ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing economic and social challenges throughout the world. The unemployment rate in Australia has skyrocketed due to the country's first recession in 40 years. Australia's governments have responded by investing heavily in construction projects that stimulate the economy and can also be expanded into modern public procurement policies targeting specific groups, such as the conservative Aboriginal communities. However, a number of asymmetries between policy makers and practitioners regarding the implementation of social procurement policies. By surveying Aboriginal construction workers and correlating the obtained responses with their social value expectations and employer preferences, the paper argues that private corporations can build social value prospects for conservative employees when they proactively introduce employment policies (such as rewarding remuneration and career development attributes) and cultural benefit strategies (such as all-inclusive and ethnically diverse workplaces). To ensure a rapid recovery from the economic setbacks caused by the pandemic, it is essential to carry out such studies to estimate how enhanced infrastructure spending in Australia can contribute to sustainable social progress. © 2022 Seventh Sense Research Group®
ABSTRACT
Methods to collect data in construction engineering and management (CEM) research are evolving, informed by recent technological advancements. One such method is research charrettes that allow effective interactions and knowledge sharing between expert industry practitioners and academic researchers, all colocated in a single venue, enabling rich data collection and live communication. A pivot point in technological evolution occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing a global shift to remote work. Hence, planned in-person research charrettes had to shift to remote sessions, relying on virtual conferencing platforms and online data collection mechanisms. Technology-enabled charrettes have allowed the authors to collect significantly richer data sets and ensure a more diverse representation of participants, while saving tremendous amounts of time. With the continuing emergence of technological applications, the world might not go back to functioning fully in person. The authors believe remote research charrettes (RRCs) will still be used in a post-COVID-19 world because of their superior performance. This paper builds on a previous publication that described traditional research charrettes as a method to enhance CEM research a decade ago;it offers a significantly updated and improved RRC method based on the knowledge gained from transitioning a dozen in-person charrettes into RRCs. It also presents performance comparisons between RRCs and traditional charrettes by quantifying metrics indicating how RRCs are more time-efficient and cost-saving, harness more participants from more diverse locations, and enable the collection of richer data sets and four times more industry comments and expert feedback. This paper also provides guidance on the integration of technology with traditional research charrettes, hence contributing to the CEM body of knowledge. © 2022 This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
ABSTRACT
This paper presents results of a student survey carried out among Civil and Construction Engineering undergraduate students within the School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment at Western Sydney University. The survey investigated the learning experience of students and the effectiveness of new educational processes implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to examine the perceptions of students on online teaching modes. The survey results indicated some positive features of online teaching such as flexibility, comfortable educational environments and efficient time utilisation. However, students also found many challenges such as network instability, distractions, lack of engagement and mental stress. The identified areas of improvement were closely related to these challenges. The survey results highlighted that most students were satisfied with the teaching strategies and assessment methods. Improved and effective teaching methodologies for students to achieve better learning outcomes are proposed and discussed.
ABSTRACT
The decision-making situations of the construction workforce have been drastically altered since the outbreak of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The new situation, where decision-makers strive to promptly respond to the unprecedented crisis to sustain essential construction operations without compromising the safety and health of workers, implies the presence of an availability heuristic. An availability heuristic has the potential to bring unconscious, systematic errors to the decision-making process. This study creates a decision-making experiment to empirically examine the presence of an availability heuristic and the effectiveness of a corresponding mitigation strategy in construction workforce decision-making under COVID-19 uncertainties. The experiment was conducted among students in the construction program from April 2021 to May 2021. Results show that students tend to support the management improvement ideas that fall into their most familiar fields. Providing information on other options against the option with the easiest recalled instances has been proven effective in terms of reducing the presence of the heuristic. Moreover, the results show that the presence of the heuristic is robust and unspecific to the level of education and years of work experience. The primary contributions of this research are (1) identifying the presence of the availability heuristic in construction workforce decision-making under COVID-19 uncertainties, (2) testing the effectiveness of a mitigation strategy against the availability heuristic, (3) bridging the rational decision-making with actual choices, (4) introducing the approach of decision-making experiments for future studies in construction engineering and management (CEM), and (5) suggesting an integrated perspective taking advantage of both positivism and constructivism for CEM decision-making. It is anticipated that policy makers can benefit from this study by enhancing the understanding of construction workforce decision-making amid a pandemic. This enhanced understanding can help to design effective strategies to promote the normal operation of the essential construction industry and ensure the safety and health of approximately 7.6 million employees in the construction industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises in the future. © 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
ABSTRACT
Site visits or field trips have been a tool utilized by construction engineering and management educators to engage students in active learning, assist traditional lessons, and attain stronger and deeper student learning experiences. Nevertheless, site visits present major logistical and accessibility challenges, which reduces the number of students that have access to the benefits of such a technique. The limitations for site visits have further broadened recently, as COVID-19 public health concerns has forced educators to move to online course delivery quickly and the majority of site visits have been canceled. This study presents the development of VR-OnSite-a web-based virtual environment that offers a social field trip experience for large groups of students that resembles real-world jobsite conditions. A pilot study was conducted with sixteen students that followed a guided site visit within the context of a railway transportation project. The use of VR-OnSite resulted in statistically significant increase in student perceived knowledge in railway transportation and high engagement during the virtual site visit. © 2022 ASCE.
ABSTRACT
With the current pandemic, a potential recession is also occurring. Considering the “Great Recession” of 2007-2010, student enrollments went up while taxpayer support to public universities fell. Also associated with these changes was the increase in unemployment which correlates with the increase in enrollment. Non-traditional students (not typical recent high school graduates) return to college as jobs become more difficult to find. In a thorough review of the American Society of Engineering Education archives, there is little about any correlation between job placement and the Great Recession. Internships are a part of many construction, engineering, and architecture degree programs. These might be mandatory for course credit or strongly encouraged, yet voluntary, during college. Internships could also be mandatory for professional credentials after graduation. Little research is available to identify any correlation between internship placement and recessions. Anecdotal relationships between recessions and internships have been reported. With the current economic situation associated with the Covid pandemic, there is an opportunity to identify changes that occur in the construction industry. A thorough review of existing literature is performed. To determine the change in internship employment, a survey instrument was created. Respondents shared their perspective about gaining a summer internship this summer as compared to previous years. A comparison of recent salary data and career fair data was used to identify any economic changes which have occurred. This research seeks to define the relationship between the university, industry, and student and how it was affected by Covid. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
ABSTRACT
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Construction Engineering division of ASEE hosted two round-table discussions at the 2020 international conference. The first session, titled "COVID in the Spring" was aimed at sharing stories of success and challenge from the spring transition to online teaching and learning. The second session titled "COVID in the Fall" asked participants to share plans and concerns about the fall 2020 semester. One hundred and ninety-six ASEE members representing 122 institutions attended these sessions, exceeding our expectations and providing a broad disciplinary perspective. This paper summarizes the themes that emerged from these discussions in order to memorialize the state of matters within engineering education at the height of this monumental experience of our time. Included is a contextual reflection on the themes that were identified from a perspective eight months after the conference. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021