Search

PurposeFrom a workplace learning perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between conditions for learning and stressful work and, to analyse the learning conditions that support the management of stressful work. The model of effort-reward imbalance (ERI) is adopted as an indicator of stressful work by measuring the relationship between Effort and Rewards in work.Design/methodology/approachThe material consists of questionnaire data from 4,420 employees in ten public and private organisations in Sweden.FindingsThe results provide evidence that suggests that some workplace conditions known to enable learning also indicates a comparatively better chance for employees to manage stressful work. An innovative practice reduces the feelings of effort, whereas managerial support and knowledge sharing serve as rewards contributing to appreciation, while competence and career development create rewards in the form of opportunities for progression.Practical implicationsWorkplaces in which there are enabling learning conditions can provide employees with ample resources for managing stressful work.Originality/valueThis paper explores the complex relationship between workplace learning conditions and the ERI model seen from a workplace learning perspective which has received relatively sparse attention in the literature.

PurposeClinical placement is an important formalised student activity for linking healthcare education and healthcare practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate the organising of clinical placements by examining conditions for collaboration between higher education and healthcare organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on interviews with central actors at a university and two healthcare organisations with official duties of organising clinical placements.FindingsThe findings indicate that collaboration in the organising of clinical placements is a complex matter of interconnected actors in different organisational positions, at both strategic and operative levels. The university and the healthcare organisations approached the clinical placement with a shared commitment.Practical implicationsThe findings provide important guidance for improving collaboration in the organising of clinical placements. This may have an impact on how contextual conditions of the educational framing and daily healthcare practices are viewed and how the interdependency between the long-term strategic issues and the short-term needs of healthcare organisations is approached.Originality/valueThis research emphasises the need for careful consideration of the collaborative practices on an organisational level between higher education and healthcare organisations as different needs, motives and logics have to be considered.

Despite the number of studies confirming a high degree of unpredictability in managerial work, little is still known about how managers? workplace learning happens within organisations in such circumstances. This paper therefore aims to contribute knowledge about managers? learning in managerial practice when work is unpredictable, by investigating how first-line managers deal with unforeseen situations and how they learn in such circumstances in everyday work. Data was collected via qualitative interviews with 40 first-line managers in Swedish elderly care. By using a theoretical framework based on practice and workplace learning theories, the paper analyses how managers address unpredictability in work through three embedded practices: maintaining, modifying and inventing. The paper goes beyond research on leadership training and leadership development by contributing knowledge about the everyday learning of first-line managers when their work is unpredictable. The unpredictable managerial work does not always create chaos; instead, there are very orderly ways of learning from dealing with unforeseen situations. The unforeseen is not as unpredictable as it might seem in managerial work. On the other hand, that which is not yet known calls for an inventing practice, which results in managers learning to take new paths that can create new practices.

Over the past few years, public policy interventions have been initiated to promote public sector innovation. These top-down initiatives have been aimed at generating bottom-up movement, and first-line managers are believed to play an important role in this transformation. However, little is known about the challenges first-line managers face in their role as agents of change. This article provides unique insight into the expectations and conditions that first-line managers face when innovation support is implemented in municipalities. The article draws on 23 interviews with participants from three Swedish cases where innovation support has been implemented in the municipal context. These three cases of innovation support are examples of conscious efforts to systematise innovation work that also affect the first-line managers in the organisation. The findings reveal that a multitude of expectations pointing towards an exploration logic are placed on first-line managers to lead, dare and support in connection with employee-driven innovation, but the conditions under which they operate point towards an exploitation logic. The managers find themselves wedged between high expectations and a lack of mandate, resources and organisational support for workplace innovation in the public sector context.

