Atwal, P; Morton, P and Watts, N (2007) Mentoring in built environment higher education courses. In: Boyd, D (ed.) Proceedings of 23rd Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2007, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
The paper considers the potential benefits of mentoring to built environment students. UK higher education has faced and continues to face significant change in the way it operates, having moved from a service to a relatively small elite to mass higher education. With increased competition, scarce resources, unpredictable fluctuations in enrolments and income, a move towards greater accountability and an emphasis on economy have led to a managerialist approach to decision making in HE. The emphasis on efficiency has encouraged a move to the delivery of programmes and common modules for the various disciplines, so that individual course identity may not be emphasised until the latter stages of the course. Academics and industry have also called for commonality in the name of interdisciplinary working as well as a need to lower staffing requirements. The widening participation of students outside the eighteen and nineteen year old school leaver provides an additional challenge to the culture of higher education. In this changing world of higher education the needs of the diverse student population can be lost. Mentoring is a means of providing support in learning situations where individuals would benefit from some independent advice or coaching. This study originally focused on the mentoring needs of women students on built environment courses in one university. The results from a survey of male and female students indicated that mentoring would provide a useful and positive added value to many students, not just those who are feeling isolated or unsupported, and could aid in transition to employment.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | diversity; education; mentoring; student support; widening participation |
| Index terms: | mentoring, women, competition, identity, built environment, module, income, population, decision-making, accountability, programme, higher education, survey, face, employment, enrolment, added value, efficiency |
| Subjects: | performance management, architectural elements, management, educational institutions, sociology, decision analysis, market analysis, project controls, recruitment and enrolment, demography, liability law, infrastructure and transport systems, data collection methods, training, psychology, economic analysis |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Risk Management, Legal Issues, Design Practice, Urban Studies, Human Resources, Quality Management, Organizational Design, Education, Time Control |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here