Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
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Development and validation of the career competencies indicator (CCI)This article describes the development and validation of the Career Competencies Indicator (CCI); a 43-item measure to assess career competencies (CCs). Following an extensive literature review, a comprehensive item generation process involving consultation with subject matter experts, a pilot study and a factor analytic study on a large sample yielded a seven-factor structure; goal setting and career planning, self-knowledge, job performance, career-related skills, knowledge of (office) politics, career guidance and networking, and feedback seeking and self-presentation. Coefficient α reliabilities of the seven dimensions ranged from .93 to .81. Convergent validity was established by showing that all 7-CCs loaded substantially onto a single second-order factor representing the general CC construct. Discriminant validity was established by showing less than chance similarity between the 7-CCI subscales and the Big Five personality scales. The results also suggested criterion-related validity of the CCI, since CCs were found to jointly predict objective and subjective career success.
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Greater female first author citation advantages do not associate with reduced or reducing gender disparities in academiaOngoing problems attracting women into many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects have many potential explanations. This article investigates whether possible under-citation of women associates with lower proportions of, or increases in, women in a subject. It uses six million articles published 1996-2012 across up to 331 fields in six mainly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK and USA. The proportion of female first and last authored articles in each year was calculated and 4968 regressions were run to detect first author gender advantages in field normalised article citations. The proportion of female first authors in each field correlated highly between countries and the female first author citation advantages derived from the regressions correlated moderately to strongly between countries, so both are relatively field-specific. There was a weak tendency in the USA and New Zealand for female citation advantages to be stronger in fields with fewer women, after excluding small fields, but no other association evidence. There was no evidence of female citation advantages or disadvantages to be a cause or effect of changes in the proportions of women in a field for any country. Inappropriate uses of career-level citations are a likelier source of gender inequities.
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Paths in education: how students make qualification choices at Level 3 and what influences these choicesThis study is an investigation into how young people make choices between the ages of sixteen to eighteen about the qualifications they study at Level 3 and the impact these choices have on further progression. Often, the reasons for their choices tend to be obvious and straightforward and are career driven. However, what about those students who may not know about progression routes or how to make informed choices? Given the potential impact on students’ lives, it seems vital that we understand how students make their choices, and whether any aspects of the current decision-making process could be improved. There is increasing interest in the provision of information, advice and guidance focussing on how students are making choices regarding careers and progression to higher education in the United Kingdom (Diamond et al., 2014). However, to date, the majority of research into qualification choice has been focused instead on choice into Higher Education contexts or choices made about GCSE options, thus leaving a gap in literature surrounding Further Education. Since it is now compulsory for students to be in education to the age of eighteen, it is crucial to ask why research is still invisible on student choice into further education, whereas student choice into higher education has the lion’s share of the research attention (Elliot, 2016). This thesis explored the factors that influence the choices made by students who have decided to study on a Level 3 qualification, and to understand how students may go about making these choices. It has been argued that many students are poorly prepared when it comes to making the choices about the qualifications they study post-16 (Leatherwood, 2015). This study has found this is still true for young people today. A mixed methods approach was used which combined a mixture of surveys and interviews. All the research took place in a single sixth form college. At the heart of the study were the stories that students disclosed of what influenced their own qualification choices. Seventeen semi-structured interviews and fifty questionnaires were used. Five main influences and themes emerged from the research as being central to qualification choice. These were peer influence; career aspirations; parental or family influence; advice from careers advisors; media influences. In addition, an emerging theme was the potential role played by schools in shaping qualification choice. These factors played a significant role in the choice of qualifications for students, to the point where it was effectively a ‘non-choice’ for some of them. One implication from the study is that young people need both good impartial information but they also need good advice and guidance in how to use this information, rather than anything offered being seen as a ‘token gesture’. This research shows that students are making key decisions about future qualifications without seeking professional guidance. Instead, decisions are more likely to be based on hearsay from friends or social media. These decisions can be partially explained by examining the kind of career advice students receive in school: only eighteen per cent of students surveyed said that they received enough information to ‘make an informed decision’ (Palmer, 2016).