Students’ learning in the workplace during their clinical placements is an important part of their education to become healthcare professionals. Despite the number of studies of student interprofessional learning in clinical placements, little is still known about the significance of interprofessional learning and how it is facilitated and arranged for to occur. This article aims to investigate interprofessional learning between students collaborating in a workplace-driven arrangement integrated into a clinical placement. A focused ethnographic research approach was applied, comprising observations of ten students participating in the arrangement organised by clinical supervisors on a medical emergency ward at a Swedish university hospital, followed by group interviews. Using a boundary-crossing lens, the article analyses the workplace arrangement, in which students’ learning across professional boundaries and their negotiations around a boundary object were prerequisites to coordinate their interprofessional knowledge and manage emerging challenges while being in charge of care on the ward.

The purpose of this article is to explore first-line managers’ experiences of workplace learning in elderly care, with a particular focus on the conditions for learning when entering a new workplace as the new manager. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 35 first-line managers from three organisations in Sweden. Four learning conditions emerged as being particularly significant for first-line managers: the managers’ previous professional experience, job-specific training, social support, and the joint repertoire of organisational arrangements. These conditions shifted in importance during the process of entering the workplace, and the way in which the conditions gave access to learning for different managers varied. The managers’ professional experience and others’ recognition of them had a considerable impact on their admittance to the new workplace. After the initial entry phase, the other three learning conditions became more significant and played a role in enabling or constraining the managers’ learning and becoming the new manager. One conclusion is that contextual and work experiences from elderly care were significant for learning during the initial phase and in order to gain access to workplace learning. Another conclusion is that high expectations and great responsibility were placed on the managers to satisfy their own learning needs. This implies that professional, social and emotional support that is received informally is just as significant for learning as formalised training for entering a new workplace as a new manager. Funding: Open Access funding provided by Linköping University

The aim of this article is to investigate the learning strategies vocational students use to become part of a work community, and how these strategies are related to the formation of a vocational identity at the workplace. Conducting qualitative interviews, data were collected from 44 industrial programme students from six upper secondary schools. The findings revealed five recurrent strategies used by the students for learning vocational identities as industrial workers. The students took individual responsibility for their own learning, asked questions to gain deeper vocational knowledge, searched for role models in the work community, positioned themselves as a resource to the work community, understood and used humour and jokes in order to become a member of the community. The conclusion is that the students actively develop learning strategies to adapt their behaviour to the norms and ideals of the industrial work community. In the process of develop the vocational identities as industrial workers, the students’ vocational habitus is transformed to better fit the industrial work community. The integration of the notions of agency and habitus demonstrates the dynamic nature of students’ participation in work communities; simultaneously, the students reproduce social structures that promote vocational identities.

This Special Issue of Studies in Continuing Education presents a collection of research papers, particularly focusing on issues related to work practices, knowing, organising, professions and the r...

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute knowledge about school-related and workplace-related conditions that enable students’ vocational learning during workplace-based learning within vocati ...

The aim of this article is to investigate how the formal competence development activities provided by the Production Leap, a workplace development programme (WPDP), were interwoven with everyday work activities and to identify the conditions that enabled learning and employee-driven innovation that contributed to production improvement, in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Sweden. The study adopts a qualitative case approach and draws on evidence from research conducted in four manufacturing SMEs that participated in this Swedish WPDP. Funded by EU authorities, WPDPs provide competence development activities to SMEs in order to boost their production capabilities and/or promote innovation. The findings reveal that the competence development activities provided by the programme triggered learning in everyday work activities and fostered the development of different approaches to employee-driven innovation in the enterprises. The conclusion is that it is essential to consider that employee-driven innovations may take different forms and involve functions that can support innovative learning that goes beyond minor adjustments to the existing standards of production. Moreover, employee-driven innovation may impose new demands on management leadership skills. The findings provide important guidance for future WPDPs, for vocational education and training or university activities that are customised to SME contexts to promote production capabilities, and for SMEs that aim to strengthen employee-driven innovation. Funding agencies: Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) [Vinnova 2013-02430]

