Education Commons^™

Experiences Of Female Muslim International Graduate Students With Children In The U.S.: Strategies To Cope With Academics And Family Life, Nizoramo M. Haitova

Dissertations

The literature on adult students, and in particular, graduate students with children, reveals that female students often struggle to balance their studies and home life due to juggling multiple roles. To date, research on student mothers has primarily focused on domestic students, with few studies examining the experiences of international student mothers, and even fewer studying Muslim international student mothers. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of female Muslim international graduate students with children in the U.S., as well as to explore the coping strategies they employ in both academia and family life. Thus, the …

“I Don’T Know What You’Re Expecting But I Can Make Something Here”: Epistemological Beliefs Of Adult Undergraduates And The Prior Learning Assessment Portfolio Process, Rusty Dolleman

Educational Studies Dissertations

Abstract

Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) is a term for various methods by which universities accredit student experiential learning. One such method is the academic portfolio, a written reflective process in which students demonstrate that their personal or professional learning fulfills university outcomes. Proponents of academic portfolios claim that they also improve student critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Research on traditional undergraduates suggests that differences in critical thinking and problem-solving are related to epistemological development, but little research has been done on adult undergraduate epistemologies or how student epistemology may affect PLA portfolio work. This study attempts to answer two questions: …

“It Takes A Village”: Student Mothers’ Experiences With Barriers And Support While Navigating Community College, Jeanine Mcmillen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Student parents may feel invisible on college campuses, especially student mothers, who often feel ignored and overlooked when institutional policies and practices are not tailored to their needs and challenges. These students are especially vulnerable to withdrawing from college, even in institutional contexts that boast a positive and welcoming climate for underrepresented students. Using validation theory with a critical lens as the guiding theoretical framework, this qualitative case study examined how student mothers at one community college navigate barriers and supports within and outside of the institution. Findings revealed three themes, indicating that student mothers must cobble together a village …

Thinking For You, Thinking For Two: Uncovering Student-Parent Experiences In Higher Education, Brandi Blanton

Theses and Dissertations

The literature addressing non-traditional students in higher education is broadening, nevertheless, the experiences of non-traditional, adult students who are raising children (i.e., student-parents) in academia continue to be inadequately explored. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the lived experiences of student-parents pursuing a college degree while raising children. The use of a qualitative approach in this research study presented the opportunity to gather rich data to help explain the phenomenon (Creswell, 2007, Denzin & Lincoln, 2013). Specifically applying a hermeneutic phenomenological research design allowed adult non-traditional student-parents to explain their college experience in their own words through …

The Adult Learner: Nature Or Nurture?: A Case Study Of Teacher Educators And Teacher Learners, Christine Kassis

Theses

Adult learning is very broadly viewed in the literature. The wide-ranging gamut of views, include those that interpret adult learning not dissimilarly to child learning, all the way through to theorists that propose a separate set of considerations for adult learners. When it comes to learning, pedagogy was traditionally associated with child learners and andragogy was born from the need to find a separate niche for the adult learner. As such, pedagogy and andragogy may be positioned opposite to one another—as one pertains to the needs; characteristics; and, behaviours of the child, and the other of the adult learner. These …

Assessing The Correlations Between Non-Cognitive Factors And The First Semester Gpa Of Nontraditional Students At A Community College., Alexis Parent Ferrouillet

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

Ninety percent of the students enrolled at community colleges in the United States are nontraditional (NCES, 2001). According to Horn and Carroll (1996), characteristics of nontraditional student include: delayed college enrollment, financially independent of parents, worked at least thirty-five hours per week, had dependents other than a spouse, were single parents, and had not received a standard high school diploma. Because of these characteristics, nontraditional students can face a plethora of challenges in higher education and feel underprepared for college coursework. Upon enrollment into the community college with an open admissions policy, these underprepared students must take high stakes standardized …

Navigating For The Adult Student: Ways To Help Adult Students Transfer Successfully From Community Colleges To Universities, Bethany M. Craig

