The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre podcast focusses upon the work of one poet or features discussion about poetry with poets and academics. The theme music for the podcast, entitled ‘Leaving for the North’, was composed by Aneurin Rees, and played by Aneurin Rees (guitar) and Rosalie Tribe (violin). For more information about the Poetry Centre, look up our website or find us on social media @brookespoetry
This study examines the impacts of frontline hotel employees’ emotional intelligence (EI) and cultural intelligence (CQ) on guests’ satisfaction, and uniquely captures guests’ perceptions of staff capabilities. The results of a survey conducted with Asian and non-Asian respondents suggest there is a strong positive relationship between employee EI and CQ. More significantly, non-Asian hotel guests perceived higher employee EI and CQ than Asian hotel guests. Finally, both employee EI and CQ had positive and significant impact on overall satisfaction, nevertheless, CQ had a much stronger prediction of overall satisfaction than EI. The paper examines the implications of these findings for human resource practices with particular reference to businesses targeting culturally diverse market segments. The conclusion also considers the potential for future studies to expand research based on consumer’s conceptions and perceptions of frontline staffs’ EI and CQ capabilities in alternative hospitality and service domai…
This latest episode marks something of a departure for the Poetry Centre podcast. If you’re a regular or just occasional listener to this podcast, you’ll know that it normally features a poet in conversation about two or three of their poems. This episode is the first of a series in which Niall Munro talks with colleagues at Oxford Brookes University and showcases some of the very exciting research that they have been doing into poets and poetry. In this episode, Niall Munro talks with Dr Dinah Roe, Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature here at Oxford Brookes. Dinah is an expert on Christina Rossetti, Victorian poetry, and the Pre-Raphaelites. During this past semester Dinah has run discussion groups and contributed an introduction to a Weekly Poem featuring Rossetti’s work that you can still find on our website, and we’re releasing this podcast on Sunday 5 December - Christina Rossetti’s birthday. In the discussion with Dinah, we focus on three poems by Rossetti: 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness', '…
Robotic tele-operation systems have vast potential in areas ranging from surgical robotics and underwater exploration to disposing of toxic, explosive and nuclear materials. While visual camera feeds for the human operator are typically available and well studied, tactile sensory information is often vital for successful and efficient manipulation. Previous studies have largely focused on execution time alone as measure of success of feedback methods on individual tasks. The present study complements this by a comparative analysis of vibration and visual feedback of tactile information across a range of manipulation tasks. Results show a significant reduction in perceived workload with the implementation of vibration feedback and an improvement of error rates for visual feedback. Contrary to expectation, we did not find a reduction in task completion time. The negative finding on completion time challenges the belief that the mere existence of task-relevant feedback aids efficient task completion. The reduced…
This paper seeks to fill a gap in the scholarly literature by examining the operation of the principle of responsible government in the Commonwealth Caribbean both in relation to the prorogation of parliament and parliament’s ability to hold the government to account by means of a motion of no confidence. It identifies a number of instances of the prorogation of parliament that have occurred in the post-independence era which were incompatible with the principle of responsible government because they were intended to avoid the government being held to account by parliament. It also examines they ways in which an incumbent government might seek to frustrate motions of no confidence and how the courts and other key constitutional actors should respond in such circumstances.
Purpose. The authors explore the impact of financialization on income inequality for a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 2000–2017. The authors control for the effect of banking crises, credit market regulation and globalization, among other factors. Design/methodology/approach. The authors use three proxies for income inequality and four proxies for financialization. The authors employ a panel fixed effects approach using Driscoll and Kraay’s (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator, which produces standard errors that are robust to general forms of cross-sectional dependence. Findings. The authors provide evidence which to a great extent supports the view that the process of financialization has increased income inequality. In the disposable Gini specifications, two out of the four financialization measures are found to significantly contribute to rising inequality whilst in the specification with the market income Gini coefficient, three out of the four financialization proxies appear to…
Forest School provision is a growing phenomenon in the UK due to its perceived impact on participant learning and wellbeing. This study sought to understand the impact of Forest School provision on the social and emotional development of participants using practitioner’s reflections. Semi-Structured interviews with six qualified Forest School Leaders explored practitioner experiences working with children and young people. A thematic analysis with a social-constructionist epistemology revealed three interrelated themes, which are inherent in the Forest School ethos. These themes show Forest Schools to be micro-communities constructed by participants. The study concluded that Forest School micro-communities are established by each Forest School that is formed. These micro-communities contribute to the social and emotional development of children and young people through the construction of a shared space, fostering a sense of community and a shared power paradigm between leaders and participants.
The socio-political context in which learning takes place has a significant impact on students’ ‘experience’ in higher education. In England, UK, and other countries such as Australia and the United States of America, the influence of neoliberalism has extended to higher education; as a result, individual students, not the state, have become responsible for its cost. This act of commercialisation transforms students into consumers and universities into service providers. It challenges the traditional roles of students and academics by placing different emphases and new demands on learning and teaching. Within this context, this chapter discusses research examining how commercialisation may impact some aspects of the student experience, including academic performance, motivation for learning, and how academics perceive the effects of commercialisation on students and themselves. This chapter also considers the experience of a specific group of students—those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Much of …
British university students from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are less likely to achieve a ‘good’ degree classification than white students, despite taking prior attainment into account. To examine this gap, the current study conducted focus groups with 17 BME students studying health and social care related subjects to understand their experiences of learning and teaching. This was theoretically informed by self-determination theory, which proposes that achieving one’s full potential for learning, alongside experience of wellbeing, is supported by environments that help individuals to meet their needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Thematic analysis revealed that BME students encountered many obstacles that inhibited their experience of fulfilment of these three needs, which often undermined their initial desire to achieve their full potential. The findings are discussed in light of how universities can support BME students to achieve their full potential, and in doing so, address …
Fantasy orientation (FO) in childhood has previously been investigated in binary terms, with play being categorised as fantastical or not. This study examined the relation between FO and creativity by considering FO on a linear-type scale, with 0 = reality-oriented (e.g., playing basketball), 1 = possible fantasy (e.g., having a pretend tea party), 2 = improbable fantasy (e.g., pretending an alligator is hiding under the bed), and 3 = impossible fantasy (e.g., pretending to be a unicorn). Seventy-two 4- to 7-year-old children completed verbal, physical, and artistic creativity tests, and an FO interview. FO was only positively related to physical creativity when measured in binary terms. However, it positively related to both verbal and physical creativity when measured using the four-point scale, although, FO remained unrelated to artistic creativity. Future work could use this more nuanced coding of children’s FO to explore further the potential relations between FO and creativity.