Search Results for
"human"

IMPACT: Skills development for economic growth is an international priority. Vocational education and training (VET) is globally an instrument to deliver skills training to the public. Internationally, public servants working in VET, and specifically in the UK, are not immune to mental health challenges and poor well-being, at significant cost to the public purse. This article argues that VET staff’s well-being should be prioritized and sustained by proactively managing work stress and work–life balance. The authors propose a more strategic, future-orientated and preventative approach. Policy-makers, line managers and human resource professionals would do well by investing in VET teachers’ and administrators’ psycho-social well-being and therefore limit the consequent costs associated with mental health related productivity issues, absenteeism and turnover. A sustainable people management approach, investing in a healthy work-context, will outweigh the costs and harmful effects of performance problems, absences and turnover in the public service. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In recent years, the global economy has been marked by both challenges and opportunities, shaped by significant antiglobalization events such as the 2016 BREXIT vote and the ongoing US-China trade conflict, which have had far-reaching consequences. Given Africa's vulnerability to external influences, this study is conducted for two reasons: first, to explore the unconditional impact of antiglobalization on Africa's structural transformation, and second, to analyze the conditional effects of human capital development on the continent's structural transformation. In this study, antiglobalization is examined in the context of its risks to the economic, political, social, and financial dimensions of globalization. These risks were quantified with standard errors obtained from first-order autoregressive processes of respective globalization proxies. The analysis focuses on 48 African countries, utilizing data from 2010 to 2022. The fixed effects regression, Driscoll–Kraay fixed effects standard error regression, and the bias-corrected least squares dummy variable (LSDV) were adopted as estimation techniques, with the third serving as a robustness check. The study finds that human capital development positively moderates the negative unconditional impact of antiglobalization on Africa's structural transformation. Critical levels of human capital development for such moderation are provided. Other findings from the study and their associated policy recommendations are discussed in line with the 2063 African Union's agenda and the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs). © 2025 The Author(s). Thunderbird International Business Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Introduction: The school-to-work transition (SWT) is complex for young people. The postpandemic era, characterized by rapidly evolving economies and technologies, has augmented the complexity of negotiating such pathways. Despite this, young people—understood here through the lens of emergent adulthood—are often positioned as wholly responsible for navigating their own pathways beyond school. Methods: A pragmatic case study approach was used to analyze qualitative data collected from three SWT partnership programs (UniHub, Australian School-based Apprenticeships [ASbAs], and Regional Learning Pathways [RLPs]) aimed at young people (2018–2023) in regional areas of Tasmania, Australia. For each program, participants were interviewed (N = 6 [UniHub]; N = 23 [ASbAs]; N = 44 [RLPs]) and surveyed (N = 350 [UniHub]; N = 21 [ASbAs]), and data were thematically analyzed to identify the role of boundary-crossers in SWT partnerships. Results: Boundary-crosser work emerged as a key component of the sampled SWT partnerships. Enabling features of boundary-crossing work in partnerships include accessibility, support contextualized to the region and individual—like reducing barriers to equity—and using clear communication approaches. This role redistributed responsibility in the SWT to a partnership between schools, pathways, and young people. Conclusions: Whereas literature and policy underscore the economic and developmental importance of SWT, the contribution of this article is research and data that nuance understanding of how SWT partnerships can share the responsibility of the SWT by designing in the program a boundary-crosser role. The concept of boundary-crosser work in SWT partnerships offers a novel approach for policymakers in policy and practice to rethink how the SWT is supported. © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Adolescence published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for Professionals in Services to Adolescents.

Marginalised youth in resource-constrained vocational education and training (VET) centres struggle to create engineering products and services with entrepreneurial value. This is due to limitations in the vocational engineering curriculum in addressing real community needs, exacerbated by inadequate resources, limited technology access, and other socio-economic challenges. This paper explores how the vocational engineering programme curriculum can be enhanced to improve learners’ capabilities to create engineering solutions with entrepreneurial value tailored for low-income consumers. The approach explores the Learning Factory (LF) concept, where design optimization strategies are investigated, rooted in sustainable humanitarian engineering, cost-effective materials, and energy-efficient production methods. The research entails enhancing the vocational curriculum by integrating authentic, real-world projects in real settings, giving students hands-on experience with engineering and business practices. The proposed methodology allows for a participatory approach to be explored in engaging local communities and stakeholders, ensuring the solutions fit the region's cultural and economic needs. The research highlights challenges and opportunities in VET institutions in Western Kenya and ways to optimise their engineering design and production processes. Additionally, this study offers insights for educators, policymakers, and practitioners in similar resource-limited settings. This study explores how a traditional hands-on, project-based approach complements the principles of learning factories, offering a practical model for fostering innovation and skill development in resource-constrained vocational settings. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