Purpose This study focuses on a transformation effort in a social welfare department of a Swedish municipality where continuous improvement, which is a Lean principle, was introduced in employees’ everyday work via a workplace development programme (WPDP). The aim of this paper is to explore the conditions (internal and external) that enabled or constrained employee learning during the introduction of continuous improvement into employees’ everyday work in a WPDP-supported social welfare department. Design/methodology/approach This case study is based mainly on 22 semi-structured interviews with individuals holding different positions in the department and overarching municipality. Findings The findings show that multiple and emerging conditions, both internal and external, shaped a predominantly restrictive learning environment during the introduction of continuous improvement into the social welfare department. The major conditions identified were related to the initial implementation and top management’s steering and monitoring of the “Lean investment”, activities and support provided by the WPDP, activities and support provided by the internal Lean support team and first-line managers’ abilities to facilitate employee learning. Originality/value Apart from unique empirical material depicting an effort towards change under conditions far from favourable for employee learning, the value of this study lies in the attention given to the external dynamics that drive change in line with the concept of new public management in public service organizations, including a WPDP that supported the social welfare department.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of a workplace development programme (WPDP) targeting small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) by focussing on the people who acted as brokers providing cross-boundary connections between its collaborating partners. Design/methodology/approach The material, from interviews with 32 individuals and 11 meetings, was analysed in a boundary-crossing framework, which provided tools to reveal how the roles of brokers at different levels (operative, strategic and national) of the WPDP affected its development. Findings The findings indicate that cross-boundary connections were made by persons who acted as brokers within and between different levels of the WPDP. The brokers who provided cross-boundary connections between different levels of the WPDP were found to play the most important role for the prompt development of the WPDP. Originality/value Apart from unique empirical material depicting the development of a collaborative venture between national and regional stakeholders of the manufacturing industry, the value of this study is the attention given to the people behind the policymaking of publicly funded national WPDPs, revealing the complex business of developing policy-driven competence development activities to employees in SMEs.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a conversational method to support clients in need of behavioral change. In an organizational reform, most Swedish sickness insurance officials were trained in MI to promote clients’ return to work (RTW) after sick leave. The aim of this article is to investigate experiences of introducing MI as a tool to promote clients’ RTW within a sickness insurance context, with a special focus on the translation and implementation of the method. Methods A qualitative approach, comprising 69 interviews with officials, managers, and regional coordinators on two occasions. The material was analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results Officials were positive about MI, but the application was limited to using certain tools with extensive individual variation. Officials struggled with translating MI into a sickness insurance context, where the implementation strategy largely failed to o er adequate support, due to low managerial priority, competing initiatives, and a high workload. Results of the educational intervention could therefore be seen on an individual but not an organizational level. Conclusions In order to translate MI into a sickness insurance context, training needs to be supported by organizational approaches that promote collective learning and sharing of experiences among officials. The results also illustrate how a method cannot be assumed to be implemented simply because training has been provided. Consequently, the application of the method needs to be carefully monitored in studies of interventions where MI is claimed to be used, in order to measure its effectiveness. Funding agencies: Swedish Social Insurance Agency

The aim is to explore challenges related to the integration between product development and production in product introduction and, given these challenges, to analyse the learning potential of boundary crossing in the context of product introduction. The paper draws on evidence from a Swedish manufacturing company. The theoretical framework is based on a boundary-crossing perspective, which in turn is framed by a workplace learning perspective. Data were collected through interviews with 19 employees from the product development department and 21 employees from the production plant, and 8 focus-group interviews. Within the company, there were many challenges related to product introduction, but the findings also show these challenges can provide learning opportunities by enabling the boundaries to be crossed between the product development department and the production plant. Several forms of intrapersonal or interpersonal boundary crossing were identified. Individuals acted as brokers, and prototypes, pre-series, DfA analysis and a crossfunctional team served as boundary objects and encounters. Nothing in our study indicates that the boundary crossing identified on the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels created learning potentials on the organisational level in the company. The conclusion is that it is necessary to consider the learning potential made available by boundary crossing in order to support learning, and thereby improve the integration between product development and production in product introduction. By seeing and using prototypes and pre-series production as learning opportunities you can create a better preparedness and provide collective access to knowledge required for successful product introduction. Funding agencies: Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA)

