5112 research outputs found
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Interviewing online:ethic of care and protecting participants and researchers using unstructured interviews
No full textSince the pandemic, online interviews have become a cheap and practical way to collect research data with no need to travel, from the comfort of your office or home. in 2023, we interviewed 15 academics working in initial teacher education using an unstructured interview approach, without a schedule of interview questions or prompts to follow. Using this case study, we offer practical advice on preparing for the unknown stories you will be told, using this method, and also look at some ethical implications for unstructured interviews conducted online and how you can mitigate against these
Welcoming diverse pre-science trainees:transformational practices
No full textIn response to a crisis in recruitment of physics teachers, the DfE expanded those eligible for a bursary enrol on teacher education courses to include international candidates applying for physics teacher education courses. By 2024 the expansion of the physics bursary resulted in a exponential increase in the number of international candidates applying to science PGCE programmes. This significant increase masks the decline in home students applying for courses that lead to qualified teacher status as a science teacher.These changes highlight a major shift in the diversity of our preservice teachers, mirrored across all institutions involved in this project.This shift compels us to reflect on and address the impact of our colonial heritage on our teaching practices. Yet, recent policy developments such as the Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework require us, as teacher educators, to prioritize research-informed methods, which risk perpetuating a white westernised curriculum.To gain new
Closing the artificial intelligence skills gap in construction:competency insights from a systematic review
No full textThe integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the construction industry is transforming traditional practices and demanding a new set of competencies from professionals. However, a comprehensive understanding of the specific skills required remains limited. Addressing this gap, a systematic literature review and meta-analysis is conducted in this study to identify and synthesise the AI-related skillsets essential for construction professionals to effectively integrate AI into project delivery. Employing the PRISMA framework and scientometric analysis using VOSviewer, the study analysed 17 key publications sourced from multiple academic databases. The findings reveal eight core AI skill domains: Data Literacy and Management, AI and Machine Learning Fundamentals, Programming and Computation, Digital Collaboration Tools, AI-Driven Decision Making, Cybersecurity Awareness, Change Management and Adaptability, and Communication and Collaboration. The study also highlights a global disparity in research contributions, with notable under-representation from Africa and North America. These insights underscore the urgent need for targeted training, policy development, and collaborative research to bridge the AI skills gap in the construction sector. In addition, the study reveals that, the underdevelopment of AI skills among construction professionals is shaped by a complex interplay of educational, cultural, infrastructural, economic, policy-related, and industry-specific factors. This review provides a foundational roadmap for developing initiatives aimed at equipping construction professionals with the competencies necessary to thrive in an AI-enhanced built environment
European sustainability reporting standards (ESRS)
No full textThis chapter provides a comprehensive examination of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), their historical development, core components and significance within the global sustainability reporting landscape. The chapter begins by tracing the evolution of sustainability reporting in the European Union, from the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), highlighting the important role of EFRAG in developing the ESRS. Key components of the ESRS framework, including environmental (ESRS E1 to 5), social (ESRS S1 to 4) and governance standards (ESRS G1), as well as sector-specific and entity-specific approaches, are explored in detail. The chapter also outlines the interplay between ESRS and global standards such as GRI, ISSB and TCFD, emphasising efforts towards interoperability. Finally, it addresses challenges and critiques of ESRS, including complexity, double materiality and the risk of fragmented global reporting landscapes. By examining these dimensions, the chapter underscores the transformative potential of ESRS in advancing corporate accountability and sustainable development
Food-level predictors of self-reported liking and hedonic overeating:putting ultra-processed foods in context
No full textThe reward value people assign to foods is determined by their intrinsic (food-level) properties and moderated by individual factors such as traits, states and beliefs. There is a need for more systematic, structured analyses of the food-level characteristics that explain cognitions about food reward such as palatability and their risk for reward-driven overeating. This research, consisting of three studies, aimed to explore the nutritional, sensory and cognitive characteristics and attributes of foods as determinants of food reward-related outcomes. Across three sequential online study designs, 1176 men and 2188 women from the general population rated sub-samples of 436 foods which were sampled from databases and photographed to represent ready-to-eat food and beverage products in the UK. The study outcomes were self-reported food liking and hedonic overeating, while the predictors were the nutritional composition of the foods including ultra-processed food status (UPFs) and carbohydrate-to-fat ratio (CFR); and participants' self-reported beliefs about the nutritional and sensory characteristics of the foods. Correlation and stepwise regression analyses were used to model significant nutritional components followed by hierarchical regression models to examine self-reported food-level attributes, or CFR and UPFs as potential additive models. Across all studies, the nutritional characteristics of foods explained ∼20 % variance in liking and 40–60 % variance in hedonic overeating. Self-reported food-level attributes explained a further 6–33 % variance in liking and 17–38 % variance in hedonic overeating. UPFs explained 0–7 % additional variance and CFR did not add to the nutritional models. This research demonstrates how nutritional characteristics of foods contribute to self-reported liking and hedonic overeating. Considering people's beliefs about nutrient and sensory attributes can explain more than nutrients alone, and there are negligible additive contributions from CFR or UPFs on food reward.</p
