“Overwhelmed at first”: the experience of career development in Early Career Academics

The higher education sector is undergoing considerable changes to its working conditions. From regular scrutiny of individual research and teaching quality, audits of individual academic performance, to growing expectations arising from the culture of ‘student experience’, it is widely recognised that higher education is a turbulent sector. Amongst Early Career Academics (ECAs), initial transitions into this sector of work can have considerable consequences for career development and willingness to remain within the higher education profession. Drawing on a mixed-mode survey exploring the experience of UK-based ECAs, we highlight distinct intrapersonal and experiential factors which relate to variations in the perceived potential for career development and wellbeing. The data suggest that it is not just situational factors such as the departmental environment and job security that relate to the ‘imagined futures’ of ECAs; it is also important to gain a deeper understanding of how intrapersonal dimensions, such as an individual’s personality, shape the experience of the early stages of an academic career. Our qualitative data shed further light on the experiences that can influence the job satisfaction of ECAs. The findings are discussed in the context of a growing body of international research on ECAs, and the rapidly changing Higher Education sector in the UK

Docência e exaustão emocional Teaching and emotional exhaustion

Um estudo epidemiológico transversal com todos os 808 professores da Rede Municipal de Ensino de Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, encontrou elevadas prevalências de queixas de cansaço mental (70,1%) e de nervosismo (49,2%). Diversos fatores de risco associaram-se a cansaço mental e a nervosismo: idade >27 anos, ser mulher, ter filhos, escolaridade média, lecionar >5 anos, vínculo de trabalho estável, trabalho em zona urbana, carga horária semanal >35h, renda >360 reais, sobrecarga doméstica média/alta, não ter atividades de lazer, alta demanda no trabalho e baixo suporte social. A classificação do trabalho docente, segundo o Modelo Demanda-Controle de Karasek, revelou os quadrantes "baixa exigência" (40,3%) e "trabalho ativo" (39,7%), ambos com alto controle das atividades por parte dos professores. Professores em trabalho de "alta exigência" e "trabalho ativo" apresentaram prevalências de cansaço mental e de nervosismo mais elevadas que aqueles de "baixa exigência".<br>An epidemiological cross-sectional study among the 808 teachers from Vitória da Conquista, State of Bahia, Brazil, revealed that most of them complained of mental tiredness (70,1%) and nervousness (49,2%). Several risk factors were statistically associated with mental tiredness and nervousness: age > 27 years, being female, having children, having secondary education, teaching for >5 years, stable job, working in urban areas, weekly work hours e"35 hours, income > BRL 360 (&plusmn; USD 185), medium/high domestic overload, having no leisure activity, high psychological demand at work and low social support. According to Karasek's demand-control model, teachers' work was classified in the "low strain" (40.3%) and "active work" (39.7%) quadrants, both with high control of activities by teachers. Teachers with "high strain" and "active work" presented higher prevalence of mental tiredness and of nervousness than those with "low strain" jobs

The Vulnerable System: An Analysis of the Tenerife Air Disaster

The Tenerife air disaster, in which a KLM 747 and a Pan Am 747 collided with a loss of 583 lives, is examined as a prototype of system vulnerability to crisis. It is concluded that the combination of interruption of important routines among interdependent systems, interdependencies that become tighter, a loss of cognitive efficiency due to autonomic arousal, and a loss of communication accuracy due to increased hierarchical distortion, created a configuration that encouraged the occurrence and rapid diffusion of multiple small errors. Implications of this prototype for future research and practice are explored.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68716/2/10.1177_014920639001600304.pd