Toby Harfield

Toward a Learning-Styles Profile of Construction Students: Results from New Zealand

The purpose of this research was to identify a group learning-styles profile for construction students. The identification of a discipline-specific student learning-styles profile has important implications for college instructors. Such a profile aids educators in designing classroom teaching strategies. Individual learning-styles profiles were obtained from 153 construction students in New Zealand using the Productivity Environmental Productivity Survey (PEPS). These data were aggregated, and six PEPS factors were considered significant as the basis for a construction student learning-styles profile. The identified preferred learning-styles of construction students in New Zealand based on these six factors appear to have strong similarities to preferences of construction students in the United States and Hong Kong. The proposed group profile for construction students supports earlier calls for activity-based classroom teaching strategies using peer learning with a high degree of instructor monitoring. Construction students also appear to want highly structured course content and assignments that are presented graphically with little text.

Road Asset Management: The role of location in mitigating extreme flood maintenance

Abstract Australia recently experienced a doubling of the annual rain fall during one seven-month period resulting in widespread and extensive infrastructure flooding. The increasing number of these disrupting weather events makes it difficult for Australian state road authorities to follow their predictive road maintenance plans. This report on desktop research using road authority annual reports focuses on the differences between the expected outcomes of open or closed systems perspectives. The study suggests that location-based thinking provides the underlying concept for effective efforts in linking predictive and reactive road maintenance activities. A location-based framework provides a synergistic resilience for Australian road networks.