Developing a pedagogy of critical reflection and reflexivity on a professional doctorate towards equity, ethics and social justice
No full textThe Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) is designed for researching practitioners to address problems of practice and to develop theoretically informed practice-based knowledge, based on equity, ethics and social justice, according to the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate. Within the EdD programmes, practitioner reflection is a key characteristic. While extensive literature on reflection in educational programmes exists, there is little literature on how critically reflective approaches might be developedin practice at the beginning of a EdD programme. The article takes the example of the first module on a EdD programme and shows how such approaches can develop and deepen researching practitioners’ (EdD students) understandings of problems of practice. This article contributes to understandings of EdD pedagogy. Co-written with EdD students who have completed their first module of the programme, it includes their first-personresponses to the approaches taken to foster critical reflection and reflexivity and offers a model for this form of collaborative writing. The article highlights the importance of considering students’ standpoint and positionality as researching practitioners and the value of a critically reflective and reflexive approach which is guided by the challenge oftheory
Hydraulic valve core fault diagnosis applied with a data-driven approach
No full textThe hydraulic valve is the critical element of the hydraulic system applied in advanced manufacturing. Tough working conditions cause the core stuck fault as the significant issue, which reduces the operating efficiency and even results in system breakdowns. Therefore, this research provides a data-driven approach to diagnose the core stuck fault of the hydraulic valve to address these challenges. Initially, the wavelet packet denoising (WPD) is employed to denoise the measured signals. The pre-processed signals are then subjected to the variational mode decomposition (VMD), with parameters optimized by the sparrow search algorithm (SSA), to extract the fault-related features. Finally, the hybrid model combining the convolutional neural network (CNN) and the long short-term memory (LSTM) is applied to diagnose the stuck fault. The research findings suggest that the proposed approach can effectively save the data processing time (45.13% on average) and achieve the excellent diagnostic performance of the core stuck fault (99.70% in combined sensor groups). These encouraging results can lead to the adequate confidence for further investigation of hydraulic valve studies and present applicable to diagnose other hydraulic machine faults.</p
Perpetrators or victims? The Prevent Duty and the discourse of "vulnerability" in UK counter-radicalisation policy
No full textSince 2015, the UK's Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA) has required public institutions (such as schools, universities and healthcare facilities) to have “due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. Many institutions, including schools and universities, have incorporated this “Prevent Duty” into existing safeguarding policies and procedures, in line with an approach which sees those at risk of radicalisation as subject to a range of personal vulnerabilities (see e.g. McGlynn & McDaid, 2018). The 2023 Independent Review of Prevent criticised the use of the term “vulnerability” and proposed its substitution for “susceptibility” to radicalisation. Despite misgivings about vulnerability, the Independent Review proposed extending the Prevent Duty to immigration and asylum agencies and Job Centres. This potential over-extension of the Prevent Duty, the chapter argues, reflects what Kathryn Ecclestone (2017) described as “vulnerability creep”, which has potentially significant implications for both social and security policy
The relationship between the families of long-term missing persons and police forces in the UK
No full textWhen someone is reported missing, the police assume responsibility and conduct searches to locate and return them. Despite their best efforts, though, some missing persons are not found and can become long-term inquiries after 6 or 12 months of investigations. At this point, the case is not actively pursued, and the police conduct only desk-based inquiries to check that there has been no activity on phone, bank or national insurance records. This usually occurs annually, but can be conducted at any time should new information become available. Becoming a long-term inquiry can be difficult for families to accept, and so they can take on search efforts once the police’s responsibility has ceased. To continue the investigation in the hopes of finding their loved one, one can take significant tolls on their well-being, both physically and mentally. However, the relationship between the families and the police during long-term missing person inquiries has not been sufficiently explored. Thus, through semi-structured interviews with six family members of long-term missing person cases, this study sought to identify the relationships between family members and the police in these cases. Using an inductive approach to Thematic Analysis, the study identified two main themes: positive and negative interactions. The negative interactions theme further consists of six sub-themes. Overall, the families felt let down, frustrated, and disappointed with the police’s responses. There were some basic things not offered to families, which increased their frustration, including the lack of a single point of contact, and a feeling that the police owned the cases, leaving them with limited avenues for continued support. Thus, the chapter concludes with some recommendations for police forces in their response to, and management of, the family members of long-term missing persons