Occupations and industries of employment of Māori university graduates: early career aspirations and destinations

ABSTRACT

Technological advancements, a changing demography, and labour market demands mean that it is increasingly important to have a skilled Māori labour workforce. Māori students are graduating from universities in increasing numbers but little is known about their careers post-graduation. Our aim was to describe the early career aspirations and destinations of Māori university graduates in the Graduate Longitudinal Study New Zealand. Data were collected when participants were in their final year of study (n?=?626) and 2 years post-graduation (n?=?455). The most common occupation types 2 years post-graduation were professionals (66%), clerical or administrative workers (10%), and managers (9%). The most common industries of employment were education and training (29%), health care and social assistance (22%), and legal and accounting services (8%). The percentage of graduates who, in their final year of study, planned to enter into industries that matched their actual industries at 2 years post-graduation was 67%. There were some differences across fields of study, with Health and Education graduates working in industries more closely aligned with their studies than Science or Humanities graduates. Future surveys will enable us to track graduates to see if these patterns change as graduates settle into their careers post-graduation.     

Investing in the relationship: practitioners’ relationships with looked‐after children and care leavers in Social Work Practices

Providing more consistent and continuous relationships for looked‐after children and care leavers is a current preoccupation in social work in light of many criticisms of the quality of such relationships. Recommendations for more direct work have spurred new models of service delivery in children's services aimed at improving individual outcomes. Independent Social Work Practices (SWPs), a new organizational model piloted in some areas of England between 2009 and 2012, were established to enable social workers and other practitioners to spend more time in direct work and thus to improve the practitioner/child/young person relationship. This paper uses findings from interviews with 169 children and young people across 11 local authorities and 5 SWPs, undertaken as part of a 3‐year national matched control evaluation of pilot SWPs, to identify key elements of good quality practitioner relationships with children or young people. Focusing on children's and young people's perspectives and experiences, the study demonstrates that more direct work and consistent relationships are valued. The paper deploys Recognition Theory to further understanding of effective practice as defined by children and young people.     

An Adaptive Simulation Framework for the Exploration of Extreme and Unexpected Events in Dynamic Engineered Systems

The end states reached by an engineered system during an accident scenario depend not only on the sequences of the events composing the scenario, but also on their timing and magnitudes. Including these additional features within an overarching framework can render the analysis infeasible in practical cases, due to the high dimension of the system state‐space and the computational effort correspondingly needed to explore the possible system evolutions in search of the interesting (and very rare) ones of failure. To tackle this hurdle, in this article we introduce a framework for efficiently probing the space of event sequences of a dynamic system by means of a guided Monte Carlo simulation. Such framework is semi‐automatic and allows embedding the analyst's prior knowledge about the system and his/her objectives of analysis. Specifically, the framework allows adaptively and intelligently allocating the simulation efforts preferably on those sequences leading to outcomes of interest for the objectives of the analysis, e.g., typically those that are more safety‐critical (and/or rare). The emerging diversification in the filling of the state‐space by the preference‐guided exploration allows also the retrieval of critical system features, which can be useful to analysts and designers for taking appropriate means of prevention and mitigation of dangerous and/or unexpected consequences. A dynamic system for gas transmission is considered as a case study to demonstrate the application of the method.     

Uncertainty Analysis in Fault Tree Models with Dependent Basic Events

In general, two types of dependence need to be considered when estimating the probability of the top event (TE) of a fault tree (FT): “objective” dependence between the (random) occurrences of different basic events (BEs) in the FT and “state‐of‐knowledge” (epistemic) dependence between estimates of the epistemically uncertain probabilities of some BEs of the FT model. In this article, we study the effects on the TE probability of objective and epistemic dependences. The well‐known Frèchet bounds and the distribution envelope determination (DEnv) method are used to model all kinds of (possibly unknown) objective and epistemic dependences, respectively. For exemplification, the analyses are carried out on a FT with six BEs. Results show that both types of dependence significantly affect the TE probability; however, the effects of epistemic dependence are likely to be overwhelmed by those of objective dependence (if present).     