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the research that exists about transfer students, there is limited literature on the services that colleges and universities provide to adult students who transfer from community college to university. The number of adult students who participate in postsecondary education continues to grow. The purpose for this mixed method exploratory study was to gather data through both telephone conversations and a survey of transfer coordinators at Illinois institutions of higher education, including community colleges, public four-year institutions, and private, nonprofit four-year institutions. The study sought to understand what transfer coordinators perceive their colleges and universities are doing to help adult …

Treating The Writing Trauma : Managing Anxiety And Promoting Transfer Among Adult Learners With Workplace Writing Pedagogies, Jamie Ann Frankenfield

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Jamie Frankenfield: Treating the Writing Trauma: Managing anxiety and Promoting Transfer

Assessing Learning Styles Of Adult Students In Online, Classroom, And Combination Learning Environments, Theresa M. Bane

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study was an investigation of Kolb's experiential learning model and learning styles (LS) in adult students of different learning environments. Previous research utilizing Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory (LSI) produced results that were often contradictory to expectations based on Kolb's model. Many of these studies were limited in sample sizes or to particular participant education or career fields. The purpose of this study was to identify significant differences in LS of adult students of 3 different learning environments-online, classroom, and combination (blended). A convenience sample of adult learners (N = 180) from a social media site and an online university's …

The Long And Unconventional Road: Stories Of Financial Challenges And Systemic Barriers In College Completion For Adult Women Undergraduate Students, Michele Anne Tyson

Higher Education: Doctoral Research Projects

The following doctoral research studies the experiences and stories of adult post-traditional undergraduate women through a feminist narrative inquiry. The study focuses on the financing of a college degree and will be explored through understanding the educational journey of each participant to highlight personal struggle and system barriers. Currently literature about the importance of institutional and federal assistance for this population is absent from higher education. Using a feminist theoretical framework and narrative inquiry, this study describes the importance and value of educating women to both individual families and societal good.

Learning Through Reading: A Handbook Of Literature-Based Lessons For Esl, Lota I. Rygiel

Master's Projects and Capstones

Learning through Reading: A Handbook of Literature-based Lessons for ESL A Field Project written by Lota Rygiel in the spring of 2016. This project is a handbook of lessons for adult ESL students at intermediate or advanced proficiency levels of English as a Second Language. The handbook offers the use of authentic materials in the form of short stories and poems in English. The authentic materials serve as a challenge to students (Krashen's "i + 1" level): with careful guidance of the instructor they will be interesting and meaningful to students. The use of various literary genres corresponds to the …

Assessing Adult Learner Experience At Northern Stark University: An Exploratory Study, Kathleen Burke

Higher Education Student Work

Close to 40% of students currently enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities are adult undergraduate learners, many of whom attend school on a part-time basis (Day et.al., 2011). The rate of college enrollment by adult students, age 25 and older, can be expected to rise even further due to the current economic recession, as adults find themselves in need of new skills and knowledge to pursue continued employment (Day et. al., 2011). This capstone project was conducted through a transformative paradigm with the intention of making a positive change for the adult population at Northern Stark University. I conducted eight …

Adult Students' Perceptions Of Transfer Services At An Historically Black University, Kimberly Anne Crews

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics have indicated a steady growth of students attending 3 or more institutions while pursuing a baccalaureate degree. When students transfer institutions, they may have specific needs for their new institution. Informed by the transfer receptive culture framework, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of students who had attended 3 or more postsecondary institutions on the services they received, before and after their transfer. Purposeful sampling yielded 9 adult students with multiple-institution attendance histories. Data were collected through semistructured instant messaging interviews. A series of messages included …

Examining The Role Of Corrective Feedback On Learners' Modified Output Of The Spanish Past Tense In Face-To-Face And Telecollaboration Contexts, Arnaldo Robles

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) there has been a demand for further research to look into how corrective feedback (CF) can aid adult second language (L2) learners’ language performance and development. More specifically, to what degree elicitations with prompts (i.e., a form of explicit correct feedback) can affect the modified output of adult learners of Spanish during task performance. Additionally, how face-to-face and telecollaboration environments might play a role in learner’s modified output. Therefore, this dissertation study examines the effects of elicitations with prompts by measuring learners’ modified output in producing the Spanish past tense – the …

