science

New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study rather than just read about it. In short: The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) is a longitudinal study conducted in New Zealand. The NZAVS was started in 2009 by Chris Sibley, a professor in psychology at the University of Auckland.

Key takeaways

New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) is a longitudinal study conducted in New Zealand. The NZAVS was started in 2009 by Chris Sibley, a professor in psychology at the University of Auckland. The NZAVS was inspired by major social surveys conducted internationally, such as the National Election Studies, the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey, and aims to provide a similar resource for New Zealand. As of January 29, 2024, the NZAVS research team had published over 250 peer reviewed publications using data from the study.

Sample details

Questionnaires The NZAVS uses a self-report inventory to collect information. The questionnaire is administered via both postal mail and an online survey. The NZAVS includes a large range of scales including those measuring self-esteem, national and personal wellbeing, satisfaction with life, religious beliefs, personality, psychological distress, ideologies, political and environmental attitudes.

Data structure The NZAVS has a nested data structure. Participants are modeled as the Level 1 or lower-level unit. The NZAVS contains geographic information from mesh blocks for each participant. Mesh blocks contain information about each participants local neighborhood based on census data from each mesh block. This information is modeled as the Level 2, or higher-level unit in many of the NZAVS research papers. Mesh blocks are small geographic area units, each containing roughly 100 people, with defined boundaries. Each mesh block is in turn nested within larger census area units (CAU; roughly 1000 people in size). Statistics New Zealand provide detailed demographic information about the population of each mesh block based on census data, such as median income, ethnic proportions and size, religious affiliation, etc. This information is integrated into the NZAVS datasets. Of particular note are the New Zealand Deprivation Index (an index of poverty or socio-economic status based on a principal components analysis of indicators of deprivation for each area unit); and a CAU-based Gini coefficient derived by Chris Sibley for use in the NZAVS, which provides an indicator of the income disparity within each region of New Zealand.

Data analysis The NZAVS is a quantitative study, and data analysis for the NZAVS is conducted primarily in Mplus. Scripts outlining the statistical models developed using data from the NZAVS are provided online at the official NZAVS Open Science Framework page. These scripts are provided to help promote research collaboration and transparency in data analysis. The study employs many different types of statistical analyses, including Latent Growth Modeling, Bayesian Linear Regression, Structural Equation Modeling, and analyses employing Mixture model and Multilevel model designs.

Key findings The NZAVS has been central in answering a variety of important research questions. This section lists research findings from the NZAVS that have received academic and media attention.

COVID-19 Lockdowns in New Zealand Data from the NZAVS has been used to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on attitudes towards the government and institutional trust, as well as health and well-being.

The March 15th Christchurch Terrorist Attack Following the terrorist attack in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, data from the NZAVS has been used to examine attitudes towards Muslims and satisfaction with the government.

Religion and the Christchurch earthquakes NZAVS researchers Joseph Bulbulia and Chris Sibley published a study in PLoS ONE looking at how the Christchurch earthquakes may be linked to change in religious affiliation.

Personality in New Zealand Data from the NZAVS has also been used to help validate and extend a public domain personality test assessing the Big-Six dimensions of personality in New Zealand. This personality scale is known as the Mini-IPIP6, and is based on the International Personality Item Pool. The Mini-IPIP6 is a 24-item self-report personality measure, which extends the original Big-Five Mini-IPIP scale to also include a sixth dimension of personality based on the HEXACO model of personality structure. The Mini-IPIP provides marker items for the following six dimensions of personality: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, and Honesty-humility. The Mini-IPIP6 has been validated for use in New Zealand in a series of peer-reviewed publications, and is in the public domain.

The Multi-dimensional Model of Māori and Cultural Engagement NZAVS researchers Carla Houkamau and Chris Sibley have also used data from the NZAVS to help design programmes that benefit Māori people particularly in relation to health and education. They studied Māori identity and the factors that make Māori feel positive about themselves and Māori culture. This identity scale is known as the Multi-dimensional Model of Māori Identity and Cultural Engagement (MMM-ICE) and consists of six dimensions;(1) Group Membership Evaluation, (2) Socio-Political Consciousness, (3) Cultural Efficacy and Active Identity Engagement, (4) Spirituality, (5) Interdependent Self-Concept, and (6) Authenticity Beliefs.

The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale Sam Manuela, a senior lecturer from the University of Auckland, used the NZAVS data as part of his doctoral thesis to develop a culturally sensitive self-report inventory to assess identity and subjective well-being among Pacific populations in New Zealand. The measure, known as The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale, assesses five distinct, yet interconnected dimensions of Pacific identity and wellbeing; (1) Group Membership Evaluation, (2) Pacific Connectedness and Belonging, (3) Religious Centrality and Embeddedness, (4) Perceived Familial Wellbeing, (5) Perceived Societal Wellbeing.

See also Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study - another study on personality based in New Zealand Growing Up in New Zealand - New Zealand's largest contemporary study of child development including personality

References

External links New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study Facebook Page The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study Open Science Framework

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

In research: New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Observational study, Political psychology, Research in New Zealand, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study in simple terms?

Why does New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study.