Holistic narratives of the renovation experience: Using Q-methodology to improve understanding of domestic energy retrofits in the United Kingdom

The energy efficient retrofit of existing building stocks can help to address various social, economic and environmental objectives. As the most cost-effective and least disruptive retrofit options have regularly been implemented as a priority, initiatives that seek to encourage continued retrofit are likely to require thoughtful improvements in their design. Understanding the population of households that may be interested in retrofit as a heterogeneous rather than a homogenous group is a critical part of improving support for retrofit. In this research, we use Q-methodology to disaggregate the home owner-occupier population of the UK and create narratives that represent their experience of home renovations. We consider the experience of general home renovations as typically households do not see these as distinctive from energy efficient retrofit. The narratives present a holistic perspective by incorporating a comprehensive range of the influences on the renovation experience. The developed narratives – ‘Organised and seeking greater comfort’, ‘Settled and performing a functional upgrade’, ‘Growing and needing a family home’ and ‘A lot to do and no time like the present’ – provide the opportunity to better understand those making renovation decisions and subsequently develop more appropriate interventions to promote retrofit

Courses for teaching leadership capacity in professional engineering degrees in Australia and Europe

Recently many educational institutions across the globe have implemented engineering leadership programs either as a part of formal engineering curriculum or where leadership development is embedded into separate in-house programs. This shows a clear intent of these educational institutions to prepare their engineering students for solving the real world problems, recognizing that both technical and leadership skills are valuable for tomorrow’s engineers. Leadership programs in engineering education have been implemented in various formats with varying degrees of success. It has already been identified in research studies that 80-90% of the engineering leadership programs offered explicitly across the globe were based in the United States of America. However, in Europe and Australia, there is a noticeable lack of engineering leadership programs, particularly in undergraduate curriculum. In Australia, it has been identified that only two universities offered a comprehensive program that catered for engineering leadership and both of them were at the post-graduate level. There are other leadership initiatives undertaken by industry in Australia in collaboration with universities but non-explicit in nature. Similarly, Europe is not far ahead. Few engineering universities across the United Kingdom offer leadership programs either as comprehensive degree courses or in modular forms. In the rest of Europe, only Belgium offers a comprehensive explicit program at the postgraduate level. The programs which are offered across Australia and Europe have distinct design and delivery styles but there are certain key features which are common to most of the programs including professional partnerships, mentoring, engineering design and project-based approaches

Engineering manpower for economic development

SIGLELD:f81/3607. / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Science capital or STEM capital? Exploring relationships between science capital and technology, engineering, and maths aspirations and attitudes among young people aged 17/18

We previously proposed that science capital (science‐related forms of cultural and social capital) can be used as a theoretical lens for explaining the patterned nature of aspirations and educational participation among young people aged 11–16. Building on these findings, the present article investigates whether science capital is related to post‐18 aspirations to pursue further STEM study and whether science capital can be extended to related disciplines including engineering, maths and technology. Specifically, we report on correlational analyses exploring the relationships between science, technology, engineering and maths attitudes and science capital. Drawing on data from a new survey of 7,013 17/18 year old English secondary school students, analyses showed that science capital, while strongly related to engineering and physical science future study aspirations, was not strongly related to the pursuit of either maths or technology postsecondary study. The findings also suggest that engineering and maths attitudes have a stronger relationship to science capital than attitudes relating to technology. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings and propose that science capital might be more usefully applied to “SEM,” with links to technology fields and aspirations needing further exploration