Instructional designers as reflective practitioners: developing professional identity through reflection

As the design thinking approach becomes more established in the instructional design (ID) discourse, the field will have to reconsider the professional identity of instructional designers. Rather than passively following models or processes, a professional identity rooted in design thinking calls for instructional designers to be dynamic agents of change who use reflective thinking to navigate the design space and develop solutions to ill-structured problems. Graduate programs in ID will also need to prepare students to manage the complexities they will encounter in their professional practice, including the establishment of design precedents, reflective thinking skills, and the foundations of professional identity. This research explored the use of reflective writing assignments in an introductory ID graduate course, with results indicating that most students are able to engage in meaningful reflection in relation to prompts concerning design concepts, experiences, and identity attributes, although no clear patterns of improvement emerged over time. Future directions for research include the use of feedback and the structure of prompts (including frequency of writing assignments and wording of prompts) to support improved student performance.     

Emotion Regulation for Counselors-in-Training: A Grounded Theory

The authors explored emotion regulation (ER) among 25 counseling professionals (master's-level counselors-in-training and counseling supervisors) using grounded theory and established 5 themes: (a) emotional experiences, (b) emotion processing, (c) metacognition, (d) emotional self-protection, and (e) emotional support. The emerging theory provides a foundation for teaching and practicing ER.     

Learning about Colour – the Legacy of the Bauhaus Masters

Bauhaus, the German arts and crafts college, is 100 years old this year. One of the revolutionary features of its pedagogical programme was the methodology of teaching about colour, elaborated by Johannes Itten and Paul Klee, leading Bauhaus masters, and further developed by their disciples, Joseph Albers and György (George) Kepes. This methodological legacy is continued in a curriculum innovation experiment in art education that is currently being piloted in primary and secondary schools of Hungary. Developing colour perception, creation and communication are basic components of our curricular modules. In this article, we show the development of colour perception of 7,087 students in two age groups: 7–8.8 and 12–13.5 years, tested through arts‐based tasks in an interactive, online platform. Evolution of colour sensitivity, recognition of colour and form, colour memory and decoding the meaningof colours will be shown and the relevance of the results for arts education indicated.     

Long-Term Effects of Institutional Care and Enhanced Attachment Relationships on Close Adolescent Friendships

This study examined whether early institutional rearing and attachment security influence the quality and quantity of friendships at age 16 in 138 participants, including children abandoned to institutions in Bucharest, Romania, who were randomized to care as usual (n = 45, 26 female), or foster care (n = 47, 25 female), and a never-institutionalized group (n = 46, 18 female). Adolescents in the foster care group with secure attachment to their foster mothers at 42 months were comparable to never-institutionalized adolescents in having more friends and more positive behaviors with their friend during dyadic interactions, compared to the foster care group with insecure attachment and care as usual group. Interventions targeting early child–caregiver attachment relationships may help foster the ability to build positive friendships in adolescence.     

Sustainability behaviors among college students: an application of the VBN theory

While Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory has been widely applied to various populations, it has seldom been tested on college students. This study extends VBN theory to examine what socio-psychological factors influence sustainability behaviors among university students. Undergraduate students are an interesting and novel population, as they are still forming their values and beliefs, and therefore may be more open to engage in sustainability efforts. This study assessed five sustainability behaviors: (a) support for political candidates who say they will strengthen environmental policies, (b) recycling, (c) electricity use, (d) food selection, and (e) transportation choices. Findings support the notion that one’s values matter in environmental decision-making, but that different values are associated with different behaviors. Those who adhere to biospheric and altruistic values were more likely to engage in a range of sustainability behaviors whereas those who adhere to egoistic values were less likely to engage in most behaviors. Those who adhere to traditional or openness to change values showed mixed results. We discuss the theoretical application, practical recommendations for behavior change campaigns, and offer suggestions for future research.