This is a report on a study exploring changes in the role of the primary principal since the New Zealand education reforms began in 1989. It looked at principals' own perceptions of their role, in the context of their schools, their work with boards, their experience of the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office, their own professional development and support, and their workloads.
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Research publications
Research publications from our research teams.
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Publication type: Research report
1 June 2011
Publication type: Book
What makes a competent 5-year-old? This book gives a summary of the research report - Competent Children at 5. It highlights the impact, shown in the research findings, of the children's family resources and early childhood experiences on the development of their cognitive, social, communicative, and problem-solving competencies. Thought-provoking and very readable.
13 June 2011
Publication type: Literature review
Immersion education plays a distinct role in language and cultural revitalisation of Māori and other indigenous peoples.
This book summarises research findings on the benefits of immersion education for Māori, their whānau, and their communities.
8 June 2011
Publication type: Research report
This report describes the competencies of 307 children in the Wellington region, just before they started school.
It shows how the children scored for 6 'being' competencies - communication, curiosity, perseverance, social skills with peers, social skills with adults, and individual responsibility - and for 4 'doing' competencies - literacy, mathematics, logical problem-solving, and motor skills.
1 June 2011
Publication type: Research report
How can we help our children to develop their thinking?
This report outlines an early part of the Competent Children project: an action research study of six months in the lives of 10 children aged between 4 and 5 years. Using recent advances in theory about how children learn to think, researchers worked with the children's parents and early childhood education teachers to help them observe the children and plan ways to enhance their learning.
1 June 2011
Publication type: Research report
In August 1988 the New Zealand Government published a policy document on education administration, Tomorrow’s Schools, which shifted responsibility for budget allocation, staff employment, and educational outcomes from government departments and education boards to individual schools.
29 October 2019
Publication type: Research report
The 1993 survey on the impact of the education reforms found
7 June 2011
Publication type: Research report
The study reported here follows up NZCER’s 1992 survey of the initial impact of the introduction of full bulk funding to Kindergartens which began in March that year.
29 October 2019
Publication type: Research report
The Ministry of Education began funding the Competent Children project in 1992. The first stage was a pilot study to try out the interviews, observations, and record-keeping for the main longitudinal study. Researchers observed 7 boys and 12 girls, aged between 4 and 5, in their early childhood education setting. The children did a series of tasks designed to evaluate their skills in a range of areas, and their parents or main caregivers were interviewed.
1 June 2011
Publication type: Research report
The end of the beginning
The material presented in this report comes from NZCER’s third annual survey of people’s experience at school level of the radical Tomorrow’s Schools reforms of educational administration, which began in 1989. Separate questionnaires were sent to principals, trustees, and teachers at 239 schools nationwide, and to parents at 226 of these schools in mind October 1991.
29 October 2019