This work investigates the decision to study shipping and logistics at advanced levels in
the UK. Documented evidence reports and analyses the perceptions of students on
vocational courses in shipping, transport and logistics and investigates why they chose
their particular fields of study.
A range of instruments are presented to analyse how students perceived that they had
arrived at their study decisions, including national surveys of undergraduates in maritime
business, postgraduates in shipping and logistics and professionals contemplating updating
short courses. Qualitative, quantitative and mapping methods are presented along with
perceptions of relevant professional outcome roles and other factors.
Exploratory approaches to proposing and evaluating alternative approaches to teaching
aimed at raising the student's perception of the nature of professional skills requirements
were predicated by identifying and defining local student schemae and tailoring aids to
their specific learning and teaching requirements.
A cognitive mapping approach enabled comparisons of perceptions between postgraduates,
whose individual beliefs, after being mapped and modelled as a directed network, were
analysed, and differences between maps were quantified. Quantitative pairwise map
comparisons included 54 individuals generating 1430 synchronal comparisons in one
cohort and four diachronal cohort comparisons. These revealed that distance measures
constrained by the numbers of transmitters or receivers, and the strength of relationships
where appropriate, formed the best discriminators.
Empirical and theoretical explanations of maps and attempts to compare particular
subgroups and explain differences were often inconclusive. A unified social cognitive
theory of career and academic interest, choice and performance generated useful
propositions relating to how individuals manage issues of self-efFicacy, expected outcomes
from decisions and their personal goals. Substantive work revealed problems of conflicting
domains between students' verbatim statements, only weakly coincident with theoretical
concepts. Conclusions that mapping is most powerful/when based on qualitative analysis
of the richness and diversity of individual perceptions; infer that no simple standard
decision process is operating and hence no single recruitment marketing device is apparent.
In applying and disseminating findings, where possible, proposals were made to assist
organisations promoting careers awareness and recruitment into relevant professions and
university based vocational courses, published by relevant professional bodies
