2020 Volume 76 Issue 2 Pages I_113-I_121
Due to the aging of construction workers and young workers’ population decrease, construction skills inheritance to younger generations is facing a challenge. This study analyzed how construction workers’ skills have been inherited from generation to generation and how the workers have improved the skills, focusing on a local construction company. With the aim of identifying the skill inheritance process, this study applies MDS (multi-dimensional scaling) to scale a variety of stimuli that are related to construction skill inheritance and to extract specific patterns of the skill inheritance in the target local company. The analysis results indicate that the skills have been mainly inherited on construction sites and the lessons that young construction workers learned at the site are playing a principal role to improve their technical skills. Formerly, the construction workers tended to learn the skills by themselves at work sites. Currently, they are studying, making use of various occasions such as workshops or construction site observations. It indicates that the process of construction skill inheritance may be changing.