In Swedish emergency departments, various initiatives have been introduced in order to reduce long waiting times for patients: lean methods, targets for waiting times related to revenues, interprofessional teams, and different forms of triage systems. This study focuses on the physicians’ views on dilemmas related to these interventions. The study is based on the interviews with 14 physicians in four emergency departments. The interviews have been analysed thematically and presented in the form of brief narratives. The study follows changes from clinical practice to national policy level. The changes appear to be ineffective or counterproductive—waiting times are rather getting longer, but the measures have a number of other effects. Decisions are taken at a central level and are carried out by means of rules, incentives, and projects and end in the medical profession being displaced from the central position they have held in the working processes of health care.

This article reports on the findings of a planned workplace health promotion intervention, and the aim is to identify conditions that facilitated or restricted the learning to promote health at an ...

Flow is an experience of enjoyment, intrinsic motivation and absorption, which may occur in situations involving high challenges and high skill utilization. This study investigated the likelihood of experiencing work-related flow in relation to the job strain categories of the demand–control model, and to job resources such as social capital and an innovative learning climate. A questionnaire was sent out to employees in nine Swedish organizations (n = 3667, 57% response rate). Binary logistic regression analysis was performed. The results show that active jobs, low-strain jobs, a high degree of social capital and innovative learning climate increased the likelihood of experiencing work-related flow. In jobs with high decision latitude, regardless of demands, there was an increased likelihood to benefit from social capital and an innovative learning climate. The results emphasize the importance of autonomy and skill utilization, to enable the use of additional job resources in order to promote work-related flow and well-being at work.

Placements have the potential to contribute more effectively to the quality of higher education. The aim of this article is to discuss how placements can be made more worthwhile for individual stud ...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate individuals' learning and propensity for changing their job situation during downsizing in a company.Design/methodology/approachA case study was carried out in an industrial company that had undergone major downsizing to adapt to changes in production. Approximately 100 employees retrained at the company's training program and 350 employees received notice to quit their jobs. Data for this study consisted of qualitative interviews with 20 workers who faced different transition situations.FindingsThree general learning trajectories labeled stayers, leavers and reemployed leavers emerged as a consequence of the downsizing. The stayers were the individuals who remained at the company and later retrained to new jobs. The leavers were the individuals who more or less voluntarily left the company to start a new career. The reemployed leavers were dismissed and left involuntarily but were later reemployed at the company.Practical implicationsIn cases of downsizing it is important that the organization meets latent wishes for change and considers differentiated reactions connected to age, length of employment, former education, etc., among workers who face different transition situations.Originality/valueThe results imply that the learning trajectories were shaped through participation, thus learning, in the transition program and workplace activities. Each worker has a specific history of experience that shapes their disposition to learning and in which way they are able to adjust to a new job situation.

Objectives: Few workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions are designed to improve work conditions. Methods for measurement of work conditions are often developed from a risk factor perspective rather than a WHP perspective. More knowledge is needed on the work conditions that promote health in order to develop a good work environment. The purpose of the present study was to investigate if the Demand Control Support model, the Effort Reward Imbalance model and the Job Characteristic Inventory are correlated, if the subscales predict health and to analyze which combination of subscales is the most useful predictor of health longitudinally. Participants: The study used questionnaire data from 662 civil servants at baseline and at follow-up 2 years later. Method: The data were analysed by multiple regressions. Results: A new model; effort, reward, and variety, was found having a higher predictive power to predict health than the original models. Conclusions: To promote health at work, social relations and health-mediating work conditions are important because these conditions may buffer health. Health can be assumed to be a resource that is created in everyday activities and interactions in workplaces, and there is a need to develop health measure instruments based on holistic health theories.

e16214Background: Pancreatic cancer (PDAC) is almost resistant to therapy, yet some patients profit from targeted therapy. We performed NGS on PDAC tissue and evidence-based, AI-supported evaluatio...

