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Career development of Science students seems dependent on more than disciplinary education, such as the nature and focus of career preparation. In this study we compare graduate outcomes of science students at the University of Groningen, completing two master-level program streams with different focal points, by using career progress surveys from alumni (n=242) with self-reported societal development data. The first program is a classical research-oriented master (ROM), that aims to prepare students for a career within academia. The second program, called Science, Business and Policy (SBP) focusses on a societal profile and aims to prepare for a career outside academia. SBP is different from ROM because it has a practical and multidisciplinary orientation (vs a theoretical and mono-disciplinary orientation in ROM) and it includes a long work-placement outside academia, a form of work based learning. The differences in the tracks translate to differences in career paths. Both profiles resulted in good but distinct career opportunities, corresponding to alumni's discipline and sector. Although ROM-alumni felt especially prepared for an academic career, only a quarter actually continued in academia and many we employed in education. In contrast, most SBP-alumni were employed in business or policy. Targeting specific job preparation seems more successful with a societal profile. Reflecting on skills, in both groups research-related skills decreased during careers while soft skills increased. Alumni were generally satisfied with their first job and also with their current job, with SBP-alumni scoring significantly higher on satisfaction with income, status, appreciation and perspective. It can be concluded that diversification in educational profiles changes the societal career paths of science students. [Note: The page range (119-121) and (104-135) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 119-135.]

The Science, Business and Policy Program (SBP) of the University of Groningen has been a work-based learning program for science master students since two decades. This program, a direct consequence of the Bologna declaration of education in Europe, has a distinctive position in European science curricula. Here, we use a web-based survey (N = 242), comparing alumni perceptions on the SBP program (N = 111) with a research oriented master (ROM, N = 131). Alumni from both programs predominantly had a content-driven motivation to choose for either the ROM or SBP format. For SBP alumni, this preference was also inspired by the master's focus on society and a career outside academia. We assessed self-perceived learning outcomes using an extended version of the Science Student Skills Inventory. Both groups were positive about the academic level of their program. Scientific content knowledge and practical research skills were perceived as sufficient by both groups, although significantly higher in the ROM group. Both groups were equally positive about obtained skills in academic reasoning and would have preferred more disciplinary content knowledge. The SBP group perceived their skills on teamwork, multidisciplinary working, leadership, ethical thinking and project work to be significantly higher compared to ROM alumni. The SBP group felt significantly more prepared for a career outside academia and the ROM group for a career in academia. Relatively the ROM group missed career preparation. Both specific work-based learning and classical research approaches were seen as valid ways to obtain a high-quality, science master level, although for different career ambitions.

This study explored and compared people's interactions with urban greenspace (UGS) using case studies in three Eastern European countries – Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. These countries have experienced radical changes in governance systems and socio-economic structures, characteristic of a transition from planned to market economies. Recently, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine have been arenas for armed conflicts, which have dramatically heightened instability throughout the region. Urban planners in Eastern Europe therefore urgently need context-relevant knowledge to facilitate the critical work of (re-)building more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities. An unrestricted, self-selected online survey was used to collect data in 2021–2022. A total of 3573 respondents completed the survey (N = 1142 in Armenia, N = 1069 in Georgia and N = 1362 in Ukraine). We identified 12 key explanatory factors linked to the frequency of people's interactions with UGS using multiple ordinal logistic regressions. The core findings are: (i) most factors are country-specific; (ii) age of respondents had a large effect on the frequency of UGS use in Armenia and Georgia, where older people were mostly infrequent users of UGS; (iii) those who lived further from UGS or could not access it on foot were less likely to use it often; and (iv) the only common key factor across three countries was that people who 'do not want' to use UGS are infrequent users. The study shows that only 10–18% of respondents were satisfied with the UGS availability and quality. Among many constraints related to UGS use, litter in UGS and lack of time were the most mentioned. Large parks were the most preferred types of UGS. Our findings confirm the need for urban planners in Eastern Europe to consider and integrate diverse factors influencing people's willingness to interact with urban nature. A priority is to understand how to bring infrequent users to UGS, particularly older people in various cultural settings in Eastern European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey researchers sometimes face several options to formally define and draw random probability samples from their target population of individuals. Relatively little is known about the consequences for the quality of survey estimates when different sampling frames are used, for example frames that list addresses versus individuals While the initial choice for a sampling frame design may be based on diverse criteria, we argue that any decision has consequences for the quality of survey estimates. We hypothesize that knowing respondents' names upfront decreases nonresponse and coverage error. This can be accomplished by either using person-based sampling frames or augmenting nonperson-based sampling frames with names. We systematically compare sampling frame designs in the context of face-to-face surveys in connection with the European Social Survey (ESS) with the help of three quasi-experimental datasets from a single country. Even the most conservative measures support our hypothesis that the presence of names in the sampling frames could improve response rates, noncontact rates, cooperation rates, and ineligibility rates by between 2.5 and 6 percentage points. Additionally, the accuracy of population estimates could increase. These results suggest that survey researchers collecting individual-level data would be best advised to use well-maintained sampling frame designs (augmented) with person-specific information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the symposium was to bring together scholars in the field of survey research methodology, studying interviewer-respondent interaction by means of systematic coding and quantitative analysis. Although the past decade has shown enormous growth in the number of surveys conducted online, conducting surveys by means of telephone or face-to-face interviews is still a large research field. Using interviewer-respondent interaction coding as a manipulation check on interviewer behavior in persuading CATI respondents. In this issue, the focus lies on interviewer-respondent interaction; studying the complexity of interactions between respondents and interviewers (Ongena & Dijkstra, [19]) may help understanding interviewer effects. [Extracted from the article]

Intrigued by the possibilities of improving the data quality of web surveys by incorporating human-like features, we developed a video-web survey for this study. This paper describes an experiment that compares response behavior in the video-web mode to traditional web and interviewer-administered surveys. The disclosure of sensitive information and respondents' engagement were examined. Overall, despite the visual and auditory representation of a human interviewer in the videoweb mode, video-web seems to have been experienced by respondents much like a traditional web survey. Based on these results, we argue that for human-like features to fully increase the level of engagement it would require the inclusion of responsiveness. However, researchers should be aware of possible social presence effects that may arise when creating web surveys with responsive human-like features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When survey respondents answer survey questions, they can also produce "paradata" (Couper 2000, 2008): behavioral evidence about their response process. The study reported here demonstrates that two kinds of respondent paradata - fluency of speech and gaze direction during answers - identify answers that are likely to be problematic, as measured by changes in answers during the interview or afterward on a post-interview questionnaire. Answers with disfluencies were less reliable both face to face and on the telephone than fluent answers, and particularly diagnostic of unreliability face to face. Interviewers' responsivity can affect both the prevalence and potential diagnosticity of paradata: both disfluent speech and gaze aversion were more frequent and diagnostic in conversational interviews, where interviewers could provide clarification if respondents requested it or the interviewer judged it was needed, than in strictly standardized interviews where clarification was not provided even if the respondent asked for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]