Research methods and Bibliography

Marae values and the whakapapa methodology
Of primary importance to us is the relationships with marae communities, either those with whom we have whakapapa (genealogical) connections, or marae with whom we are working and do not have whakapapa connections.  From a practice perspective, we applied a whakapapa methodology, but whakapapa in its broader philosophical sense is a relational concept that structures and orders all things within the universe, from the gods, the ancestral beings to mortal human life and environmental world around us.  Te Whata (2021, p.15) quoting Keenan adds, “whakapapa as the epistemological infrastructure of all Māori knowledge related to the past and present.” It therefore gives framing to time and space and to human relationships (Walker 1990, Royal 1998, Haami and Roberts 2002, Kawharu and Newman 2018, Mahuika 2019). Roberts and Fairweather (2004, p.19) expand on whakapapa where it;

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“provides an understanding of how the world works...if you can trace the history of your origins or that of an organism or thing, you will gain an understanding of how things came to be and what is their place in the world, i.e. it is not just about the origins of things but the correct relationships of things one to another; this is all in the whakapapa. This knowledge can be used to make culturally safe decisions…” 

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Their last point regarding decision-making is important as whakapapa helps to situate information, knowledge, understanding, behaviour and actions and applies equally in research processes.  For example,  regarding the secondary school surveys we conducted, the survey responses have relationships to each other and help to contextualise the world of taiohi (youth; adolescent) and how they regard their marae, their ancestral connections, values and stories. The collective responses of a school and of wider cohorts help to formulate understanding about taiohi perspectives on needs and issues for kura (school), marae and researcher responses, while researcher and kura relationships develop their own whakapapa along a trajectory of engagement and action that’s meaningful for each.

Whakapapa also meant recognising the importance of relationships between us and our people in a continuum, not as dichotomous participant observers and community (either kura or marae) participants, or as objective detached researchers coming into to a community for a moment in time to undertake fieldwork and then leaving without returning, or with no sense of accountability to return research findings. As kaumātua Māori Marsden described, Māori research processes is a subjective engagement (Marsden 1992), where one is fully attached. These values are particularly strong in relation to marae. But we approach schools in a similar manner. Relationships are equally important, and we recognise each school’s circumstances which in all cases meant considerable busyness and accommodation of time to enable our project to proceed, even when there was much support for it in every case. 

This brings us to two related principles of whakapapa methods that apply: mana: recognising the status, authority, perspective and position of each (community, school) and manaakitanga: recognising the importance of hospitality, kindness and generosity as principles to undertake the research.

In all cases, we returned findings to schools and communities, and remain available to all for any further follow up work that might aid in the implementation of recommendations that have arisen from the research. This dimension of research derives from a sense of ongoing accountability (Tane 2018 pp 45-48) to marae and schools, not least because the latter teach our taitamariki – the children – of marae. What accountability looks like will be determined in time to come, but we remain open to discussions, irrespective of contracts and formal deliverables otherwise expected of research programmes.

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Participant types in this research were three-fold
(a)    Rangatahi aged between 13 and 18 years, living in an urban area and attending a single sex mixed/co-ed school,
(b)    Māori community/kāinga members, kaumatua and kuia,
(c)    School teachers/Māori school programme leaders
     
Sampling procedures
Purposeful sampling was used to find and assemble our tamariki survey population. Subpopulations were drawn from schools in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Rotorua. These schools were selected as they have sizable proportions of Māori students within their respective school rolls. Sample population/ schools were recruited using a combination of local community, iwi, hapu, whānau, professional and personal connections. Team members used face to face, telephone, zoom and email methods to recruit kura. M ā ori marae community members, schoolteachers and administrators were also recruited using the above methods. 
 

Survey sample size
Eight schools were surveyed resulting in a total of 362 responses.

Data collection methods
Student data was collected using Qualtrics online/offline quantitative and qualitative survey software. In Six schools, a research team (or individual team member i.e. PI or AI) would run the survey using an array of laptops, mobile phones and desktop computers. This was done in the/a class setting with the assistance or guidance of a Māori teacher/mātua. Two schools were surveyed using the same technology as above but were guided by mātua/whaea/Māori programme leaders.

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Research design 
The key goals of the survey were community consultation; the formulation of valid and testable hypotheses/research questions; an appropriate sampling strategy; the development of methodology, methods and data gathering tools; data analysis strategy/tools and the recruitment of schools with a proportionally sizable young Māori population. The research design was based on the principles of Kaupapa Māori/Whakapapa methods. The survey content, themes, questions and wording underwent multiple internal (research team members), peer reviews and external (Māori educator) consultation, testing and subsequent revisions.

 
The survey had 83 questions that investigated and provided, demographic information about taitamariki, (include) their knowledge of their whanau and or care givers iwi, their capacity to identify their marae, evidence of that capacity, their strength of connection to their marae,  number of marae per person, distances between individual schools and tamariki marae reasons they have been to their marae, reasons why they don’t visit their marae or pā more regularly, places where tamariki learn tikanga, te reo, stories and or Māori history, their strategies and activities that  would draw them and other Māori youth closer to their marae or pā. Web based activities that would draw them and other Māori youth closer to their marae or pa. Web based activities/resources/ideas would help tamariki find out about what marae they are connected to.

 
Measurement tools were a combination of single possible response, multiple possible response, and qualitative response question types. A multi-level, geo-specific dropdown list of all 773 tribal marae/pā was imbedded in the survey body to allow and assist tamariki to select their marae. This tool was developed in cooperation with Māori maps.com. This ‘point and click’ tool controlled for the possible variations of written responses of marae names.  The tool was also used to calculate geo distance between kura and marae using the Latitude-Longitude coordinates of (a) kura sourced from Ministry of Education- Education Counts web page (https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/directories/list-of-nz-schools) and (b) the Lat-Long coordinates of ancestral marae provided by Māori Maps (Māori Maps 2024)

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Data processing and diagnostics
Survey data was exported from Qualtrics online as an Excel file where it underwent a thorough cleaning process. This allowed for the removal/correction of outlier values and standardisation of spelling within key variable contents such as school and marae names. These processes are necessary for the comparison within and between variables.

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Data analysis strategy
Quantitative analysis methods included proportional comparison within and between numerical variables (Curtis 2011, Cotterell, von Randow et al. 2013). This was undertaken the individual school and summary school data level. Quantitative analysis methods included proportional comparison within and between quantitative variables within the individual schools and summary school data (Statistics New Zealand 2005, Bryman 2016, Chen 2021). One of our hypotheses is that greater geographical distance plays a central barrier to (young) Māori to their turangawaewae (O'Carroll 2013). We therefore calculated and compared geographical distances between each rangatahi and all of their marae using  ACOS(COS(RADIANS functions in Excel (Arif 2023). See also (TINZ 2024). A thematic analysis approach was used to discover commonalities and inconsistences within written survey responses (Bryman 2008, De Vaus 2014, Naeem 2023)

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