Jaap de Koning

ICT and older workers: no unwrinkled relationship

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to find out to what extent older workers make use of ICT and to what extent this influences their job performance.Design/methodology/approach – Workers of various age groups are surveyed in two sectors: printing industry and wholesale trade. The use of (various types of) ICT is compared for a number of age groups, controlling the influence of other explanatory variables and correcting the fact that older users are a selective group. In the next step, the use of ICT is one of the factors explaining performance.Findings – The results show that, compared with younger workers, older workers make less use of ICT in their job, use less complicated applications and have more difficulties in using ICT. This is to their disadvantage as the use of ICT and particularly the level of use appear to affect performance positively.Research limitations/implications – The research is concentrated on two specific sectors which are forerunners in the field of ICT. A generalization of ...

The Reform of the Dutch Public Employment Service

This book argues that active labour market policies are necessary to improve the position of the unemployed but have so far performed relatively poorly. The contributing authors seek ways to improve active labour market policy and consider three means of doing so: improving the quality by better targeting and by better-designed measures, more efficient implementation and delivery, and better performance by benchmarking the various implementation agencies involved.

Aggregate impact analysis of active labour market policy: A literature review

The paper discusses the various models that can be used to analyse the aggregate impact of active labour market policy (ALMP) on labour market outcomes. The aggregate approach to policy evaluation is important. Contrary to evaluations based on micro data, it takes substitution, displacement and other indirect effects into account. The most promising framework for analysing the aggregate impact of ALMP is offered by a flow model approach of the labour market. However, other approaches such as VAR models are also treated in the paper. After discussing the theoretical models the paper gives a review of the empirical literature, in which these models are used to measure the aggregate impact of ALMP. On the basis of the results we are bound to conclude that ALMP makes a big difference to the level of unemployment. There is some evidence that disadvantaged groups benefit more from this type of policy than other groups. The fact that the impact is small on average may hide considerable variation between regions and sites. Future research should concentrate on attempting to relate this variation to differences in implementation. Then we might be able to identify the factors that are decisive for the success or failure of programmes which could then be used to improve ALMP.

Evaluating Training at the Company Level

Outlines the need for evaluating training at the company level. Notes that there has been little research in this area. Uses data from surveys undertaken in The Netherlands to illustrate the advantages and problems of carrying out such research. Indicates that the companies themselves know little about the costs and benefits of their training schemes.

Reuse of leachate waste-water using MEMBIOR technology and reverse osmosis

Abstract This article shows that it is technically possible to produce high-grade quality water, which can be used for process water (as a substitute for ground-water), from a leachate waste-water stream. By using external MEMBIOR technology on the leachate waste-water, high removal efficiencies are obtained for both organic compounds and for nitrogen. High membrane fluxes are also obtained, which were stable during the last two months of a test period.

Word problems versus image-rich problems: an analysis of effects of task characteristics on students’ performance on contextual mathematics problems

ABSTRACT This article reports on a post hoc study using a randomised controlled trial with 31,842 students in the Netherlands and an instrument consisting of 21 paired problems. The trial showed a variability in the differences of students’ results in solving contextual mathematical problems with either a descriptive or a depictive representation of the problem situation. In this study the relation between this variability and two task characteristics is investigated: (1) complexity of the task representation; and (2) the content domain of the task. We found indications that differences in performance on descriptive and depictive representations of the problem situation are related to the content domain of the problems. One of the tentative conclusions is that for depicted problems in the domain of measurement and geometry the inferential step from representation of the problem situation to the mathematical problem to be solved is smaller than for word problems.