The effect of cultural background on metaphor interpretation

This article describes a study that investigated the ways in which Bangladeshi students interpreted metaphors used by their lecturers during a short course at a British university. The students were asked to interpret a number of metaphors presented in context. They were also asked to identify the value judgements that were being expressed through these metaphors in these particular contexts. Culture-specific assumptions about the target domains appeared to affect the students’ recognition of the lecturers’ attitudes to the issues they were discussing. In order to identify areas of disparity between the (working) cultures of the Bangladeshi students and their British lecturers, Hofstede’s (1980) cultural values questionnaire was administered. The students were found to be more likely than their lecturers to favour uncertainty avoidance, and to favour high power distance at work. The kinds of (mis)interpretations that the students made of (the evaluative content of) the metaphors appeared in accordance with these cultural differences. Implications of these findings are discussed

Transforming learning using Open Educational Resources

The Centre of Achievement and Performance (CfAP) at the University of Northampton delivers a pre-enrolment module entitled “Study Skills for Academic Success”. In early 2013 the course team embarked upon an intensive 2-day workshop to re-design the course for online delivery (and create OERs). We worked closely with the University’s Professor of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and a team of Learning Technologists to achieve this aim. The course will be piloted in April 2013 and rolled out from September 2013. This poster will disseminate our work more widely and hopefully encourage comment and suggestions from the learning development community which may help us develop our work

Exploring the 'hidden' in organisations: methodological challenges in construction management research

There has been recognition of the limitations of technocratic approaches to construction management research, and critical theorists in the field have often rejected prescriptive explanations of social phenomena. Thus, there has been a rise in the use of interpretive methodological approaches and a proliferation of qualitative research methods in the construction management literature. Still, interpretive research that requires interaction between the researcher and her informants often confronts the age-old, fundamental challenge that is posed to social science research: that is, what really does go on in organisations, beyond what is (and can be) said and seen? Through post-hoc reflection of a recent study into innovation in construction, it was found that multiple perspectives matter in shaping our understanding of how innovative practices manifests in construction. An observation was also made regarding the hidden agendas of senior management participants in recognising, rewarding and promoting innovation, which potentially contribute to disconnections between theory and practice of innovation in construction. Questions are raised as to how researchers can help articulate these ‘hidden’ agendas and methodological challenges discussed here points to the virtues and limitations of the ethnographic approach

Metaphoric competence and communicative language ability

Recent developments in cognitive linguistics have highlighted the importance as well as the ubiquity of metaphor in language. Despite this, the ability of second language learners to use metaphors is often still not seen as a core ability. In this paper, we take a model of communicative competence that has been widely influential in both language teaching and language testing, namely Bachman (1990), and argue, giving a range of examples of language use and learner difficulty, that metaphoric competence has in fact an important role to play in all areas of communicative competence. In other words, it can contribute centrally to grammatical competence, textual competence, illocutionary competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Metaphor is thus highly relevant to second language learning, teaching and testing, from the earliest to the most advanced stages of learning

The impacts of personal stress upon critical project decision making in construction

The range of responsibilities for construction managers has become increasingly complex due to additional legal requirements and more widespread stakeholder involvements. These additional pressures potentially impact on the integrity of managers’ decisions when advancing building projects safely and efficiently. The aim of the study is to develop a greater understanding of the direct and indirect effects of work stress upon the critical decision making practice of those charged with significant responsibility in construction projects. Fifty-five questionnaires and a further five interviews were completed by construction project development managers to test and ascertain the hypothesis: “What are the effects of accumulated personal stress buildup upon important project decision making and how can this be managed by construction managers?” The results of the survey indicated that stress is highly subjective and not readily assigned to specific decision making impacts for all managers. However, in terms of the mitigation of stress upon decisions, the results of this study revealed that decision confidence in relation to managerial support had the greatest overall influence upon decision clarity and outcome

Recognising and rewarding innovation in construction: exploring disconnections in managerial discourse

The construction industry has often been considered a 'low innovation' sector. This research seeks to understand more deeply the manifestation of innovation at the construction workplace and raises questions as to whether there is really a dearth of innovative practices in construction. A series of 20 interviews were undertaken with manager and workers across a typical construction supply chain. The interviews were supplemented by participant observations in a single case organisation. The inquiry process sought the stakeholders’ interpretation of what innovation meant for them in construction, and explored the implications ‘innovation’ had on practice. The findings revealed the existence of a (misguided) sense of orthodoxy in the way the extant literature defined the concept of innovation. Accepted measures of innovation mean very little for workers who have to deal with operational realities of making the construction project work. Managerial interviews have highlighted their tendency for offering idealised accounts of what innovation means to the business and how innovation works. Conversely, the differing explanations by the workers show a distinct lack of recognition and reward for innovative practices in the industry. This research makes the case for a need to broaden the way innovation is conceptualised and measured

The communicative effectiveness of different types of communication strategy

This study examines compensation strategies (techniques for dealing with knowledge gaps between learner and interlocutor), relates them to synoptic and ectenic learning (Ehrman and Leaver, 2002, 2003), and suggests reasons for the fact that ectenic learners, who need conscious control of what they are learning, seemed to communicate meanings of words to judges better than the synoptics, who feel freer to rely on their intuition and pre-conscious processing, but also tend to use more novel and therefore less readily comprehensible figures of speech. The subjects were French learners of English

