Veronica O'toole

Senior Lecturer Above the BarDr Veronica O'Toole

Rehua Level 5
Current research and teaching interests include emotions and emotional intelligence, and enhancing the emotional wellbeing of teachers and students

Qualifications & Memberships

Research Interests

My primary research interests are emotions, emotional intelligence (EI), emotion regulation and social emotional wellbeing of teachers and students. Currently, I am a Co-researcher and the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Lead for a Teaching & Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project entitled, “Co-constructing a culturally and linguistically sustaining, Te Tiriti -based Ako framework for socio-emotional wellbeing in education”. I am also involved in other research projects investigating teachers’ wellbeing and EI, and students’ emotions in higher education, in New Zealand and Ireland, where I spent 6 weeks on Sabbatical Leave in 2019. Previous research projects include investigating the emotional impacts of the Christchurch February 2011 earthquake on Christchurch teachers, funded by the University of Canterbury Digital Archive (CEISMIC), and an investigation into emotions in tertiary teaching, funded by AKO Aotearoa. In 2011, the Fulbright-Cognition Scholar in Educational Research Award enabled me to spend three months in the USA. I spent six weeks as Visiting Scholar at Wichita State University, associated with their educational leadership programme and six weeks at the Health Education and Behavior (HEB) Lab at Yale University, where key EI research programmes have been developed. These experiences continue to inform both my research and my teaching.

Recent Publications

  • Kamp A; Brown C; McMenamin T; O'Toole V (Ed.) (2023) Wellbeing: Global Policies and Perspectives: Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand and Beyond. Peter Lang AG International Academic Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/b18360.
  • Denston A., Martin R., Fickel L. and O'Toole V. (2022) Strengthening Socio-Emotional Learning in Aotearoa New Zealand: Teacher and Whānau Understandings of Wellbeing. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40841-022-00261-4.
  • Denston A., Martin R., Fickel L. and O'Toole V. (2022) Teachers’ perspectives of social-emotional learning: Informing the development of a linguistically and culturally responsive framework for social-emotional wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education 117 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103813.
  • O'Toole V. and O'Flaherty J. (2022) The role of emotion in higher education: exploring global citizenship education. Irish Educational Studies http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2022.2135565.
  • Lindsay H., O'Toole V. and Culpan I. (2019) Emotions, Physical Education Leadership in Schools, and the Quest for Authenticity. New Zealand Physical Educator - Physical Education New Zealand- 52(2) 1: 4-8.