Sector skills insights : construction

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills is a social partnership, led by Commissioners from large and small employers, trade unions and the voluntary sector. Our mission is to raise skill levels to help drive enterprise, create more and better jobs and promote economic growth. Our strategic objectives are to: • Provide outstanding labour market intelligence which helps businesses and people make the best choices for them; • Work with businesses to develop the best market solutions which leverage greater investment in skills; • Maximise the impact of employment and skills policies and employer behaviour to support jobs and growth and secure an internationally competitive skills base. These strategic objectives are supported by a research programme that provides a robust evidence base for our insights and actions and which draws on good practice and the most innovative thinking. The research programme is underpinned by a number of core principles including the importance of: ensuring ‘relevance ’ to our most pressing strategic priorities; ‘salience ’ and effectively translating and sharing the key insights we find; internationa

The role of skills from worklessness to sustainable employment with progression

This study is shaped by the recognition that while there has been a great deal of policy development around the transition from unemployment and inactivity to employment over the last decade, policy has not been sufficiently informed about how best to nurture sustainable employment for those at risk of labour market exclusion. The review focused on evidence from 2005: it provides a review of data, UK and international literature and, incorporates findings from four international case studies ( Australia, Germany, Denmark and the United States. The report provides an overview of the economic context for low pay and low skilled work and highlights the need for a continuing commitment to promoting opportunities in the labour market as a means of progression and alleviating poverty and encouraging social mobility. The report argues that there is an inextricable link between skills and ‘better jobs’. The authors conclude that a long-term view is required to decide how best to support someone at the point of worklessness: to address employability barriers in the short-term; and prepare the individual to retain, and progress in, employment. The concept of career is explored as a framework for progression: a combination of career guidance, a career / personal development plan and career management skills are identified as tools to raise aspiration and enable individual’s to take action once they are in work to support their own progression. Thinking about the workplace, the report reviews the evidence on the role of job design, line management and progression pathways in facilitating workplace learning as a route to progression

Evidence-based policy development in Learning Technology

On 9th Jan 2012, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), the ESRC/EPSRC funded Technology Enhanced Learning programme (TEL) and Intellect (the UK trade association of the technology sector) held an invited event in London to discuss the issue of the title. Those taking in part included policy makers, technologists and researchers. The meeting was chaired by John Cook, Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning and Chair of ALT’s Research Committee. It was addressed by Jonathan Shepherd, Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery at the University of Cardiff; and Director of the Violence Research Group. A response followed from John Naughton, Vice-President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University; and the Observer’s technology columnist. The aims of the day included sharing ideas on how to get more evidence-based policy making in Learning Technology, possibly drawing on parallels with medicine and policing where Professor Shepherd and colleagues have persuaded authorities to look at medical evidence in tackling crime leading to the University Police Science Institute in Wales. A further aim was the production of a checklist that Learning Technology Researchers (LTRs) should bear in mind when designing and conducting their research so as to give their work more chance of influencing policy and, as a result or otherwise, leading to greater uptake and hence impact. The report has six further sections covering: 1. Key points from the presentations of the two principal speakers 2. Models for evidence-based LT research 3. Methodologies for evidence-based LT research 4. Professional development of Teachers and LTRs 5. Conclusion 6. The LTR checklis

Is higher-order evidence evidence?

Suppose we learn that we have a poor track record in forming beliefs rationally, or that a brilliant colleague thinks that we believe P irrationally. Does such input require us to revise those beliefs whose rationality is in question? When we gain information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational, we are in one of two general cases. In the first case we made no error, and our beliefs are rational. In that case the input to the contrary is misleading. In the second case we indeed believe irrationally, and our original evidence already requires us to fix our mistake. In that case the input to that effect is normatively superfluous. Thus, we know that information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational is either misleading or superfluous. This, I submit, renders the input incapable of justifying belief revision, despite our not knowing which of the two kinds it is