The Effects of Computer Aided Draughting on Architectural Practice

This thesis argues that computer aided draughting (CAD) can be introduced successfully into an organization and can benefit all those engaged in the construction process. It concludes that CAD is the single most important tool to be introduced into the practice of architecture in recent times and, whilst the foregoing proposition is true, there is a cost to the organizations and individuals involved. The study begins with the author's interest in the research as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor working professionally with a firm of architects who installed a CAD system. It identifies several difficulties with the research and justifies the case study research methodology

Construction mediation in Scotland : an investigation into attitudes and experiences of mediation practitioners

Recent research on construction mediation in Scotland has focused exclusively on construction lawyers’ and contractors’ interaction with the process, without reference to the views of mediators themselves. This paper seeks to address the knowledge gap, by exploring the attitudes and experiences of mediators relative to the process, based on research with practitioners in Scotland. Based on a modest sample, the survey results indicate a lack of awareness of the process within the construction industry, mediations were generally successful and success depended in large measure to the skills of the mediator and willingness by the parties to compromise. Conversely, the results indicate that mediations failed because of ignorance, intransigence and over-confidence of the parties. Barriers to greater use of mediation in construction disputes were identified as the lack of skilled, experienced mediators, the continued popularity of adjudication, and both lawyer and party resistance. Notwithstanding the English experience, Scottish mediators gave little support for mandating disputants to mediate before proceeding with court action. A surprising number were willing to give an evaluation of the dispute rather than merely facilitating a settlement. The research concludes that, in Scotland, mediation had not yet become the indispensable tool for those seeking to resolve construction disputes due to lack of support from disputing parties, their advisors and the judiciary

Computer programming, ICT and gender in the classroom: a male-dominated domain or a female preserve?

This paper describes a small-scale empirical study grounded in teaching experience which draws upon two principal areas of research: psychological gender and attitudes towards programming and ICT (information and communications technology) in primary schools. The sample group for this study comprised 24 Key Stage 2 pupils who undertook two computing tasks using applications that align with the current UK Primary Computing National Curriculum (DfE 2013a). All children completed a Children’s Sex Role Inventory (CSRI) questionnaire to determine their psychological gender, as well as a computer attitudes (CA) instrument to ascertain their views on computing and ICT. The children’s responses to both instruments were then tested for internal reliability. The pupil participants involved in this research undertook two tasks, which involved the use of programming software, Microsoft Windows LOGO (MWL), and a desktop publishing (DTP) program, Microsoft Publisher. Work samples were then graded to a set of criteria and awarded an overall mark. Although boys marginally outperformed girls overall, the difference between the means did not achieve significance. However, when Pearson product moment correlations were taken between the performances of boys’ means and girls’ means, respectively, across the programming and DTP tasks, they indicated different tendencies. The findings of this small-scale study are limited, but would appear to demonstrate that gender differences do exist in terms of performance across different applications

Can the computer replace the adult for storybook reading? A meta-analysis on the effects of multimedia stories as compared to sharing print stories with an adult

The present meta-analysis challenges the notion that young children necessarily need adult scaffolding in order to understand a narrative story and learn words as long as they encounter optimally designed multimedia stories. Including 29 studies and 1272 children, multimedia stories were found more beneficial than encounters with traditional story materials that did not include the help of an adult for story comprehension (g+ = 0.40, k = 18) as well as vocabulary (g+ = 0.30, k = 11). However, no significant differences were found between the learning outcomes of multimedia stories and sharing traditional print-like stories with an adult. It is concluded that multimedia features like animated illustrations, background music and sound effects provide similar scaffolding of story comprehension and word learning as an adult

Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children's emergent literacy

AbstractStories presented on phones, tablets and e-readers now offer an alternative to print books. The fundamental challenge has become to specify when and for whom the manner in which children retain information from stories has been changed by electronic storybooks, for better and for worse. We review the effects of digitized presentations of narratives that include oral text as well as multimedia information sources (e.g., animations and other visual and sound effects, background music, hotspots, games, dictionaries) on children's emergent literacy. Research on preschool and kindergarten children has revealed both positive and negative effects of electronic stories conditional upon whether materials are consistent with the way that the human information processing system works. Adding certain information to electronic storybooks can facilitate multimedia learning, especially in children at-risk for language or reading difficulty. Animated pictures, sometimes enriched with music and sound, that match the simultaneously presented story text, can help integrate nonverbal information and language and thus promote storage of those in memory. On the other hand, stories enhanced with hypermedia interactive features like games and “hotspots” may lead to poor performance on tests of vocabulary and story comprehension. Using those features necessitates task switching, and like multitasking in general, seems to cause cognitive overload. However, in accordance with differential susceptibility theory, well-designed technology-enhanced books may be particularly suited to improve learning conditions for vulnerable children and turn putative risk groups into successful learners. This new line of research may have far-reaching consequences for the use of technology-enhanced materials in education

A history of the quantity surveying profession in Scotland to the Late-Twentieth Century, with special reference to John Dansken ;Purdie, Chartered Quantity Surveyors

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Mensuration (MDE)

Measurement Direct Entry Summer Schoo