authorship. Articles of any length will be considered but a norm of 2,500 words is seen as most appropri- ate.

All articles should be submitted electronically, preferably as a Word document. Articles should be presented in single-line spacing in 10pt Verdana font. Headings should be printed in bold type, in 10pt Verdana font. Any footnotes and references should follow the American Psychological Association (APA) format. Copies of the WITT APA Refer- encing Guide are available electronically on Moodle, or in hard copy at the Learning Centre.

Articles should not normally be submitted if they have been published elsewhere. In the case of prior publication, permission must be sought and obtained from the original publisher before the article is submitted to the editorial committee. Submissions to: Thilani Nissanga, Research Co-ordinator. [email protected].

Graphics Any written text accompanying graphics should follow the same guidelines as per the section “Articles (including print based creative works)”, above. Graphic images them- selves should be supplied in JPG or TIF format at no less than 300dpi. The require- ments for submission of graphics are as per “Articles (including print based creative works)” above.

TE IARERE WAVELENGTH Issue 1 WINTER 2006