Good design as design for good: exploring how design can be ethically and environmentally sustainable by co-designing an eco-hostel within a Mayan community

Designers acknowledge that their skills can assist the visualization and materialization of a desirable future and have gone as far as proposing that design can achieve societal change. Designing for a better world is associated with decreasing environmental depletion impacts while making good for both people and the environment, if possible. Evidently, this is a space where design deals with ethical matters, defining what is good or questioning if good has a universal meaning. This paper discusses the case of Aalto LAB Mexico's (ALM) Eco-hostel project, a practical and ethical design exploration. It shares the impressions of the design team when co-designing with(in) the Mayan community of ‘20 de Noviembre’ (20 Nov), located in Calakmul, Campeche, México. The Eco-hostel project was proposed as an element which can play a central role in achieving betterment of several aspects of the community's daily life. Several of those aspects were communicated by the inhabitants of 20 Nov, and some others were identified by ALM's experts. Whereas some universal principles were applicable to the construction, the context-centred approach of ALM generated a unique proposal, conceptualized to achieve harmony with the local environmental and cultural conditions.     

Infusing Ethics in Psychopharmacology Course Design

Creatively infusing ethics in psychopharmacology course design can better prepare future counselors to work with the complexities of holistic client concerns in a modern context. The authors provide a sample course design from a psychopharmacology course within a counselor education program targeting counselors-in-training to increase counseling ethics and values awareness. Implications for future mental health and school counselors are provided.     

Implications for Wellness‐Based Supervision and Professional Quality of Life

This study evaluated the efficacy of the wellness model of supervision (WELMS; Lenz & Smith, 2010 ) for promoting changes across the perceptions of counselors‐in‐training (CITs) regarding professional quality of life. Three female participants (1 Caucasian, 2 Hispanic) were enrolled in a program accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Results of a single‐case research design with multiple baselines indicated that the WELMS was efficacious across client–CIT interactions on professional quality of life.     

Interval estimation for linear functions of medians in within-subjects and mixed designs

The currently available distribution-free confidence interval for a difference of medians in a within-subjects design requires an unrealistic assumption of identical distribution shapes. A confidence interval for a general linear function of medians is proposed for within-subjects designs that do not assume identical distribution shapes. The proposed method can be combined with a method for linear functions of independent medians to provide a confidence interval for a linear function of medians in mixed designs. Simulation results show that the proposed methods have good small-sample properties under a wide range of conditions. The proposed methods are illustrated with examples, and R functions that implement the new methods are provided.     

Theoretical and methodological elements for integrating ethics as a foundation into the education of professional and design disciplines

The paper addresses the integration of ethics into professional education related to the disciplines responsible for the conception and creation of the artificial (artefactual or technology). The ontological-epistemological paradigm of those disciplines is understood within the frame of the sciences of the artificial as established by Herbert Simon (1969). According to that paradigm, those sciences include disciplines not only related to the production of artefacts (technology), such as engineering, architecture, industrial design, etc, but also disciplines related to devised courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, like medicine, law, education, etc. They are centered on intentional action and at their core is the activity of design, which is their common foundation and attitude, or their common culture. The science of design becomes the broader foundational discipline for any professions engaged in the intentional transformation of the world. The main distinction between design disciplines and scientific ones rests on the object-project dichotomy. Indeed, contrary to Science that sees the world as an object to be observed, Design sees the world as a project and acts upon the world through projects, which are grounded in intentions, ends, and values. Design disciplines are meant to transform the world, or part of it, and are teleological. Being so, they are embodied in an act that is ethical and their ontology-epistemology must be addressed also through practical reason to resituate all professional disciplines according to their involved nature. The paper introduces theoretical, methodological, and ethical elements to establish a model that integrates ethics into the education of the professional disciplines, design-based disciplines, responsible for the creation of the artificial, artefactual or technological, world. The model is articulated around the notions of ethical engagement and responsibility through the act of design understood as action with intention situated in a project, common in all professional disciplines. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

不同认知结构被试的测验设计模式

正如不同的病症需要使用不同的医疗技术方法来诊断一样, 不同的认知结构也需要设计对应的测验模式来进行诊断, 从而保证测验具有高质量的诊断评估效果。但传统测验形式未考虑不同认知结构的针对性诊断测验需求, 导致“千人一卷”在测验效率上有所不足; 认知诊断计算机化自适应测验虽可针对不同认知结构的被试施测不同的项目, 然而支持自适应过程的题库却没有针对不同认知结构被试设计对应的项目, 导致题库使用效率较低。要解决上述问题的关键在于, 探索如何针对不同认知结构设计相对应的测验模式。本研究采用Monte Carlo模拟, 对六种属性层级关系下, 不同认知结构的测验设计模式进行探讨。实验结果表明(1)同一属性层级关系下, 不同认知结构的最佳测验设计模式不同; (2)依据不同认知结构的最佳测验设计模式构建的题库具有更高的使用效率。测验编制者可以根据实验结果针对不同认知结构优化对应的测验设计模式, 并用于指导题库建设。     

Looking Ahead: Questions for and About Behavioral Scientists and Practitioners

In this article Robin B. Jarrett reflects on the early years in which female investigators were a minority in the field and on her participation in the Trailblazers' panel discussion at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies on November 29, 2009. Dr. Jarrett writes these reflections in the form of a letter to current and future professionals (of all demographics) dedicated to behavioral science and its practice; she poses questions about what the future may hold.     

Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior

We tested the hypothesis that employees are willing to maintain their motivation when their work is relationally designed to provide opportunities for respectful contact with the beneficiaries of their efforts. In Experiment 1, a longitudinal field experiment in a fundraising organization, callers in an intervention group briefly interacted with a beneficiary; callers in two control groups read a letter from the beneficiary and discussed it amongst themselves or had no exposure to him. One month later, the intervention group displayed significantly greater persistence and job performance than the control groups. The intervention group increased significantly in persistence (142% more phone time) and job performance (171% more money raised); the control groups did not. Experiments 2 and 3 used a laboratory editing task to examine mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions. In Experiment 2, respectful contact with beneficiaries increased persistence, mediated by perceived impact. In Experiment 3, mere contact with beneficiaries and task significance interacted to increase persistence, mediated by affective commitment to beneficiaries. Implications for job design and work motivation are discussed.     

Psychometrics in Support of a Valid Assessment of Linguistic Minorities: Implications for the Test and Sampling Designs

In this study, we propose that the unique needs and characteristics of linguistic minorities should be considered throughout the test development process. Unlike most measurement invariance investigations in the assessment of linguistic minorities, which typically are conducted after test administration, we propose strategies that focus on the early stages of test development. Our approaches involve considering linguistic minorities in the selection of the test and sampling designs. We posit that joint consideration of these issues preemptively can strengthen the claims derived from tests used to assess linguistically diverse populations. This also will contribute to more psychometrically robust assessments, which can yield accurate and valid score-based inferences for linguistic minorities. To this end, we provide various examples and methodological approaches that can be used in the selection of the test and sampling designs that take these issues into consideration.     

Culture change: A training program for recent immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union

The article describes a training program in structural/integrative family therapy for immigrant professionals from the former Soviet Union at the Training Center of the Shiluv Institute for Family and Couple Therapy in Jerusalem. The program was instituted to meet the pressing needs of a mass immigration of half a million people that came to Israel between 1990 and 1992. This is a retrospective look at the journey of the initial group of psychiatrists and psychologists who changed country, culture, language, and professional orientation in just two years. The authors state their conclusions as to the most expedient way to organize therapy for families from the former Soviet Union — a population in need of help but lacking an awareness of therapy and suspicious of the outsider.     

Some approximate tests for repeated measurement designs

Four approximate tests are considered for repeated measurement designs in which observations are multivariate normal with arbitrary covariance matrices. In these tests traditional within-subject mean square ratios are compared with critical values derived fromF distributions with adjusted degrees of freedom. Two of them—the approximate and the improved general approximate (IGA) tests—behave adequately in terms of Type I error. Generally, the IGA test functions better than the approximate test, however the latter involves less computations. In regards to power, the IGA test may compete with one multivariate procedure when the assumptions of the latter are tenable.The author wishes to thank Garrett K. Mandeville for his careful reading of the final version of the paper.     

青少年学校幸福感量表的编制

本研究提出了青少年学校幸福感的概念并进行了理论构建,以此为基础自行编制了青少年学校幸福感量表。对中学生进行问卷调查的结果进行了探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析,研究结果如下:(1)在中国青少年学生学校生活背景下,学校幸福感由学校满意度、在校积极情感和在校消极情感三种成分组成;(2)学校满意度是一个由成就感、学校管理、师生关系、同学关系、教学和课业学习组成的六维结构,在校积极和消极情感均为单维结构;(3)本研究所编制的青少年学校幸福感量表(Adolescents’ School Well-Being Scale)具有较好的信度与效度,可供同类研究使用。     

Effet de la thérapie des schémas sur la dépression de la personne âgée institutionnalisée : 3 études de cas uniques de type AB en lignes de bases multiples

IntroductionSchema therapy has confirmed its effectiveness in caring for depression. However, few studies have evaluated its effectiveness of an institutionalized elderly population.ObjectiveThe aim of this pilot study is to evaluate the efficiency of this therapy for the treatment of depression in 3 elderly people, with no neurocognitive disease, living in a nursing home.MethodClinician conducted a single case experimental protocol AB with multiple baseline for 3 participants who were experiencing depressive symptoms. Participants were randomized in 3 baselines and performed respectively 8, 7, and 6 intervention sessions.ResultsThe results highlight progressive effectiveness for two of the three residents. From baseline to the end of the therapeutic sessions (11 weeks), the improvement was significant and clinically observable for the activation of the schemas (–1.4 and –2 points on average) as well as for the level of depression (–8 and –9 points to the GDS).ConclusionThis pilot study indicates the effectiveness and replicability of schema therapy as therapeutic intervention for depression in elderly people.     