BIM and its impact upon project success outcomes from a Facilities Management perspective

The uptake of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been increasing, but some of its promoted potential benefits have been slow to materialise. In particular, claims that BIM will revolutionise facilities management (FM) creating efficiencies in the whole-life of building operations have yet to be achieved on a wide scale, certainly in comparison to tangible progress made for the prior design and construction phases. To attempt to unravel the factors at play in the adoption of BIM during the operational phase, and in particular, understand if adoption by facilities managers (FMs) is lagging behind other disciplines, this study aims to understand if current BIM processes can ease the challenges in this area faced by facilities management project stakeholders. To do this, success from a facilities management viewpoint is considered and barriers to facilities management success are explored, with focused BIM use proposed as a solution to these barriers. Qualitative research was undertaken, using semi structured interviews to collect data from a non-probability sample of 7 project- and facilities- management practitioners. Key results from this study show that the main barrier to BIM adoption by facilities managers is software interoperability, with reports that facilities management systems are unable to easily import BIM data produced during the design and construction stages. Additionally, facilities managers were not treated as salient stakeholders by Project Managers, further negatively affecting facilities management project success outcomes. A µresistance to change was identified as another barrier, as facilities managers were sceptical of the ability of current BIMenabled systems promoted as being FM compatible to be able to replicate their existing Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) legacy software and its user required capabilities. The results of this study highlight that more work is needed to ensure that BIM benefits the end user, as there was no reported use of BIM data for dedicated facilities management purposes. Further investigation into the challenges of interoperability could add significant value to this developing research area.The uptake of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been increasing, but some of its promoted potential benefits have been slow to materialise. In particular, claims that BIM will revolutionise facilities management (FM) creating efficiencies in the whole-life of building operations have yet to be achieved on a wide scale, certainly in comparison to tangible progress made for the prior design and construction phases. To attempt to unravel the factors at play in the adoption of BIM during the operational phase, and in particular, understand if adoption by facilities managers (FMs) is lagging behind other disciplines, this study aims to understand if current BIM processes can ease the challenges in this area faced by facilities management project stakeholders. To do this, success from a facilities management viewpoint is considered and barriers to facilities management success are explored, with focused BIM use proposed as a solution to these barriers. Qualitative research was undertaken, using semi structured interviews to collect data from a non-probability sample of 7 project- and facilities- management practitioners. Key results from this study show that the main barrier to BIM adoption by facilities managers is software interoperability, with reports that facilities management systems are unable to easily import BIM data produced during the design and construction stages. Additionally, facilities managers were not treated as salient stakeholders by Project Managers, further negatively affecting facilities management project success outcomes. A µresistance to change was identified as another barrier, as facilities managers were sceptical of the ability of current BIMenabled systems promoted as being FM compatible to be able to replicate their existing Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) legacy software and its user required capabilities. The results of this study highlight that more work is needed to ensure that BIM benefits the end user, as there was no reported use of BIM data for dedicated facilities management purposes. Further investigation into the challenges of interoperability could add significant value to this developing research area

The ecological impact of recreation in British temperate woodlands

In recent decades, the ecological impact of recreation in woodlands and forests has been a subject of considerable world-wide interest. However, there are few studies examining the effects of recreation on woodland vegetation, soils and fauna in Britain. This thesis identifies recreational trampling as a major contributor in facilitating ecological change in urban fringe semi-natural ancient temperate woodlands of Warwickshire, England. Relationships with trampling intensity are generally curvi- linear, suggesting that the rates of damage are most rapid at initial stages of trampling. Biotic communities are shaped so that their structure and diversity is related to the type, intensity and frequency of impact. The impact of trampling on vegetation is the most precise indicator of recreational use. Multi-variate analyses indicates that trampling is the primary organisational gradient operating on ground vegetation, with trail centres dominated by secondary plant associations at equilibrium with the trampling pressure. Trail margins are dominated by vegetation that is tolerant of low levels of trampling and high rates of competition. Experimental trampling experiments show that the ecological carrying capacity of woodlands for recreation are lower than previously thought; from below 150 people per year in Rubusfruticosus agg. and Pteridium aquilinum dominated stands to below 75 people per year in coniferous stands with Hyacinthoides non-scripta ground flora. The ability of vegetation to tolerate trampling is related to plant anatomy, morphological adaptations, plant strategies, growth rate, position of the perennating bud, environmental conditions such as canopy density and is more a function of the ability to recover from trampling rather than to resist. By virtue of their delicate morphology, stands dominated by shade tolerant species are the most vulnerable to trampling. Increases in soil compaction and decreases in pore space and oxygen content are recognised as important in shaping woodland vegetation and fauna, and the reduction in soil inhabiting invertebrate and micro-organism populations have consequences for woodland processes. A bioindicator index to assess soil damage is provided using Acari body length. Models summarising the ecological changes associated with trampling and the ecological carrying capacity of woodlands are provided, along with a woodland management checklist and an index of vulnerability for resource managers to assess the potential of woodland stands to withstand recreational use