Struggling with theory? A qualitative investigation of conceptual tool use in instructional design

This study employed a qualitative research design to investigate instructional designers’ views and uses of conceptual tools in design work (e.g., learning theories and design theories). While past research has examined how instructional designers spend their time, how they generally make decisions, and expert-novice differences, little attention has been paid to the value and perceptions of conceptual tools, from the perspective of practicing designers. Based on intensive interviews of practitioners, our findings included ten themes organized according to three meta-themes: (a) using theory, (b) struggling with theory, and (c) connections between theory and intuition in craftwork. While these results substantiate (to some degree) the claim that practitioners often find theory too abstract or difficult to apply, they also suggest that practitioners use theory in several important ways and tend to view theory with ambivalence rather than indifference or dislike. Other conclusions regarding the role of theory in design are provided and future directions for theorizing and research are discussed.     

A reconsidering chronos: Chronistic criticism and the first ‘Iraqi national calendar

Chronos is a traditionally marginalized term in rhetorical studies. Historically paired with kairos, chronos is commonly taken to refer to chronology, empty, homogenous, and external time. I argue for a reconsideration and redefinition of chronos that pairs the term with a critical materialist theory of time as change, immanent temporalities. Chronos understood as an entanglement of immanent temporalities informs chronistic criticism. Chronistic criticism is a conceptual criticism investigating the rhetorical arrangement, or synchronization, of multiple processes of change. Reconsidering chronos makes room for investigating time-related texts, like ‘Iraq's first national calendar. This calendar emerged after the establishment of the ‘Iraqi state under the League of Nation's Mandate System where British authorities were charged with building a modern nation state from territories of the former Ottoman Empire. I demonstrate chronistic criticism examining Gertrude Bell's digital archive for observations about successes, failures, and competitors with the national calendar. A vitalized chronos stands to make substantive contributions to the study of numerous rhetorical concepts. Specifically, for this investigation, chronos offers new insights into political myths, calendars, nation building, and the potential influences of nonhuman immanent temporalities.     

Resources for sports engineering education

This paper serves as a resource guide for Sports Engineering educators. The paper covers key topics in Sports Engineering, including ball impact, friction, safety and materials. A variety of resource types are presented to reflect modern methods of learning and searching for information, including textbooks, research and review papers, websites and videos. The field could benefit from more resources specifically designated for teaching Sports Engineering, particularly textbooks.     

Adolescent caregiving success as a predictor of social functioning from ages 13 to 33

Adolescent success providing satisfying support in response to a close friend's call in a caregiving task was examined as a potentially fundamental developmental competence likely to predict future social functioning, adult caregiving security, and physical health. Adolescents (86 males, 98 females; 58% White, 29% African American, 8% mixed race/ethnicity, 5% other) were followed from ages 13 to 33 (1998–2021) using multiple methods and reporters. Early caregiving success was found to predict greater self- and partner-reported caregiving security, lower negativity in adult relationships, and higher adult vagal tone. Results are interpreted as advancing our understanding beyond simply recognizing that adolescent friendships have long-term import, to now identifying specific capacities within friendships that are linked to longer-term outcomes.     

The Effect of Mobile Support Devices on the Anxiety and Self‐Efficacy of Hospital Float Staff

Floating is the act of staff moving from one unit to another based on the needs of the patients in a hospital. Many staff who float to different units express negative feelings, including anxiety and lack of self‐efficacy. However, floating is an economical and efficient method to use staff across the hospital, especially with current staffing shortages in the United States. This study investigated how the use of mobile performance support devices may help reduce anxiety and increase self‐efficacy for staff who float to different units. With access to multiple resources available on mobile devices, Bandura's social learning theory and self‐efficacy concept set the framework through modeling, observing, and imitating others in order to reproduce certain behaviors and tasks and believe in one's capability to perform. A quantitative study incorporating the retrospective pretest‐posttest design was conducted using the population of float staff, both nurses and respiratory therapists, from Children's Medical Center of Dallas. Both the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory and General Self‐Efficacy Scale, along with a basic demographic tool, were used to explore anxiety and self‐efficacy in relation to the use of mobile performance support devices. Findings can be used to alleviate the negative feelings of staff toward the idea of floating.     

Designing With Multiple Interactives: Five Common Pitfalls

Abstract Interactive museum exhibits are ubiquitous in science centers, and are becoming increasingly popular in art, history and cultural museums. At an interactive exhibit, visitors can act on the exhibit and the exhibit reacts. While there is much theoretical and empirical support for the idea that interactive features promote science learning, we believe that serious design problems can arise if an uncritical “more is better” approach is taken to interactivity. This article describes five common pitfalls of designing exhibits with high levels of interactivity or multiple interactive features: 1) multiple options with equal salience, 2) features allowing multiple users to interfere with one another, 3) options that encourage users to disrupt the phenomenon being displayed, 4) features that make the critical phenomenon difficult to find, and 5) secondary features that obscure the primary feature. Examples of each of the five problems are presented, and possible design solutions are offered.