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Students' ratings of teaching quality on course units in a computer science program and an environmental engineering program at a large Swedish university were obtained using the Course Experience Questionnaire; 8888 sets of ratings were obtained from men and 4280 sets were obtained from women over ten academic years. These student ratings from the two programs showed certain differences; in particular, teachers tended to receive higher ratings in subjects that were less typical for their gender than in subjects that were more typical for their gender. There were differences in the ratings given to male and female teachers, differences in the ratings given by male and female students, and interactions between these two effects. There was no systematic trend for students to give different ratings to teachers of the same gender as themselves than to teachers of the other gender. Nevertheless, without exception, even the statistically significant effects were small in magnitude and unlikely to be of theoretical or practical importance. It is concluded that the causes of differences in the career progression of male and female teachers in engineering education need to be sought elsewhere.

This qualitative study investigates attitudes toward elderly workers and their work situation in different sectors, and explores perceptions and organizational measures that can enable an extended working life. Previous age management studies indicate that there are several interconnected measures and key areas of importance, and that there is a general need for strategies to strengthen sustainable age management at the organizational level. A structured content analysis was used to analyze data from focus group interviews with informants from a variety of organizations. The study identified three themes that highlight attitudes and perceptions of integrated age management practices: (a) contemporary policies and practices in the work environment; (b) social participation and attitudes; (c) experience and mentorship. These themes can form the basis of a good approach to an integrated age management strategy. Such a strategy can be achieved through intervention studies where research on sustainable working life meets the real problems faced by employees and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of teamwork has been associated with improved patient safety, more effective care and a better work environment. However, the academic literature on teamwork is pluralistic, and there are reports on discrepancies between theory and practice. Furthermore, healthcare professionals' direct conceptualizations of teamwork are sometimes missing in the research. In this study, we examine doctors' conceptualizations of teamwork. We also investigate what doctors think is important in order to achieve good teamwork, and how the empirical findings relate to theory. Finally, we discuss the methodological implications for future studies. The research design was explorative. The main data consisted of semi-structured interviews with twenty clinically active doctors, analyzed with conventional content analysis. Additional data sources included field observations and interviews with management staff. There was large variation in the doctors' conceptualizations of teamwork. The only characteristic they shared in common was that team members should have specific roles. This could have consequences for practice, because the rationale behind different behaviors depends on how teamwork is conceptualized. Several of the teamwork-enabling factors identified concerned non-technical skills. Future studies should put more emphasis on the practitioners' perspective in the research design, to create a more grounded foundation for both research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Jonas Borell, Kerstin Eriksson The objectives of this study are to develop and demonstrate an approach to improve emergency response capability by strengthening individual and organisational learning from the evaluations of specific emergency responses. An approach was developed based on theories of individual and organisational learning. It was applied to evaluations of three instances of emergency response in the city of Malmo. The findings indicate that the approach can improve experience-based learning in organisations and, thus, improve emergency response capability.