New Technology and Skill Shortages: Problems of Measurement

On examine dans ce texte les problèmes de la mesure de la pénurie des compétences, en partìculier dans les périodes de rapide développement technologique. On expose plusieurs acceptions des notions de "compétence" et de "pénurie" et on présente un panorama de méthodes destinées à la mesure des pénuries. Les insuffisances de ces approches sont ensuite discutées, puis on examine la façon dont les nouvelles technologies interfèrent avec les precédés de mesure. S'ensuit la discussion de quelques autres solutions pour mesurer les compétences exigées par les nouvelles technologies, ce qui amène à conclure que des progrès dans la méthodologie sont nécessaires avant que l'appréhension quantitative de la pénurie des compétences puisse être valide.
This paper examines problems in measuring skill shortages particularly in times of rapid technological development. Different concepts of "skill" and "shortage" and a variety of methods of measuring shortages are described. The shortcomings of these approaches are then discussed followed by consideration of how new technology affects the measurement processes. The article continues with a discussion of some alternative approaches to measuring skills implications of new technology which concludes that further developments in methodology are needed before quantitative measurements of skill shortages can be made with confidence.     

Book reviews

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Kapur, N. (1988). Memory disorders in clinical practice. London:Butterworths. Pp. 289. ISBN 0-407-00712-1. £39.50.

Bussis, A. M., Chittenden, E. A. Amarel, M. & Klausner, E. (1985). Inquiry into meaning: An invetigation of learning to read. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. 367. ISBN 0-89859-504-5. £32.95.     

II—Disappointment

Miranda Fricker appeals to the idea of moral-epistemic disappointment in order to show how our practices of moral appraisal can be sensitive to cultural and historical contingency. In particular, she thinks that moral-epistemic disappointment allows us to avoid the extremes of crude moralism and a relativism of distance. In my response I want to investigate what disappointment is, and whether it can constitute a form of focused moral appraisal in the way that Fricker imagines. I will argue that Fricker is unable to appeal to disappointment as standardly understood, but that there is a more plausible way of understanding the notion that she can employ. There are, nevertheless, significant worries about the capacity of disappointment in this sense to function as a form of moral appraisal. I will argue, finally, that even if Fricker can address these worries, her position might end up closer to moralism than she would like.