science

Target culture

Target culture is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Target culture rather than just read about it. In short: Target culture is a pejorative term used to refer to the perceived negative effects of rigid adherence to performance targets by businesses and organisations. The term is primarily used to refer to this kind of behaviour within the provision of public services in the United Kingdom.

Key takeaways

Target culture belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Target culture to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Target culture from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Target culture is a pejorative term used to refer to the perceived negative effects of rigid adherence to performance targets by businesses and organisations. The term is primarily used to refer to this kind of behaviour within the provision of public services in the United Kingdom. Target culture often stems from not being able to accurately measure a broad social good like health, education or crime prevention; instead, specific targets are used, like increasing the number of people passing an examination or the number of arrests made by a police force.

Examples School league tables and other education statistics are often criticised as an example of target culture. The use of number of GCSE examinations passed at grade C as a measure of educational attainment has led schools to focus specifically on getting students on the boundary between grades C and D to improve enough to get a C. In 2007, the Police Federation of England and Wales criticised the bureaucratisation of policing and argued that the use of performance targets increased the number of arrests made for petty offences. The failure and investigation of Stafford Hospital has been blamed on target culture by some. The Guardian report in an interview with an anonymous senior NHS doctor that Stafford Hospital "was a graphic illustration of the growing disconnect we see every day between a target-driven culture and the best interests of our patients". In 2008, the British Conservative Party politician Liam Fox, writing for the website ConservativeHome, lists Bristol Eye Centre as an example of the negative effects of a target culture; by trying to meet government targets to recruit more patients, they failed to make follow-up appointments with existing patients leading to some patients losing some or all of their eyesight.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Target culture

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Target culture claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Target culture before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Target culture ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Target culture

In research: Target culture appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Target culture in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Target culture is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Goal, Indicators, Management, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Target culture outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Target culture in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Target culture means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Target culture out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Target culture in simple terms?

Why does Target culture matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Target culture?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Target culture.