The aim of this article is to discuss how learning opportunities can be organized to promote expansive learning in work practice. The discussion draws on results from a case study examining local development work and conditions that facilitate processes of expansive learning in a work team within a public sector organization in a Swedish municipality. An interactive research design was used. Data were collected over almost four years through individual and group interviews with 12 workers in a work team and their three managers. In addition data were collected through observations of team meetings. The findings demonstrate that work can be organized as a learning environment to facilitate expansive learning even in a resource-limited public sector organization. Furthermore, patterns of expansive learning were evident in the work team's new work activities and new relationships in the organization. The findings also demonstrate the need to support managers in developing a role to facilitate expansive learn...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe how a large organization has successfully worked to achieve sustainable health; compare the work of the large organization with methodologies used by smaller successful organizations; and then to create a model for how managers of larger organizations can work to create sustainable health.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data were gathered through interviews with managers at different organizational levels and workshops with employees, within a case study in a large bank which received the award “Sweden's best workplace”. The data were also compared to results from earlier case studies of three smaller organizations that have received the same award.FindingsThe results of the studies show coinciding results as to the importance of management commitment and methodologies, such as employee involvement, delegation, goal deployment and coaching, to create a health‐promoting work environment. This indicates that larger organizations do not need any specific methodologies.Practical implicationsBased on the experiences from four successful organizations, managers should mainly consider doing the following: start measuring and evaluating the consequences of sickness absence in their organization; and adopt a management strategy based on humanistic core values that are supported by methodologies and tools.Originality/valueThe paper adds understanding about how managers of large organizations could work practically to overcome management problems in today's working life and support the work and organizational factors earlier described in the literature to create a health‐promoting work environment that stimulates the development of sustainable health.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to discuss the potential for learning that is present for process operators in their work at a paper mill. The term learning potential is used to denote the opportunities operators have for learning in their daily work.Design/methodology/approachA case study of the work and learning of process operators in four different shift teams in four different departments at a paper mill, using diaries and interviews, provides the data for identifying potential for learning in the work of process operators.FindingsFindings show that the work of operators is dominated by an adaptive form of learning, that is becoming better at an already known task, and solving daily work problems. At the same time there is potential for a more development oriented learning, but with a local and ad hoc emphasis in the shift teams. However, the desire and willingness of the operators is important for the utilization of existing learning potential.Research limitations/implicationsIn general, limitations of the case study methodology mean that it may not be possible to generalize to other industrial and organizational settings.Practical implicationsThe research highlights that there is potential for learning, but the “invisible” learning that is found on the shopfloor in the shift teams must be supported by the company so that it can lead to development of the organization.Originality/valueThe research has indicated that potential for development has a mainly local and ad hoc emphasis, primarily through the contradictions that exists in shift teams. Nothing, however, indicates that this potential might also include development of the organizational level at the paper mill.

Objective: To investigate the differences in work conditions and symptoms of burnout, and the association between work conditions and symptoms of burnout at the three hierarchical levels: subordinates, first-line managers and middle managers. Methods: Analyses were based on questionnaire data from 4096 employees in nine organizations, containing three hierarchical levels: subordinates (n=3659), first-line managers (n=345), and middle managers (n=92). Results: Work conditions were found to differ between the three hierarchical levels, mostly between subordinates and managers. Managers experienced fewer symptoms of burnout than subordinates. Furthermore, the association between work conditions and burnout differed for subordinates, first-line managers and middle managers. Conclusions: Occupational health research needs to focus more on differences between hierarchical levels regarding work conditions and burnout. On the day of the defence date the status of this article was Manuscript.

