A course for teaching design research methodology

Design research informs and supports practice by developing knowledge to improve the chances of producing successful products.Training in design research has been poorly supported. Design research uses human and natural/technical sciences, embracing all facets of design; its methods and tools are adapted from both these traditions. However, design researchers are rarely trained in methods from both the traditions. Research in traditional sciences focuses primarily on understanding phenomena related to human, natural, or technical systems. Design research focuses on supporting improvement of such systems, using understanding as a necessary but not sufficient step, and it must embrace methods for both understanding reality and developing support for its improvement. A one-semester, postgraduate-level, credited course that has been offered since 2002, entitled Methodology for Design Research, is described that teaches a methodology for carrying out research into design. Its steps are to clarify research success; to understand relevant phenomena of design and how these influence success; to use this to envision design improvement and develop proposals for supporting improvement; to evaluate support for its influence on success; and, if unacceptable, to modify, support, or improve the understanding of success and its links to the phenomena of design. This paper highlights some major issues about the status of design research and describes how design research methodology addresses these. The teaching material, model of delivery, and evaluation of the course on methodology for design research are discussed.

Doing marriage and parenthood: The division of household labour across two life course events

The current study is a longitudinal investigation into changes in the division of household labour across transitions to marriage and parenthood in the UK. Previous research has noted a more traditional division of household labour, with women performing the majority of housework, amongst spouses and couples with children. However, the bulk of this work has been cross-sectional in nature. The few longitudinal studies that have been carried out have been rather ambiguous about the effect of marriage and parenthood on the division of housework. Theoretically, this study draws on gender construction theory. The key premise of this theory is that gender is something that is performed and created in interaction, and, as a result, something fluid and flexible rather than fixed and stable. The idea that couples 'do gender' through housework has been a major theoretical breakthrough. Gender-neutral explanations of the division of household labour, positing rational acting individuals, have failed to explicate why women continue to perform an unequal share of housework, regardless of socioeconomic status. Contrastingly, gender construction theory situates gender as the key process in dividing household labour. By performing and avoiding certain housework chores, couples fulfill social norms of what it means to be a man and a woman although, given the emphasis on human agency in producing and contesting gender, couples are able to negotiate alternative gender roles which, in turn, feed back into the structure of social norms in an ever-changing societal landscape. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couples negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. Both transitions hypothesise a more traditional division of household labour. Data comes from the British Household Panel Survey, a large, nationally representative quantitative survey that has been carried out annually since 1991. Here, data tracks the same 776 couples at two separate time points - 1996 and 2005. OLS regression is used to test whether or not transitions to marriage and parenthood have a significant impact on the division of household labour whilst controlling for host of relevant socio-economic factors. Results indicate that marriage has no significant effect on how couples partition housework. Those couples making the transition from cohabitation to marriage do not show significant changes in housework arrangements from those couples who remain cohabiting in both waves. On the other hand, becoming parents does lead to a more traditional division of household labour whilst controlling for socio-economic factors which accompany the move to parenthood. There is then some evidence that couples use the site of household labour to 'do parenthood' and generate identities which both use and inform socially prescribed notions of what it means to be a mother and a father. Support for socio-economic explanations of the division of household labour was mixed although it remains clear that they, alone, cannot explain how households divide housework.

Computationally Efficient Sub-optimal Mid Course Guidance Using Model Predictive Static Programming (MPSP)

For a homing interceptor, suitable initial condition must be achieved by mid course guidance scheme for its maximum effectiveness. To achieve desired end goal of any mid course guidance scheme, two point boundary value problem must be solved online with all realistic constrain. A Newly developed computationally efficient technique named as MPSP (Model Predictive Static Programming) is utilized in this paper for obtaining suboptimal solution of optimal mid course guidance. Time to go uncertainty is avoided in this formulation by making use of desired position where midcourse guidance terminate and terminal guidance takes over. A suitable approach angle towards desired point also can be specified in this guidance law formulation. This feature makes this law particularly attractive because warhead effectiveness issue can be indirectly solved in mid course phase.

Destin ou Destinée dans un contexte de fragmentation psychologique et sociale chez des jeunes mineurs isolés, immigrés d’Afrique Noire

Résumé: Cet article questionne la vision psychodynamique et psychosociale dans le parcours de vie de jeunes immigrés africains, vulnérables, placés en Maison d’Enfants à Caractère Social. Ce placement propose une formation professionnelle ou la poursuite des études, formations indispensables pour rester en France à condition de disposer de papiers en règle. La problématique de la fragmentation psychique et sociale chez ces jeunes dont le processus développemental est marqué par l’exil sera interrogée au regard des concepts tels que Destin et Destinée. Cette dernière sera aussi questionnée à la lumière du rôle et de la valeur du travail chez ces jeunes évoluant dans un nouveau contexte socio-économico-culturel qui tend à les stigmatiser. Par l’intermédiaire des données verbales et non verbales issues d’entretiens psychologiques, d’un groupe de parole et d’une grille d’observation inspirée d’un questionnaire, nous proposons une analyse des trajectoires personnelles au regard d’un processus d’identification. Cette analyse permet déjà d’aller au-delà des caractéristiques individuelles et de mettre en exergue le rôle capital qu’incarne le travail pour asseoir une identité sociale et sortir de l’état intemporel d’exil

Financing And Cooperation For Sustainable Development In The Mediterranean, Sophia Antipolis, France, 3-4 June 2004: Volume II: Technical Report of the Workshop

(263 page document)

Priestley College: How do you successfully develop your new learning space? ...ask your students, of course!

When Priestley College began to plan the redevelopment of its learning resource centre, it continued the culture of student involvement that exists within the College by asking students to help plan and create the new development. This case study describes how the Jisc infoKit on 'Planning and Designing Technology-Rich Learning Spaces' was used as the starting point for ideas and planning, and how the finished development was the recognisable result of students' ideas and plans.

The wanderings of a social type in eighteenth-century England and France

Eguíluz, Federico; Merino, Raquel; Olsen, Vickie; Pajares, Eterio; Santamaría, José Miguel (eds.)

XCRI-CAP PG Course Implementation Manual

This an implementation manual for institutions wanting to implement XCRI-CAP for PG courses and send feeds to Prospects