The Gatekeeping Function of Trust in Cross‐sector Social Partnerships

Hunger and deprivation, lack of education, sanitation, and health care are only a few pressing issues related to poverty in developing countries. Addressing such complex social issues requires pooling complementary resources of the civil, public, and private sector. Over the last decade, stakeholders tried to cocreate innovative solutions in cross‐sector social partnerships (CSSPs) at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP), but collaboration proved to be very challenging. Practitioners become increasingly frustrated with operational differences, intransparency, and mismatched goals in partnerships. This study unravels the black box of collaboration and delivers empirical insights on trust and power in CSSPs based on social exchange theory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) enables us explore relationships beyond case‐based insights. Our rigorous empirical analysis covers 207 interorganizational relationships and outlines a crucial gatekeeping function of trust in CSSPs. Findings provide strong empirical support for conceptual works calling for an “integrative orientation” in CSSPs. Furthermore, we pinpoint the role of intermediates and draw implications for future research.     

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Soldiers’ Experiences of Being Married and Serving in the British Army

ABSTRACT

Research suggests certain aspects of military life, especially operational deployments, may negatively impact military marriages. However, much of this research is from the United States and uses deductive quantitative methods. Qualitative research investigating the lived experiences of forming and maintaining marriages was conducted with six male U.K. Army personnel. Semistructured interviews were analyzed, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, identifying five themes, each representing different dilemmas the soldiers’ had to balance to maintain successful marriages and Army careers. These five themes are best understood as practical, emotional, and cultural dilemmas that can be alleviated with practical and emotional methods; such factors could be used to build resilience in soldier’s marriages. These possible resilience factors could shape the content of interventions to increase resiliency in military marriages.     

Relationship Difficulties Among U.K. Military Personnel: Impact of Sociodemographic,Military, and Deployment-Related Factors

Military work, especially operational deployments, may impact the romantic relationships of military personnel. Using a subsample of 7,581 participants from a cohort study of U.K. military personnel (data collected between 2007 and 2009), the prevalence of relationship difficulties and associations with sociodemographic, military-, and deployment-related characteristics was examined. Most participants did not report experiencing relationship difficulties. Adjusted regression analyses indicate that childhood adversity, limited support for and from partners, being in unmarried relationships, financial problems, deploying for more than 13 months in 3 years, and work being above trade, ability, and experience were key factors associated with relationship difficulties. The likelihood of U.K. military personnel experiencing relationship difficulties is increased because of personal vulnerabilities that may be exacerbated in the military context.     

Statewide dissemination of trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT)

Despite evidence linking childhood trauma to subsequent social, emotional, psychological, and cognitive problems, many children who have experienced trauma do not receive mental health treatment that has been proven to be effective. Large-scale dissemination of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is one possible solution to enhance the current negative state of mental health treatment for these children. This article describes a dissemination effort of an EBP (i.e., Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy [TF-CBT]) for childhood symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder throughout Arkansas. The effort targeted mental health professionals within child advocacy centers and community mental health centers across the state. The article describes the process of dissemination and implementation. Lessons learned and recommendations for future dissemination efforts are highlighted.     

An Intervention to Decrease Heavy Episodic Drinking in College Students: The Effect of Executive Function Training

Abstract

Objective: To develop and test a planning-ability, executive function (EF) intervention to reduce heavy episodic drinking (HED). Participants: Fifty-five heavy-drinking, first-year college students, recruited from May to October 2012. Methods: Participants were randomly allocated to an experimental or active control group and then completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test–Consumption and demographic questions. Over 1 week, the experimental group completed 4 progressively harder planning tasks, whereas the control group completed 4 easier, consistent-difficulty planning tasks. Participants then recorded their daily alcohol consumption for 2 weeks. Results: As hypothesized, both mean and maximum per-occasion alcohol consumption was significantly reduced in the experimental group compared with the control group. There were no significant differences in frequency of HED. Conclusions: These results provide initial support for the use of a planning-ability intervention in decreasing per-occasion alcohol consumption. Future researchers can examine the mechanism of effect, the long-term efficacy, and the specific EFs involved in other aspects of alcohol consumption.     

Social Environment Contexts of Trait Emotional Intelligence

Two studies set out to provide information regarding social environment contexts of trait emotional intelligence. In an initial exploratory study, participants with higher emotional intelligence were associated with close others of high emotional intelligence. A second longitudinal study examined the effect of social environments comprising higher or lower emotional intelligence on changes in emotional intelligence of residents in these environments. This study assessed the emotional intelligence and subjective well-being of residents of colleges at the start of a semester and again three months later. A higher composite college residence emotional intelligence index predicted an increase in participants' emotional intelligence and positive affect. These effects were especially strong for first-semester residents. The results offer new information regarding social environment contexts of trait emotional intelligence and extend findings regarding contagion of emotion and transmission of individual differences in complex emotion processing.