Education Commons^™

Career Development In Young Adult Women: Educational Influences On Self-Esteem, John E. Montreal

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

The study of the college experience and student self-esteem contributes to the understanding of human development. There are biological, environmental, and cognitive factors that influence student behavior. For women, the process is often preordained by gender roles shaped by men. The effects play a strong part in career development. This paper explores social, psychological, and biological research that informs human behavior. Studies about college influences on women's self-concept and self-esteem reveal the factors involved in their career persistence, and decision-making. The evidence exposes the process that embodies student development, more than it suggests conclusions about ' career development. Helen Astin's …

A Study On Attitudes Of Rural And Urban Respiratory Care Practitioners Toward The Impact Of Continuing Education, Donald A. Samples

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the preferences, impact, and attitude of respiratory care practitioners toward continuing education. A review of demographic characteristics was conducted to develop a professional profile of practitioners in Tennessee. An assessment of continuing education practices provided information concerning types of courses, preferences, and methods used to meet continuing education requirements. Data collection was made possible through the use of a questionnaire. A stratified random sample was drawn from the 1,966 respiratory care practitioners in Tennessee. Based on the practitioner's residence, 150 practitioners were selected from rural and urban communities. A total of 300 …

The Learning Experiences Of Nontraditional Students Enrolled In Organizational Management And Business Administration Cohort- And Study-Group Programs, Janyce R. Westerman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of the study was to examine the learning experiences of nontraditional students enrolled in organizational management and business administration cohort- and study-group programs at four, small, private, church-related, arts-based colleges in Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. The objective of the study was to examine how cohorts and study groups were implemented at four colleges. In addition, the study explored ways that cohorts and study groups contributed to students' satisfaction and academic performance levels, interpersonal relations, and leadership skills. Three hundred forty-five informants and respondents participated in this study. The subjects included 286 students enrolled in organizational management and …

Post-Secondary Access For Individuals With Psychological Disabilities: An Analysis Of Federal Rulings And Institutional Philosophies, Policies, And Practices, John Edwards Chaffin

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was a qualitative investigation, with demographic quantitative features, of post-secondary educational access and legal guidelines for individuals with psychological disabilities. Although disability laws have positively influenced post-secondary educational attitudes and practices relative to accommodating many individuals with disabilities, prevailing stigmas regarding mental illness have discouraged the equal access to higher education for individuals with psychological disabilities. Little research concentrating on this area was found.

Thirty-six relevant legal case decisions, focusing on a variety of realms of higher education, were scrutinized. The policies, procedures, and practices of six Southeastern United States universities were analyzed through official documents and participant …

Transforming Intercultural Perspectives: Reflecting On-Line, Linda Ziegahn

Adult Education Research Conference

The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how students in an online course showed evidence of reflection and transformative thinking around issues of social justice and intercultural communication. Email transcripts from six students were analyzed for evidence of reflection on underlying assumptions regarding course content. Results suggest that the range of kinds of reflection on premise described by Mezirow (1991) are all present, that each student has a "refective style", and that transformation around issues of race was compromised by frustration with the concept of white identity.

Examining The Dynamic Relationships Among Three Facets Of Knowledge: A Holistic View, Baiyin Yang

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper proposes a holistic theory of knowledge and learning. The theory posits that knowledge is consisted of three indivisible facets: explicit, implicit, and emancipatory, and that it is more important to examine the dynamic relationships among the three facets in order to better understand different learning modes.

Finding A Route Into Higher Education For Local Working Class Adults, Lyn Tett

Adult Education Research Conference

The accessibility to adults of six Scottish HEIs and the structural and ethical factors which operate to exclude or include them are examined.How higher education might create a true access culture is assessed through a case study of one institutional response to participation barriers for working class community activists.

Listening To The Student Voice In Adult Education, Nate St. Pierre

Adult Education Research Conference

Tribal colleges are receiving much recognition for their successes. This study acknowledges the Crow Indian people as well as the involvement of Little Big Horn College in its own educational and social movement. The student voice represents an integral part of carrying out the institutional mission.

An Analysis Of Self-Efficacy, Welfare Status, And Occupational Choice Among Female Single Parents, Catherine J. Southwick, Bob Nolan

Adult Education Research Conference

The concept of self-efficacy has been proposed as a possible explanation why women are deterred from pursuing higher paying, traditionally male occupations. This study sampled 199 women pursuing occupational training in Vocational-Technical Institutes to obtain some measure of occupational self-efficacy and compare those measures by non-traditional occupational training and welfare status.