The emergence of Industry 5.0 (I5.0) and the integration of smart technologies in Operations Management (OM) are reshaping the competences required for sustainable business practices. By aligning human-centric, sustainable, and resilience-driven principles with advanced technological solutions, Work 5.0 emphasizes the critical role of human workers in collaboration with intelligent systems. This paper investigated the specific Work 5.0 competence-based requirements essential for achieving smart and sustainable operations management. Therefore, through a survey conducted in Italy, we identified a competence framework tailored to smart and sustainable operations. Key competences preferred by respondents included data management and analysis, project management skills, modelling skills, programming and software development cloud management, and digital marketing. In addition, participants recognized project-based learning, hands-on learning, and problem-based learning as the favored teaching approaches for getting course. The results will have direct implications for the design of engineering education 5.0 programs and lifelong learning initiatives for requalification of existing workforce. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

Background: Research has identified employment as a social inclusion priority for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and has emphasized person-centered vocational training as a predictor of future employment. The Impact Project is a summer program offered by project partners in British Columbia, Canada, that provides youth with IDD vocational training to improve their employment experiences in preparation for future employment. Objective: This study explicates the importance of soft skills in vocational training identified by youth and their parents/carers regarding attained employment experiences during the Impact Project (2020–2022). Methods: This study evaluates qualitative data from youth and their parents/carers who reflected on their vocational training and attained employment experiences. Results: Qualitative findings highlight the significance of soft skills, namely confidence, social capital, and job readiness in the youth's employment experiences and outcomes. Youth and parent/carer observations about these soft skills add insight to understanding positive employment outcomes from the Impact Project. Conclusion: Qualitative data from the Impact Project (2020–2022) illuminate how soft skills contributed to the youth's employment experiences. These findings contextualize quantitative employment outcomes and can guide vocational training programs for youth with IDD in preparation for future employment. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Background: Empathy is crucial for effective clinical practice, and patient care. Despite its importance, the comparative studies and effectiveness analyses focusing on empathy-training strategies within both medical education and clinical practice are limited, particularly in China. The objective of this study is to compare empathy levels across doctors, nurses, medical students, and nursing students in China, exploring how workplace settings, professional roles, and training stages influence empathy development, to inform targeted empathy education strategies. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using the Chinese Version of the Jefferson Scale of Healthcare Professional Empathy (C-JSHPE). Participants included doctors, nurses, medical students and nursing students from primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals, as well as medical schools located in eastern (economically developed), central (moderately developed), and western (less developed) regions of China. Results: Qualified professionals (licensed nurses and doctors) exhibited significantly higher empathy scores than healthcare students (doctors vs medical students t = 12.959, p < 0.001; nurses vs nursing students t = 7.135, p < 0.001). Nurses exhibited significantly higher empathy than doctors (t = 4.081, p < 0.001), and nursing students likewise exhibited markedly greater empathy than their medical student counterparts (t = 5.221, p < 0.001). Significant differences in empathy scores were observed between nursing students who participated in internships and those who did not (t = 2.548, p < 0.05). In contrast, no such differences emerged among medical students (t = − 0.228, p > 0.05). Both doctors and nurses with more clinical experience demonstrated higher empathy scores (F physician = 10.696, p < 0.001; F nurse = 30.029, p < 0.001). In contrast, those working in tertiary hospitals reported reduced empathy (F physician = 94.018, p < 0.001; F nurse = 486.586, p < 0.001). Conclusions: This study underscored the importance of both developing and retaining empathy in qualified professionals and healthcare students, and highlighted the significant role of clinical work environments and stages of professional development in shaping empathic capacity. The findings suggested that empathy was not static, but evolved in response to the demands, pressures, and relational dynamics of different clinical roles. Simulation-based education and other experiential learning approaches represent promising avenues for fostering empathy, particularly when integrated longitudinally throughout training and aligned with authentic clinical contexts. Embedding these strategies into the continuum of medical education may be key to sustaining empathy as a core professional competence in complex healthcare systems. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd

Background: Compared to the general population, adults with disabilities often have poor employment rates. Apprenticeships offer one way to improve employment outcomes; yet, it is unclear whether apprenticeships have been effective among adults with disabilities. Objective: Our objective was to explore apprenticeships among adults with disabilities. Method: We conducted a systematic literature review of 19 studies which examined apprenticeships among adults with disabilities. Results: The studies were inconsistent in their characterization of disability and/or the nature of the apprenticeship. Yet, overall, most studies reported that apprenticeships were effective for adults with disabilities. In spite of their effectiveness, stakeholders often have negative views of apprenticeships for adults with disabilities. Conclusion: Implications for research and practice are discussed. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Background: The global healthcare workforce is facing a substantial shortage and an uneven distribution of qualified professionals, which restricts access to essential healthcare services. This shortage may be mitigated through more effective support of healthcare workers in training. Therefore, an overview of existing economic barriers for this demographic is necessary. Objective: To review the existing literature on financial challenges of students and early-career professionals in the healthcare sector. Methods: Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, articles published between January 2008 and February 2024 were identified using PubMed and Scopus. A total of 17,268 articles were screened by reviewing their titles and abstracts followed by a detailed review of full texts with cross-validation. Themes were identified, clustered, and analyzed. Results: This scoping review included 167 articles focusing on the themes debt (36.5%, n=61) and loans (10.2 %, n=17) and their influence on career pathways, the role of employment for career satisfaction, summarizing findings concerning salary (29.9%, n=50), finances (25.1%, n=42), funding (10.8%, n=18), and savings (10.2%, n=17), and obstacles toward a sustainable lifestyle, which included results considering career choice (34.1%, n=57), migration (7.2%, n=12), gender disparity (6.0%, n=10), and working conditions (2.4%, n=4). Conclusions: Efforts to close the healthcare workforce gap require greater investment in training, compensation, and support for junior healthcare workers. Students and early-career professionals warrant particular attention to build a sustainable, resilient, and reliable healthcare workforce. © 2025 The Author(s)

This study evaluates the relationship between soft skills and hard skills readiness among Electrical Engineering Education students at Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA), Indonesia, addressing the critical gap in quantitative assessment of these competencies within the Indonesian engineering education context amid Industry 4.0 demands. Rationale: The rapid technological transformation of Industry 4.0 necessitates comprehensive readiness assessment frameworks that evaluate both technical proficiencies and transferable competencies, yet existing literature reveals a scarcity of quantitative studies examining the specific interaction between soft and hard skills among engineering students in Indonesia. Methods: Using a causal correlational design grounded in human Capital Theory and the Integrated Skills Framework, data were collected from 153 third and fourth-year students (95.6% response rate) through stratified random sampling. Two validated instruments the Soft Skills Measurement Instrument (IPSS, 35 items, α = 0.89) and Hard Skills Measurement Instrument (IPHS, 40 items, α = 0.87) were administered. Data analysis employed descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, MANOVA, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using Jamovi and LISREL software. Results: Professional ethics (M = 81.53) and teamwork (M = 78.91) emerged as the strongest soft skills, while electrical fundamentals (M = 75.47) was the strongest hard skill. Programming demonstrated the lowest readiness (M = 63.51) with highest variability. Cognitive soft skills particularly problem-solving (β = 0.37, p < .001) and critical thinking (β = 0.29, p = .004) significantly predicted technical competence, explaining 46.1% of variance in hard skills performance. Students with internship experience demonstrated significantly higher proficiency across both domains (p < .01). The SEM revealed cognitive soft skills directly influenced all hard skills dimensions (β = 0.39 to 0.53, p < .001), with the model explaining 67.3% of variance in overall workplace readiness. Limitations: The cross-sectional design limits causal inference; the single-institution sample may constrain generalizability to other Indonesian universities. Recommendations: Engineering curricula should integrate problem-solving development within technical courses, expand internship opportunities, and strengthen programming instruction. Future research should employ longitudinal designs and multi-institutional samples. © © 2026 JESTP.