Understanding the Impacts of Chinese Undergraduate Tourism Students’ Professional Identity on Learning Engagement

Under the background of higher education reform, undergraduate tourism students’ professional identity may play an important role in affecting students’ learning engagement and the sustainable development of tourism higher education. Data were collected from 551 Chinese undergraduate tourism students to investigate the potential relationships between professional identity and learning engagement. Based on the theory of social identity, professional identity is perceived as a progressive, dynamic process including professional cognition, professional appraisal, and professional emotion. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), and the findings confirmed that professional identity was in positive correlation with employee engagement. Furthermore, the results showed that professional cognition has positive influences on professional appraisal, professional emotion, and learning engagement, and professional appraisal has positive influences on professional emotion and learning engagement. In addition, the mediating effects of professional appraisal and professional emotion between professional cognition and learning engagement were analyzed, respectively. This study contributes to the understanding of the impacts of tourism students’ professional identity on learning engagement. Both theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Emotion Regulation in Enhancing Adolescents’ Academic Performance

Adolescence is a transition period between children and adult. There are many changes in physical, sexual, cognitive, and emotion. Aside from coping with those changes, they have to handle their academic performance very well. In order to tackle with those challenges, they need a lot of support from parents, teachers, and peers to prevent maladaptive adolescent behavior and psychopathology. Brain involvement in emotion and learning are amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and insula. Emotion regulation is very important in enhancing adolescent academic performance. Emotional competence is the key for success in life.

EMOTION AND E-LEARNING

Traditionally, emotion and cognition have been viewed as polar opposites and this view has been incorporated into theories of learning. One reason for this may be a lack of clarity in defining emotion. In fact there are other perspectives on how emotion and cognition, emotion and learning, are related. These considerations emerge with renewed vigor with the move to online education. Theauthor interviewed eleven students studying online. These students identified emotions which were critical to their online learning. Evidence from the literature and from the interviews positions emotion as central and essential to the teaching/ learning process.

Emotionality and STEAM Integrations in Teacher Education

The authors consider STEM and STEAM education initiatives as forms of integrated teaching and learning. With evidence from education research and the neurosciences, a case is made for the inherent connections between emotion and learning as essential to STEAM pedagogy. In this article, the authors’ ArtScience integration project for teacher candidates (TCs) is described, and elicits the following questions: do teacher candidates (TCs) exhibit emotions directly related to the ArtScience integration project? If so, what are those emotions? How do those emotions connect with the TCs’ perceptions of integration? Anecdotal evidence and collected data in the form of reflection papers are analyzed and discussed. The authors suggest that STEAM integrations take into account the importance of emotion in multidisciplinary teaching and learning.