The following projects are available for Master's theses in 2025 at the Sleep/Wake Research Centre, Massey University, New Zealand.
The recommended amount of sleep for most adults is 7-9 hours per night, but some people sleep less than 7 hours. At the Sleep/Wake Research Centre, we wanted to find out why those people are short sleepers and have conducted a nationwide survey with New Zealand adults to learn more. 1692 people responded to our survey.
This project would best suit a Master’s student who is completing a 120-credit thesis and is interested in working with an existing dataset to conduct quantitative analyses. Your task will be to see if there are patterns in the responses that might provide insights into whether short sleepers fall into different groups (e.g., natural short sleepers vs. those who cut their sleep short for one or more reasons).
This is a great opportunity to learn more about sleep and circadian science while exploring behaviours relating to short sleep.
Primary supervisor: Dr Karyn O'Keeffe
Acute care nurses typically work shift work, which leads to sleep loss and circadian disruption. This creates challenges with functioning well and safely at work but also creates challenges in aspects of life away from work.
We have conducted a nationwide survey exploring the work patterns of acute care nurses in Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of that survey, we asked nurses to report the extent to which work patterns affected aspects of life outside work and to comment on how their life was impacted. 3951 nurses responded to our survey, and 1429 have provided written comments about the impact of life outside work.
This project would suit a Master’s student who is completing a 120-credit thesis and is interested in working with an existing dataset using thematic analysis. Your task will be to generate themes in the responses from nurses. Your findings will be able to be used to inform the development of education and healthy work practices for nurses and other health workers.
This is an opportunity to learn more about sleep and circadian science and shift work, in a project that has great applicability to the health workforce.
Primary supervisor: Dr Karyn O'Keeffe
Workplace fatigue is a state of impaired functioning which reduces health and safety at work. Although there is no consensus definition of workplace fatigue, it is widely accepted that there are physiological contributors related to sleep loss and circadian disruption, as well as other contributors, such as workload, work environment, and social and emotional stressors. Workload may be considered as the effort required to carry out a particular task and has mental and physical components. The workload experienced by an individual is multi-dimensional, resulting from an interaction between task-related aspects (task duration, difficulty, complexity, and intensity), time pressure, and person-related aspects (skill level, experience, and internal state).
We would like to explore the current literature that examines relationships between workload and workplace fatigue using a systematic review.
This project would suit a Master’s student who is completing a 90-120-credit thesis and is interested in conducting a systematic review. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the interplay between workplace fatigue and workload. Understanding these relationships is vital to supporting the development of fatigue education resources, as well as appropriate strategies to manage workplace fatigue for a wide range of workers. You will need to check with your Programme Director to make sure a systematic review is permitted when completing a Master's thesis.
Primary supervisor: Dr Karyn O'Keeffe
Workplace fatigue is a state of impaired functioning which reduces health and safety at work. Although there is no consensus definition of workplace fatigue, it is widely accepted that there are physiological contributors related to sleep loss and circadian disruption, as well as other contributors, such as workload, work environment, and social and emotional stressors. Workload may be considered as the effort required to carry out a particular task and has mental and physical components. The workload experienced by an individual is multi-dimensional, resulting from an interaction between task-related aspects (task duration, difficulty, complexity, and intensity), time pressure, and person-related aspects (skill level, experience, and internal state).
We are interested in exploring relationships between workload, emotional demand/stressors, and workplace fatigue among health workers. Our previous research has highlighted that workload and emotional stressors are important but often overlooked aspects of work among health workers.
This project would suit a Master’s student who is completing a 120-credit thesis and is interested in conducting a qualitative research project involving interviews and/or focus groups with health workers. This important project will provide substantial insights into how workload, emotion and workplace fatigue are inter-related and will inform the development of (a) appropriate strategies for managing these aspects of work and (b) subsequent research projects investigating these concepts more widely in the health sector.
Primary supervisor: Dr Karyn O'Keeffe