CORA
Cork Open Research Archive (CORA) is UCC’s Open Access institutional repository which enables UCC researchers to make their research outputs freely available and accessible.
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Considering connectivism in student learning and engagement: lessons from a contemporary Irish second-level school
(University College Cork, 2025-12-15) Kavanagh, Emma; MacCarron, Mairin; Murphy, Orla; Chambers, Fiona; The Teaching Council of Ireland
Technology is central to how we plan for teaching and learning at second level today, but the issue of how best to integrate digital resources and devices with more traditional methods in a blended learning context, is complex and multi-faceted. Teaching and learning via technology involve a different set of skills than have been traditionally taught in second level schools, requiring students and teachers alike to have the ability to adapt to changes and developments while engaging in learning for life. Added to this is the growing realisation among educational professionals that the young people we teach today are also evolving in terms of their attitudes to technology and approaches to learning. As educators, we are tasked with redesigning policy and practice in order to create meaningful learning experiences which address the needs, strengths, values and beliefs of this and future generations of learners. This research explored aspects of these challenges by examining how students in the research school learn using digital devices such as PCs and smartphones when compared to traditional resources. Examination of student engagement, behaviours and outcomes during the completion of tasks in the subject areas of English and Geography, and of student voice as represented in the reflective responses of surveys and in focus groups, demonstrated the emergence of an increasingly connectivist and self-directed approach to learning in our students. The contributions of students, teachers and digital resource creators informed conclusions about the readiness of students and teachers in the research school, and in our school communities generally, to fulfil the Minister’s stated intention in the Digital Strategy to 2027 to “equip our students and young people with the key digital skills required to enhance and enrich their pathway through life.”
Unpacking social network dynamics among Chinese sojourners in Ireland: an ecological perspective on group and individual experiences
(University College Cork, 2025-12-30) Xiao, Yuyao; Siller, Barbara; Devlin, Anne Marie; China Scholarship Council
The present study investigates the study abroad (SA) experiences of Chinese university-level sojourners in Ireland, focusing on their trajectories of social network construction and the language learning affordances (LLAs) that emerged throughout their stay, as well as the impact of these experiences on their self-perceived English ability. While previous research has primarily explored how individual factors shape international students’ experiences and outcomes, an ecological perspective highlights that SA experiences are shaped by a complex interplay of diverse and interconnected elements. Grounded in this perspective, which foregrounds affordances, agency, and space, and incorporates the concept of habitus, this study examines the intricate interactions between Chinese international students and the various contexts they inhabited across their stay abroad, such as classrooms, accommodations, and social media platforms.
A longitudinal ethnographic-informed case study was conducted with two groups of Chinese sojourners in Ireland: group-based diploma-seeking undergraduates (n=5) and individual-based diploma-seeking postgraduates (n=3). Data were generated using a triad of methods: 1. group observations and shadowing throughout the academic year; 2. individual social network surveys carried out at four points during the SA; 3. three follow-up semi-structured individual interviews conducted after the surveys.
The data subsequently underwent analysis utilising a number of different tools. In terms of participants’ social networks, two analytic procedures were adopted: ranking the closeness and frequency of interactions between participants and their social actors, and visualising the overall network structures at four time points using social network analysis software Gephi. Longitudinal reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) was employed for the analysis of observations/shadowing and the interview.
Regarding findings, the social network surveys indicate that, contrary to participants’ initial expectations of forming friendships with many non-Chinese peers while limiting interactions with co-nationals, undergraduate participants demonstrated highly enclosed networks centred almost exclusively on fellow Chinese classmates within their programme. Postgraduate participants also maintained networks centred around Chinese peers within the Taught Postgraduate programme, but also expanded peripheral connections to non-Chinese classmates and other friends they newly encountered in the host country. Longitudinal RTA identified six recurring themes influencing social network development across all interview rounds: language barrier, cultural gap, patterns of social engagement, attachment to home and familiar networks, social media practices, and opportunities for cross-cultural engagement. In addition, three further themes emerged in one or two interview rounds: goals for study abroad, pandemic-related actions and adaptations, and academic responsibilities. Collectively, these interrelated factors shaped the ways participants built and maintained their social networks throughout the SA experience. During social interactions, some participants engaged with non-Chinese peers but did not always perceive these interactions as LLAs; factors such as language barrier sometimes led them to perceive these interactions as rejected affordances.
Beyond cross-cultural interpersonal interactions, participants also perceived and utilised language learning affordances through engagement in various everyday contexts and activities. However, participants’ engagement with LLAs in everyday contexts was also selective. Limited utilisation of LLAs during SA meant participants reported modest gains in self-perceived English ability, although they developed greater awareness of the distinctions between academic and everyday English and enhanced confidence in informal English use.