The experience of tiredness linked to poor sleep in patients on peritoneal dialysis was explored using the qualitative method phenomenology. Eight women and six men in southeast Sweden were interviewed. The patients' descriptions were characterized by a circular structure "circling around in tiredness." This study illustrates the problems of tiredness and illuminates the need for healthcare professionals to assess the impact of tiredness and highlight the need for strategies to improve the patient's situation.

The aim is to investigate female and male managers’ learning environments with particular focus on their opportunities for and barriers to learning and career development in the managerial work of a male-dominated industrial company. In the case study 42 managers, 15 women and 27 men in the company were interviewed. The findings demonstrate that the male managers were provided with significantly richer opportunities to participate in activities conducive to learning and career development than were female managers. The opportunities and barriers in terms of horizontal and vertical manager mobility, senior managers’ support, strategic networks, career system, freedom of action and gender stereotypes operated simultaneously as opportunities and barriers to learning and career development for the female and male managers, respectively. The conclusion is that the expansive-restrictive continuum developed by Fuller and Unwin (2004) does not cover the extent to which gender operates as a condition for learning and career development, nor the extent to which the gender order influences the learning environment. Therefore we suggest that the expansive-restrictive model of learning environments would benefit from incorporating or, at least considering, gender dimensions in order to form a gender-sensitive model to analyse learning environments in workplaces. Original Publication:Maria Gustavsson and Anna Fogelberg Eriksson, Gendered learning environments in managerial work, 2010, Studies in the Education of Adults, (42), 2, 141-155. Copyright: NIACE

Objective. To identify individual and social factors associated with pharmacy students level of reflection in an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE). Methods. A postal questionnaire, including a reflective assignment, was sent to all pharmacy interns (n=262) at Uppsala University, Sweden, for 4 semesters in 2005-2007. Results. In a univariate analysis, 7 factors were found to be associated with students level of reflection. After controlling for covariates, 3 social factors were found to be independently associated with reflection: having a formal preceptor (OR=5.3), being at a small pharmacy (OR=19.8), and students perception of the importance of discussing critical thinking with the preceptor (OR=1.2). No correlation could be observed between level of reflection and critical thinking, nor learning style. Conclusion. Social components seem to be of higher importance than individual components in students reflective levels after pharmacy internship experience. Trained preceptors are important to foster reflection skills. Original Publication:A. Wallman, A.K. Lindblad, Maria Gustavsson and L. Ring, Factors associated with reflection among students after an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) in Sweden, 2009, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, (73), 6, 107. Copyright: American Association of Colleges of Pharmacyhttp://www.ajpe.org/default.asp

Some epidemiological studies indicate an association between extremely low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF-EMF) exposure and cancer risks. These studies have mainly taken residential and occupational exposure into consideration. Outdoor environments are often considered as low level areas, but in this paper we show that this is not true in a city environment. We have mapped the ELF magnetic flux densities along certain stretches of sidewalk in central Goteborg City, Sweden. About 50% of the investigated street length shows flux densities of the same order of magnitude (0.2 microT and above) as those associated with increased risks of cancer in epidemiological studies. We conclude that the outdoor exposures in a city environment also should be considered in exposure assessments and risk evaluations. These elevated flux densities are probably due to stray currents. We also found strong magnetic flux densities (> 1.0 microT) close to ordinary distribution pillars, power substations, shoplifting alarms, and other electrical devices.

