Paul Golding and Camille Althea Jackson
Amid the worldwide lockdown and emergency transition to online classes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper aims to examine high school students’ satisfaction in this…
Abstract
Purpose
Amid the worldwide lockdown and emergency transition to online classes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper aims to examine high school students’ satisfaction in this unique learning environment.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was first used to extract a set of important factors from a number of variables. A logistic regression was subsequently used to access student satisfaction levels during the COVID-19 lockdown. In addition, a small qualitative study was conducted to gain additional insight into student satisfaction ratings.
Findings
A study sample of 486 usable responses revealed that students were most satisfied with the responsiveness of teaching staff, which included the provision of assignments and feedback on performance. The study also revealed that students experienced a range of emotions; those who experienced positive emotions (joy, pride, hope) were more satisfied than those who experienced negative emotions (frustration, anxiety, boredom).
Research limitations/implications
Policymakers and educators in high schools could benefit from these findings when formulating policy recommendations to support the manning of operations during crisis situations and justify the introduction of future offerings of blended or online courses.
Originality/value
The study was conducted in a real and unprecedented crisis which created a unique environment to examine factors influencing Jamaican high school students’ satisfaction levels during the lockdown.
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The purpose of this paper is to assess how far Jamaica has come regarding women economic empowerment, female entrepreneurship and its development policies in favour of women…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess how far Jamaica has come regarding women economic empowerment, female entrepreneurship and its development policies in favour of women entrepreneurship development.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study employs a mixed method approach to achieve its research objectives, consisting of literature review and corroboration with existing database and indices. Key insights of research on female entrepreneurship are used to reflect on published data to assess progress of female entrepreneurship development in Jamaica. The 2017 editions of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Gender Entrepreneurship and Development Index were examined to gain a better understanding of how the Jamaican business environment has progressed or regressed over time and how the economic development and business environment impact female participation in Jamaica’s labour force and entrepreneurial initiatives.
Findings
The economic conditions in Jamaica and the role of females as domestic caregiver have made it difficult for women to enter the labour force even though Jamaican women are relatively better educated than men. Women remain at a disadvantage in the labour force. Jamaica’s legislation and budget allocations in favour of female entrepreneurship are analysed to identify where and how Jamaica is investing its efforts to improve women’s participation in the labour force. The authors conclude with suggestions on how the Jamaican government could facilitate further women entrepreneurship development to reach a more gender balanced inclusive socio-economic development.
Originality/value
While global policy has been promoting women empowerment through entrepreneurial development, little is known on the actual outcome of such human capital investment strategy and the critical vectors that contribute to such outcome. This scarcity of knowledge is also applicable to Jamaica. This paper attempts to contribute to women entrepreneurship research by reaching beyond the output-oriented perspective of various skill development programmes and attempts to link policy choice with overall macro results of entrepreneurship development in general and women entrepreneurship development in specific. The study thus provides a rare glimpse of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jamaica.
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David J. Edwards, Ruel R. Cabahug and John Nicholas
Hiring, selecting or assessing plant operatives' proficiency in the UK construction industry is an increasingly difficult task. A number of plant operator certification schemes…
Abstract
Hiring, selecting or assessing plant operatives' proficiency in the UK construction industry is an increasingly difficult task. A number of plant operator certification schemes are available to practitioners and each scheme trains to a myriad of bespoke standards. Consequently, the decision to employ a candidate often rests upon the employer's intuition and judgement and creates an unnecessary dilemma. To address this aforementioned problem, findings of research work that modelled plant operators' maintenance proficiency is presented. A UK nationwide survey was conducted to elicit plant professional opinion on what ‘training and educational’ (T&E) attributes constitute ‘good’ operator proficiency. The data was then arranged into three categories of operator maintenance proficiency: good, average and poor Multivariate Discriminant Analysis (MDA) was used on 75 percent of a simulated data set. The model utilised five T&E attributes, namely: duration of training provided, operator holder of alternative training card (not Certificate of Training Achievement (CTA) or Scottish/National Vocational Qualifications (S/NVQ)), operator's oral communication skills, operator's planning skills and operator's mechanical knowledge. Performance analysis revealed that model classification accuracy was 89.10 percent. The remaining 25 percent hold out sample was then modelled for validation purposes using the derived MDA model. Accuracy of the sub‐sample model was high at 77.60 percent whilst a paired sample T‐tests for the 75 percent and 25 percent sample data established that there was no significant statistical difference between actual and predicted classifications. Future work is proposed that aims to model other factors that influence operator maintenance proficiency; namely, work situational, motivational management and personal factors.
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In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…
Abstract
In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.
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Organisation theorists have consistently neglected considerations of societal and historical context in studies of power in organisations and this has resulted in incomplete and…
Abstract
Organisation theorists have consistently neglected considerations of societal and historical context in studies of power in organisations and this has resulted in incomplete and misconceived theories. This paper is concerned with an issue with which personnel managers often feel very personally involved, viz. the perceived erosion of managerial authority. In particular, the focus here is upon illuminating the confusions and assumptions inherent in the way in which managers in an industrial hierarchical organisation ‘structure’ their world as one in which managerial authority is continually being eroded and undermined. The paper, in examining the derivation of such ‘common sense’ assumptions, gives insights, from a radical perspective, into some of the misconceptions of power in organisations.
Marie-France Daniel, Mathieu Gagnon and Jean-Charles Pettier
The questions at the origin of this chapter are: Are children aged 5 years able to become involved in a critical thinking process, which implies a certain degree of abstraction…
Abstract
The questions at the origin of this chapter are: Are children aged 5 years able to become involved in a critical thinking process, which implies a certain degree of abstraction and decentering? To what extent can an approach centered on philosophical dialogue among peers contribute to this development? The chapter describes a study of the exchanges in two groups of children aged 5 years. One group had experience with the philosophical dialogue tool, the Philosophy for Children approach, while the other group had no such experience. The analysis grid was the operationalized model of the developmental process of dialogical critical thinking, as revisited by Daniel and Gagnon, which includes four thinking modes (logical, creative, responsible, and metacognitive) and six epistemological perspectives (egocentricity, post-egocentricity, pre-relativism, relativism, post-relativism, intersubjectivity). Results of the analysis showed that 65% of the experimental group's interventions were situated in relativistic perspectives and 35% in egocentric perspectives, whereas 60% of the control group's interventions were situated in egocentric perspectives and 40% in relativistic perspectives.
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Academics in industrial relations have for many years been attempting to define their field of study. Recently, we were asked, by a client interested in training, to find out how…
Abstract
Academics in industrial relations have for many years been attempting to define their field of study. Recently, we were asked, by a client interested in training, to find out how practitioners (managers and shop stewards) would react to a systems model of industrial relations. Their responses are reported here and suggest an approach to industrial relations training which may be helpful in clarifying, improving and changing practice.
The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains…
Abstract
The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.