Educated Guesses That Affect Access To Educational Resources Beyond Early Childhood, Pamela Colton

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Misconceptions about cognitive development cause damaging assumptions that affect access to academic intervention after middle childhood, especially for older students who also have significant disabilities (Aos, Lieb, Mayfield, Miller, & Pennucci, 2005). In this study, possible sources for reduced expectations for post-middle childhood students are discussed and evaluated. Brigance test scores of seven adult students labeled with severe cognitive impairment are documented at the beginning of a regular school year, and then compared to scores at the end of the school year. Target students received regular school based speech language therapy and occupational therapy, as well as direct academic instruction …

Persistence Factors For Adult Women Learners At A Northeast Community College, Andrea Hemmerich

Higher Education Student Work

Community colleges have been the long-standing institution type for students seeking a post-secondary education because of their relatively low cost and open access philosophies. Particularly, adult or non-traditional women learners have chosen the community college route over the past few decades (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). Motivations to enroll, persist and graduate, vary, depending on factors internal and external to the college and are often dissimilar to their traditional aged counterparts. Given this difference and increasing enrollment numbers, understanding the lived experiences of adult women learners is critical for individual institutions and the larger higher education community. This exploratory study sought …

Adult Learners Of English Interacting With Native Speaker Teachers And Non-Native Speaker Teachers : Exploring Differences In Students' Language Use, Melody Hallenbeck Nadeau

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This mixed-methods study examined the lived experience of adult English Language Learners (ELLs) in classrooms led by native speaking teachers, compared with their experience in classrooms led by non-native teachers. The socio-cognitive approach to language and emergent common ground framed the development of the English classroom as a Community of Practice, in which students produced varying levels of complex, formulaic, metaphorically dense speech.

Coping Strategies Of Part-Time Mba Students: The Role Of Boundary Management, Marion M. Dunagan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using the framework of boundary theory as applied to the work-life-school construct, the study focused on part-time MBA students who worked full-time, their tendency to segment or integrate their numerous roles, and the coping tactics they utilized in redistributing their efforts as they added graduate school to these roles. The research population consisted of a convenience sample of all first and second year Managerial MBA students enrolled at the University of Arkansas. A quasi-experimental research design was used to analyze the sample.

The results of the research indicated that the part-time graduate student who was employed full time faced specific …

The Community College Baccalaureate And Adult Students: A Qualitative Analysis, Angela Kersenbrock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this qualitative research was to investigate the motivations, experiences, and constructs of non-traditional adult students who elected to enroll in community college baccalaureate programs. The participants in this investigation were a homogeneous sample of adult students who had priorities other than school, such as employment and families. The research questions which guided the study sought to explore the narratives adult students shared of their reasons for choosing to enroll in a community college baccalaureate degree program, how they described meaning to having access to these new degrees, and what impact the community college baccalaureate had on the …

Five Women In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Majors : A Portraiture Of Their Lived Experiences, Patrice Prusko Torcivia

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Numerous studies have addressed science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and their relation to education and gender ranging from elementary school pedagogy to career choices for traditional-aged college students. Little research has addressed nontraditional female students returning to the university to in the STEM fields. This study used the portraiture methodology and the idea of being an educational connoisseur (Eisner, 1998; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) to explore the lived experiences of five nontraditional female students returning to the university to study a STEM major. The study is situated in an interpretivist paradigm, using interviews, journal writing, art work, and observations …

Using Narrative To Improve Reflection In Technical Communication, Carrie Brkich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores why instructors should use narrative intentionally and effectively with reflection to better understand adult students' perceptions of experiential learning activities in technical communication. The frequent use of narrative in technical discourse reminds us that the tone of technical texts is often appropriately informal, personable, and reflective. A closer analysis of narratives provides instructors with valuable opportunities to learn more about the motivations for and barriers to learning for adult students and to better understand how these students situate themselves in larger social and cultural narratives. Narrative serves many purposes in technical communication. Not only does narrative add …

