TPC Journal-Vol 9- Issue 2-Full-Issue

120 The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 2 teaching and learning in counselor education (Baltrinic, Jencius, & McGlothlin, 2016; Brackette, 2014; Malott, Hall, Sheely-Moore, Krell, & Cardaciotto, 2014). Flipped learning is one type of teaching format that is a recognized practice at both the K–12 and undergraduate levels (Kurt, 2017; Sezer, 2016; Zainuddin & Halili, 2016). As students progress in their education, counselor educators need to be aware of how teaching practices must evolve in order to meet the expectations of students at the graduate level. Findings from this study suggest that it is worthwhile to consider flipped learning as a way to engage future students. Furthermore, the significance of findings related to the affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement in flipped learning might be especially important because the practice of counseling requires simultaneous use of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive skills. The opportunity to preview lecture content before a class allows students to engage in initial cognitive processing and frees up class time for more complex and application tasks engaging with course material (Earley, 2016; Hoffman, 2014; Zainuddin & Halili, 2016). Given the cognitive complexity and skills-oriented nature of counseling courses, it seems preferable to have more time spent on higher-order thinking processes and skills practice. In this way, flipped learning may provide the additional class time needed to increase students’ counseling competence. Counseling Student Competence Students’ counseling competence might manifest in both counseling abilities and academic achievement. Academic achievement in counseling programs is reflected in assignment and course grades, as well as counselor examinations like the National Counselor Examination for Licensure and Certification and the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination. Given research in non-counseling disciplines indicating significantly better academic achievement in flipped courses compared to non-flipped courses (Day & Foley, 2006; Foldnes, 2016; Murphy et al., 2016; Thai et al., 2017), counselor educators may want to consider the use of flipped learning in order to improve counseling course grades and exam scores. This improved academic achievement for counseling students could lead to greater numbers of students completing counseling programs and might lead to improved graduation rates among counseling programs with flipped courses. Counselor Education Training In addition to the implications for students’ learning in the master’s-level counseling classroom, this study has implications for the training of current and future counselor educators. Previous literature demonstrates a lack of counselor education’s attention to pedagogy and learning theory (Barrio Minton et al., 2014; Brackette, 2014; Malott et al., 2014; McAuliffe & Eriksen, 2011), much less to teaching approaches like flipped learning. Thus, one might conclude that counseling professors either have had little training in teaching and learning or are not publishing about their training in this area. Thankfully, the 2016 CACREP standards include nine standards that address pedagogy in doctoral programs (CACREP, 2016), whereas the former 2009 standards only included two in this area (CACREP, 2009). It is likely that many counselor education doctoral programs are working to better incorporate the revised standards. As such, program coordinators and faculty would be encouraged to expose doctoral students to the literature on, and examples of, flipped learning. They also would be wise to encourage doctoral students to research and publish on pedagogy in counselor education, including flipped learning, to help fill this gap in previous literature. Limitations and Future Directions We recognize limitations in this study that ought to be considered. First, the study was limited by its data collection measures. We measured participants’ perceived classroom engagement, which