Education Commons^™

Effects Of Implementing A Formative Assessment Initiative, Thomas A. Stewart

Dissertations

This dissertation supports the work of Black and Wiliam (1998), who demonstrated that when teachers effectively utilize formative assessment strategies, student learning increases significantly. However, the researchers also found a “poverty of practice” among teachers, in that few fully understood how to effectively implement formative assessment in the classroom. This qualitative case study examined a series of voluntary workshops offered at one public middle school designed to address this poverty of practice. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. The researcher used constant comparative analysis to discover patterns in the data for the following four research questions: (1) What role did …

The Characteristics Of Learning In Social Movements: A Pilot Study Of An Environmental Organization, Jihyun Kim

Adult Education Research Conference

This qualitative study addresses the distinctive characteristics of learning in social movements in terms of learning content, motivation, format, and outcomes. Based on the researcher’s constructivist stance on knowledge, social movement activists in a currently active local environmental organization, the Protect Elica Island (pseudonym, PEI), were interviewed. The study showed that PEI activists learned skills and knowledge about the movement, as well as suggestions for more successful organization activities. Participants reported learning about the nature of social movement participation from reflection, and the significance of their social movement activities in more passionate, self- directed, self-controlled, and self-rewarding ways than in …

A Transformative Learning Perspective On Workplace Safety, R. Bruce Dodge

Adult Education Research Conference

Workplace injuries and illness are a problem of epidemic proportion yet safe workplaces can be created. Using the lens of transformative learning this case study, informed by ethnography, examined the experience of a long term seniors’ living facility which had dramatically reduced injury rates and costs. The study sought to understand the apparent perspective transformation of senior leaders and how that change impacted the organization. Disorienting dilemmas, discourse and critical reflection were seen as contributing to a new frame of reference which guided the actions of leaders.

Structural Model Of Simulation – Social Constructionist Perspective, Bo Chang

Adult Education Research Conference

The purpose of this study is to establish a viable structural model of simulation in learning from the social constructionist perspective. The study is based on one of my empirical studies about knowledge construction in learning community and also the researches on simulation from the interdisciplinary fields. The findings indicate that simulation is a process of designing and practicing a model generated from the representational structure of the real world and modifying the model according to the specific contexts. Simulation is useful for gaining analogous knowledge, knowledge that has similar or relevant structures between the simulatee and simulator.

Expanding The Conversation On Adult Learning Theories: Theorizing African American Women’S Learning And Development In Predominantly White Organizations, Marilyn Y. Byrd, Dominique T. Chlup

Adult Education Research Conference

This study is a qualitative, interpretative examination of nine African American women’s (AAW’s) experiences while working in a leadership position at a predominantly White organization and the learning experiences that emerged from these encounters. Black feminist theory (BFT) is used as a sociocultural framework to explain how the participants learned from these experiences. Three main learning themes emerged: learning from influential sources, learning through divine guidance, and learning through affirmation of self. We posit that sociocultural theories derived from AAW’s ways of knowing is necessary to move the field of adult education toward more inclusive ways of theorizing learning.

Factors Influencing International Students' Academic And Sociocultural Transition In An Increasingly Globalized Society, Chung-Hsien Hsu

Dissertations

This study is a mixed-method study. It consists of a quantitative study and a qualitative study. The quantitative study focused on international adult learners’ experiences of adaptation to American academic and social cultures. The qualitative study then investigated their experiences of cultural transition.

Based on the definition of globalized influences (Finger, 2005) and existing studies discussing the effects on globalized educational environments (Merriam & Young), factors related to globalized influences were selected and used to examine the extent to which these factors have affected international students’ adaptation to learning and life in the American university. Additionally, the other two variables, …