Overall, participants’ patterns of social network development and engagement with LLAs during SA were shaped by their habitus, itself formed through prior socio-cultural and educational experiences. This highlights the importance of considering participants’ home-country-formed dispositions and socio-cultural contexts when supporting international students’ engagement with practical language opportunities abroad. The study is limited by its small-scale, context-specific design, which may not generalise to Chinese students with different backgrounds studying in other countries.
Transition to self-management of chronic conditions: a study of the lived experiences of young people, their family members, and caregivers
(University College Cork, 2025-12-21) Leocadio, Paula; Kelleher, Carol; Hawkes, Colin P.; Fernández, Eluska; Cork University Hospital Charity Foundation; University College Cork; Irish Research Council
Background
Transitions are periods of change that mark the movement from one life phase, situation, or status to another. Those related to health and illness have been characterized as complex and multidimensional, involving extended periods of adjustment that may harm well-being and negatively affect healthcare consumption. For young people, the transition to self-management of chronic conditions coincides with a mix of bio-psycho-social factors associated with individual development and other life transitions that can compromise self-management and continuity of care. This can lead to serious short-term and long-term health complications that can significantly affect young people and undermine the effectiveness of healthcare services in delivering quality care.
Study Design
The present dissertation takes the structure of a publication-based thesis. Manuscript I presents a systematic literature review that syntheses existing research on the lived experiences of young people, their family members, and caregivers during the transition to self-management of chronic conditions. Findings from this review informed the conceptual framing and methodological development of this dissertation. Manuscript II addresses the methodological limitations in extant research on the transition to self-management. Manuscript III adopts a multi-method qualitative approach that combines in-depth interviews and graphic elicitation workshops to explore and elucidate how the transition to self-management is experienced and negotiated over time. Finally, Manuscript IV advances a partnership-oriented approach to developing effective supports and interventions by purposefully involving young people, family members, and caregivers in matters that impact them.
Findings
The overarching findings from this research reveal that the transition to self-management of chronic conditions is non-linear and recursive, marked by shifting relational dynamics, fluctuating readiness, and evolving care demands. In this way, the argument is made that transitioning to self-management of chronic conditions unfolds through negotiations and interdependencies among young people, family members, caregivers, peers, and healthcare professionals.
Contributions
Conceptually, this research advances a relational theoretical lens on health-illness transitions that critiques the persistent dominance of individualistic assumptions across marketing and healthcare research. Empirically, the overall findings of this research reveal the underexplored social embeddedness that shapes health-illness transitions and influences well-being outcomes. Methodologically, this research advances context-sensitive and reflexive inquiry in line with inclusive research practices in marketing to address limitations of static, snapshot views of individuals’ lived experiences. Practically, this research suggests that the relational dynamics shaping health-illness transitions are highly relevant for current efforts to improve service design and delivery.
Deaths of despair in Irish prisons and beyond: a necropolitical analysis
(2026-06-23) Meade, Rosie R.; Kiely, Elizabeth; Swirak, Katharina
In the Republic of Ireland, the Prison Service is officially charged with ensuring the safety, security and dignity of the people who are imprisoned within its institutions and with creating an environment that facilitates rehabilitation. This article argues that this mission is substantively undermined by the necropolitical forces at work in and around Irish prisons. Written just as the Irish government plans to embark on the largest prison expansion project in the history of the state, our analysis is informed by an international literature that recognises the central role played by carceral institutions in both the expression and normalisation of state-sanctioned necropolitical violence. The article highlights the impoverished vision of “security” that is privileged within “build more prisons” discourses: the Irish government’s promised expansion of prison spaces occurs at a time when the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) has been recorded as rowing back on existing commitments to climate change policy. We see these tendencies as related, with the latter underplaying the gravity of what this Special Issue’s Call for Papers calls the “environmental basis of survival,” while the former serves as the ideological red meat of populist diversion. Against such trends, and informed and inspired by ecological abolitionist politics, we argue for a multi-scalar conception of security that embraces and acknowledges the interdependence of environmental, economic and social justice. Empirically, we show how the prison institution operates at the sharp end of a biopolitical and necropolitical continuum, beginning with communities beset by problems associated with economic inequality, lack of housing, poverty, and material oppression, upon whom disposability is conferred. The Irish state’s penal and social policies and rhetoric serve to maintain this necropolitical status quo by insisting that the carceral space of the prison is essential for “security” and for some lives to flourish. At the same time, the state’s structural violence generates conditions whereby the same constituencies of predominantly poor people circulate in and out of prison. Thus, we show how the Irish prison institution operates as a death-world, a reality that is persistently effaced or denied via official and academic claims that Ireland is moderate or pragmatic in its punitiveness.
Planetary Necropolitics: ecological and social challenges and conflicts across the world
(2026-06-23) Meade, Rosie R.; Souza, Marcelo Lopes de