Fisher transformations for correlations corrected for selection and missing data

The validity of a test is often estimated in a nonrandom sample of selected individuals. To accurately estimate the relation between the predictor and the criterion we correct this correlation for range restriction. Unfortunately, this corrected correlation cannot be transformed using Fisher'sZ transformation, and asymptotic tests of hypotheses based on small or moderate samples are not accurate. We developed a Fisherr toZ transformation for the corrected correlation for each of two conditions: (a) the criterion data were missing due to selection on the predictor (the missing data were MAR); and (b) the criterion was missing at random, not due to selection (the missing data were MCAR). The twoZ transformations were evaluated in a computer simulation. The transformations were accurate, and tests of hypotheses and confidence intervals based on the transformations were superior to those that were not based on the transformations.     

Providing an analytic structure for key system design choices

The design of a system, especially a system architecture, requires the balancing of multiple performance parameters with the system cost and other implementation issues. Multi-attribute utility theory provides a structured, coherent framework for conducting an analysis in which system designs are evaluated on multiple performance parameters. This paper describes the application of multi-attribute utility analysis to the design of the Worldwide Digital Signal Systems Architecture (WWDSA), a telecommunications system, by the United States' Defense Communications Agency (now called the Defense Information Systems Agency). The advantages of using multi-attribute utility theory during the system design are highlighted. In addition, we discuss several key analytical issues that led to this application being a success in the eyes of the decision makers.     

Searching for Salient Aspects of Resonant Interaction

This paper illustrates my quest for diversity, more specifically resonant interaction with products. Resonance occurs due to the perfect interplay between a person and a product. It evokes strong positive emotions, unique accompanying behaviour, heightened awareness and cognitive processing. In this paper, I first explain the importance of diversifying designs, especially now we are pursuing the next generation of digital products. I show that designing for resonance can be a way to achieve diversity. I clarify the concept of resonance and resonant interaction. Subsequently, I explain the importance of research through design to study this phenomenon, i.e., by designing in a way that results in experiential prototypes, and subsequently testing these prototypes, scientific knowledge can be generated. Through these prototypes, I study the relationship between the individual user with his concerns, values, personality, skills, senses and effectivities on the one hand, and the interaction and product characteristics on the other hand. The paper concludes with two studies illustrating the way of working and the kind of answers I am obtaining with respect to resonant interaction. It appears that one can design for personality and prolong positive emotions even after the interaction has stopped, which strengthens the case for searching for salient aspects of resonant interaction.     

Evaluating parent-implemented behavioral skills training for teaching firearm safety skills

Research shows that behavioral skills training (BST) and in situ training (IST) are effective interventions for teaching safety skills to children. In addition, the efficiency of these interventions can be increased when parents, teachers, or peers are taught to implement them. The purpose of this study was to replicate Novotny et al. (2020) and evaluate a web-based program for teaching parents to conduct BST to teach safety skills to prevent gunplay. We randomly assigned 18 children to the parent-conducted BST group or a control group and evaluated the intervention in a posttest only control group design. Children in the control group or treatment group who did not score a three in the in situ assessment (do not touch, get away, and tell an adult) received IST from their parents and were assessed again. Results showed that safety skill scores were statistically significantly higher in the treatment group than in the control group. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant increase in safety skills scores following IST for children who received it.     

A Client-Centered Model of Instructional Design for Psychoeducation Interventions in Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists often use psychoeducational interventions in mental health settings. Recent systematic reviews have validated the efficacy of this approach, but the occupational therapy literature on the instructional design process is scarce. In this article the author reviews factors relevant to the instructional design of psychoeducation and then proposes a client-centered instructional design model that considers the client's capacity for engagement, the instructional context/environment, and the learning content demands in the selection of appropriate instructional approaches. The design process is illustrated in four vignettes using behavioral, acquisitional, cognitive, and constructivist approaches.     

Croatia founded a national body for ethics in science

The Committee for Ethics in Science and Higher Education (CESHE) was created in Croatia as a national body appointed by the Parliament. Thus Croatia became one of a handful of countries with national means of responding to allegations of scientific misconduct. The Committee’s duties, with the help of the Ethics Code, include promotion of ethical norms and values in science and higher education. The CESHE will work on cases of possible research misconduct and alleged disregard for the ethical norms associated with research.