Objective To analyze linkage of five candidate regions for nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without palate (CLP) on chromosome 2p13, 4q, 6p23, and 19q13; in addition chromosome 1q32, the locus for van der Woude syndrome, on Swedish CLP families. Design Three to five linked microsatellite markers were selected from each candidate region. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with fluorescent-labeled microsatellite markers was performed on DNA samples from the participating families. Electrophoresis of the PCR products was performed on a laser-fluorescent DNA sequencer. The genotype data were analyzed with multipoint linkage analysis. Modes of inheritance tested included two autosomal dominant, an autosomal recessive, and a nonparametric model. Multipoint logarithm of odds (LOD) scores were also calculated by assuming genetic heterogeneity. Participants Nineteen Swedish multigenerational families with at least two first-degree relatives affected with CLP. Greater than 50% of the families studied show vertical transmission of the clefting phenotype and both inter- and intrafamilial variability were noted. Results Cumulative multipoint LOD scores for the whole group of families calculated under autosomal dominant modes of inheritance were negative in all regions and less than −2 except chromosome 6p23. LOD scores calculated under recessive inheritance and the nonparametric model were inconclusive. There was no significant evidence of genetic heterogeneity among the sample group. Conclusions The group of Swedish CLP families did not demonstrate significant linkage to any of the five candidate regions examined. This might suggest a new but yet unknown CLP locus or loci in this family group. However, because linkage could not be excluded in some individual families, they should still be tested with candidate genes from these regions.

Calcium is involved in a number of cellular processes (Clapham, 1995) and many studies have implicated an effect of electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure on such processes. Several studies have also indicated that there may be a link between electromagnetic field exposure and human brain tumor (Hardell et al., 1995). Gap junction intercellular calcium signaling are believed to intervene in the control of cell proliferation and differentiation. For these reasons we believe that magnetic field (MF) effects on calcium waves mediated by gap junctions in astroglial primary culture cells from rat cortex should be interesting to study.

Epidemiological studies indicate an association between electromagnetic field exposure and cancer risks. These studies have mainly taken residential and occupational exposure into consideration. Outdoor environments are often considered as low-level areas, but in this paper we show that this is not true in a city environment.

Biological effects of extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields (EMF) demonstrated over the past few decades have proven notoriously difficult to replicate. There are many possible reasons for this problem: variations in exposure parameters; variations in biological material; variations in biological experimental protocols; or as some critics assume, lack of existence of any real effect in the original experiment. Until recently there have been very few attempts to conduct replication experiments.

Background Changing jobs is part of modern working life. Within occupational health, job mobility has mainly been studied in terms of employees’ intentions to leave their jobs. In contrast to actual turnover, turnover intentions are not definite and only reflect the probability that an individual will change job. The aim of this study was to determine what work conditions predict voluntary job mobility and to examine if good health or burnout predicts voluntary job mobility. Methods The study was based on questionnaire data from 792 civil servants. The data were analysed using logistic regressions. Results Low variety and high autonomy were associated with increased voluntary job mobility. However, the associations between health and voluntary job mobility did not reach significance. Possible explanations for the null results may be that the population was homogeneous, and that the instruments for measuring global health are too coarse for a healthy, working population. Conclusions Voluntary job mobility may be predicted by high autonomy and low variety. The former may reflect that individuals with high autonomy have stronger career development motives; the latter may reflect the fact that low variety leads to job dissatisfaction. In contrast to our results on job content, global health measurements are not strong predictors of voluntary job mobility. This may be because good health affects job mobility through several offsetting channels, involving the resources and ability to seek a new job. Future work should use more detailed measurements of health or examine other work settings so that we may learn more about which of the offsetting effects of health dominate in different contexts.

Objective. To identify what pharmacy students learn during the 6-month advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) in Sweden. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanMethods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 pharmacy APPE students and 17 pharmacist preceptors and analyzed in a qualitative directed content analysis using a defined workplace learning typology for categories. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanResults. The Swedish APPE provides students with task performance skills for work at pharmacies and social and professional knowledge, such as teamwork, how to learn while in a work setting, self-evaluation, understanding of the pharmacist role, and decision making and problem solving skills. Many of these skills and knowledge are not accounted for in the curricula in Sweden. Using a workplace learning typology to identify learning outcomes, as in this study, could be useful for curricula development. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanConclusions. Exploring the learning that takes place during the APPE in a pharmacy revealed a broad range of skills and knowledge that students acquire. Funding Agencies|educational board at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Uppsala University