Cultural Competence Of Rn To Bsn Students, Dierdre Michelle Riley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this exploratory research study was to examine the cultural competence of registered nurses returning to school for an RN to BSN program in Nevada. Campinha-Bacote's model, The Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Healthcare Services, was used as a theoretical framework for the study. A secondary analysis of data collected as part of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Grant was completed. Fifty-three RN to BSN students voluntarily completed the Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competency Among Healthcare Professionals- Revised (IAPCC-R) electronically in the learning management system of the first nursing course …

Adult Student Persistence In Online Education: Developing A Model To Understand The Factors That Affect Adult Student Persistence In A Course, Raymond J Mcgivney

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence the persistence of adult students in online undergraduate courses at the community college level. Quantitative analysis of survey results from 476 students enrolled in on-line courses at two community colleges indicate that desire to complete the degree, previous experience in on-line courses and assignment completion are the strongest predictors of course completion. The findings from this research also provide the basis for making recommendations for future research and improving policy and practice. Finally, the results of this study suggest the basis for developing new models for understanding persistence …

Degree Attainment Among Adult Learners, Maureen O'Conor

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to expand understanding and discover knowledge about degree attainment among adult learners. This qualitative inquiry is about what 15 bachelor's degree recipients over the age of 25 felt contributed to their efforts to attain the bachelor's degree.

This study contains professional research and expert material on motivation, challenges and barriers, learning preferences, and skills. These areas form the foundation of the study. This research also provides detailed demographic profiles of adult undergraduates and non-traditional-age bachelor's degree recipients, as well as economic data including unemployment, financial aid and debt burden. This inquiry utilizes data, reports …

Adult Esl Student Perceptions On Computer Assisted Language Learning, Jillian Burrus

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this research study was to explore my adult English as a second language (ESL) student's experiences with technology as a method of improving English acquisition. The area of computer assisted language learning (CALL) is increasingly becoming important within the second language learning arena. As the expansion of available technology continues to increase, insight into opinions about the effectiveness of CALL and specifically those opinions of the actual users will be needed.

As an instructor of adult ESL students, my study focused on providing information about my student's use of technology for future personal classroom praxis. This research …

Examination Of Asynchronous Volumetric And Frequency Communication Patterns In Online Courses And Their Impact On Adult Learner Satisfaction, Robert W. Treat

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of online discussion board interactions of adult learners and their satisfaction with their experience. Specifically, this study's objectives were to examine the asynchronous volumetric and frequency textual communication patterns through online discussion boards and the association to adult learner satisfaction for 102 electronically surveyed adult learners at a mid-western university during the 2005-2006 academic year. Highly reliable (Cronbach alpha = 0.97) and valid data were collected from a learner satisfaction form developed specifically for the outcome variable o f this study. Exploratory factor analysis provided evidence that the data collected …

Predictors Of Persistence Among Community College Adult And Traditional-Aged Students, Kellie Crawford Sorey

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Previous literature has documented the high attrition rates for community college students. Beyond raw data, research has demonstrated that predictors of higher education persistence may include a student's background characteristics, a student's external commitments, institutional influences, and a combination thereof. However, empirical research on the persistence of community college students is scarce, and even fewer studies address the differential predictors of persistence between adult and traditional-aged students. The present study examined the predictors of institutional persistence among adult and traditional-aged degree-seeking, first-time enrollees at a public, multi-campus two-year community college in southeast Virginia.

A random sample comprised of 350 traditional-aged …

The Adult Student In Higher Education And Training, Kathlee Despain-Rogers

Theses

This thesis will focus on the needs of the adult or nontraditional student. An in-depth look at bow non-traditional students came to be and how higher education is accommodating them today and tomorrow.

Before 1944, adult students were not commonplace on college campuses. At that time even high school graduation was a rare achievement. However, The Servicemen's (and women's) Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as "The GI Bill," changed all that. The Act provided many benefits but it is best known for giving former soldiers, both male and female, a chance at a college education or a degree from …