An Aspirations-led Capabilities Approach to Women’s Career Pathways in Quantity Surveying

This thesis explores the career experiences of female quantity surveyors (QSs) in the UK construction industry and examines how they can pursue their aspirations within the structure and the culture of its organisations. There is a lack of research about the careers of female QSs, although there is a lot that focuses on women in the construction industry generally. Research about women’s careers in construction has focused on their underachievement and lack of career success. However, these are based on traditional career patterns with an expectation of upwards progression. In using the Capabilities Approach (CA) of Amartya Sen, the research enables understanding of how women can pursue their aspirations and achieve their own definitions of career success. A capability set for female QSs was established, combinations of capabilities within the set enable pursuit of any stated aspiration. A mixed methods research methodology was adopted, comprising interviews with twenty-seven female QSs working for Network Rail, supplemented by a questionnaire survey of female QSs throughout the wider construction industry. Structural and cultural enablers and constraints were examined by means of interviews with fourteen representatives from a range of construction organisations. The findings build on and contribute to existing knowledge about women in the construction industry. A key finding is the identification of three career pathways. However, female QSs’ aspirations mean that their pathways are not clearly determined, and trajectories are not necessarily linear. For female QSs, career success is having the ability to choose the aspirations they pursue and to change and adapt as circumstances dictate. The research reflects that organisations can either enable or constrain the pursuit of aspirations. Although there are a range of organisations that female QSs can work for, their size and structure are significant in career development and, while many organisations have comprehensive equality policies, their implementation by line managers varies and gender stereotyped assumptions about female QSs’ careers remain. This research also contributes to existing career theory, particularly why a ‘one size fits all’ mechanism of evaluating career trajectories and career success is unsatisfactory. It also establishes that aspirations and individual definitions of career success are instrumental in determining career pathways where previously only organisational factors have been considered

Further thoughts on precision

Background: There has been much discussion amongst automated software defect prediction researchers regarding use of the precision and false positive rate classifier performance metrics. Aim: To demonstrate and explain why failing to report precision when using data with highly imbalanced class distributions may provide an overly optimistic view of classifier performance. Method: Well documented examples of how dependent class distribution affects the suitability of performance measures. Conclusions: When using data where the minority class represents less than around 5 to 10 percent of data points in total, failing to report precision may be a critical mistake. Furthermore, deriving the precision values omitted from studies can reveal valuable insight into true classifier performancePeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Software fault characteristics: A synthesis of the literature

Faults continue to be a significant problem in software. Understanding the nature of these faults is important for practitioners and researchers. There are many published fault characteristics schemes but no one scheme dominates. Consequently it is difficult for practitioners to effectively evaluate the nature of faults in their software systems, and it is difficult for researchers to compare the types of faults found by different fault detection techniques. In this paper we synthesise previous fault characteristics schemes into one comprehensive scheme. Our scheme provides a richer view of faults than the previous schemes published and presents a comprehensive, unified approach which accommodates the many previous schemes. A characteristics-based view of faults should be considered by future researchers in the analysis of software faults and in the design and evaluation of new fault detection tools. We recommend that our fault characteristics scheme be used as a benchmark scheme

Reviewing the Evidence Base for Careers Work in Schools

A Transitions Review Group was established by CeGS in 2000. It comprised policy-makers, senior managers, practitioners and researchers from a range of organisations with an interest in education, guidance and youth support. The group’s mission was to contribute to the synthesis and dissemination of research evidence to key stakeholders in guidance in order to enable future policy and practice developments to be evidence-based. With the support of the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre), which is part of the Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, the Transitions Review Group completed two systematic literature reviews

Learning About Development at A-Level

Young people’s interest in development issues has been the focus of numerous studies but there has been little research that looks at the impact of learning of a specific educational course. This research paper looks at the impact of studying A-level World Development on young people in England and Wales. It summarises the outcomes of research by Bowes in 2011 and a further survey in 2012 with students who have completed the course. This study looks specifically at the relevance, effectiveness and impact of the course on students. The evidence suggests that the A-level is popular and seen as relevant to young people’s lives and views about the world. Both teachers and students state that the themes discussed are up-to-date and accessible to study. In terms of effectiveness of the course overall, there is evidence of understanding of the key issues in development, although the priorities given to particular themes varied from school and college. Programmes and projects on learning about development have often been promoted because there is an assumption that mere engagement with these themes has an impact on young people’s learning in terms of changing their behaviour and attitudes towards taking action to reduce global poverty. The evidence from this research shows a complex picture of impact with the emphasis appearing to be more on the social and moral aspects of development than the political. The research indicates positive changes in perceptions of global poverty and inequality in the world, but less so on the more social and political aspects. There is evidence that studying the A-level has had an impact upon the students’ future learning in higher education with Geography and Development Studies becoming more popular. The first full World Development A-level began in 2008 so the examination is still relatively new. The sample taken for this study and the research by Bowes covered a relatively small number of students. However, what is clear from this research is that an A-level of this type can play an important contribution in deepening a young person’s learning and understanding about development and that it is a subject that is seen as popular and relevant to their lives