Identifying Research Strategies For The Future: Alternatives To The Traditional Doctoral Dissertation, Kathryn A. Sanders

Adult Education Research Conference

This study was designed to explore the attitudes and opinions of experts in the fields of adult education and vocational education toward future doctoral research needs and toward potential alternatives to the traditional doctoral dissertation. A three round Delphi and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data.

Adults’ Readiness To Learn: Questioning Lifelong Learning For All, Kjell Rubenson

Adult Education Research Conference

Lifelong learning for all has become a major policy objective in the industrialized world. This study, which is based on analysis of IALS data, indicates several disturbing trends in the present distribution of lifelong learning. The differences in readiness to learn as an adult can be explained by "the long arm of the family and the long arm of the job." A main conclusion is that Lifelong learning for all is conditional on a working life organized in a way that promotes the use of literacy, and a society where people are encouraged to think, act, and be engaged.

Adults With Disabilities And The Accommodation Communication In Higher Education, Tonette S. Rocco

Adult Education Research Conference

This qualitative study describes the accommodation communication as it occurs between faculty in higher education and students with visible and invisible disabilities. Elements of an accommodation communication model are: (a) disclosure, (b) validation, (c) request, (d) responsibility, (e) timing, and (f) negotiation.

"Dancing As Gracefully As I Can": A Developmental Model Of Coping Strategies In Successfully Adapting To Hiv Infection, Patricia M. Reeves, Sharan B. Merriam, Bradley C. Courteany

Adult Education Research Conference

The purpose of this study was to understand the use of coping strategies in successfully adapting to HIV infection. Data analyzed from 18 interviews revealed that coping strategies employed immediately after diagnosis differed from those used later. An underlying developmental process in the use of coping strategies was also uncovered.

The Social Construction Of Chinese Models Of Teaching, Daniel D. Pratt, Mavis Kelly, Winnie Wong

Adult Education Research Conference

Five principal relationships, derived from long-standing Confucian values, are described as the cultural and social foundation for Chinese models of teaching. Three related models of teaching will be described during the presentation: Teacher as master; teacher as virtuoso; and teacher as coach.

Are Resources And Support Necessary Or Just Nice In Post-Program Application?, Judith M. Ottoson

Adult Education Research Conference

This study uses matched survey data (n=1356) to explore the relationship between post-educational application and five contextual variables. Significant positive associations were found between contextual and outcome variables; significant differences were found between post and follow-up ratings of contextual variables. What happens after adult education programs may have more effect on post-educational application than what happens during educational programs.

Preaching What We Practice: Theories-In-Use In Community Development, Bernie Moore, Lillian H. Hill

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper examines theories-in-use among community development practitioners and attempts to bridge the schism between practice and theory by articulating implicit theories utilized in practice.

Examining The Impact Of Formal And Informal Learning On The Creativity Of Women Inventors, Jamie L. Mccracken

Adult Education Research Conference

This research is about women inventors and how they feel education impacted their creativity. Data gathered strongly supports existing data which theorizes that "women's learning" (e.g. connected learning and relational learning) is different from men's. Creative women speak out about how they felt education impacted their creativity and what they would like to see education do to increase creativity and self-esteem in girls and women.

Piney Woods Country Life School: An Educational Experience Of African Americans, Lee Martin

Adult Education Research Conference

This study is a historical analysis of the Piney Woods Country Life School during the Jim Crow era. The study focuses on the school's underlying mission to aid African Americans in gaining financial and political control over their lives through education for self-reliance, self-determination and economic independence by any means necessary.

How Adult Learners Change In Higher Education, Kathleen P. King

Adult Education Research Conference

Research about the nature of the relationship between perspective transformation and education was conducted among 422 adult learners in higher education. This paper addresses the areas of change recognized, the formal stages of perspective transformation identified, the relationship of the experience in adult learners' education and the implications of the findings.

Positionality: Whiteness As A Social Construct That Drives Classroom Dynamics, Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Ronald M. Juanita

Adult Education Research Conference

When teachers and learners enter classrooms, they bring their own positions in the hierarchies that order the world. This study examines how one of those positionalities, Whiteness, drives classroom dynamics.

Feminist Teaching, Feminist Research, Feminist Supervision: Feminist Praxis In Adult Education, Christine Jarvis, Miriam Zukas

Adult Education Research Conference

Feminist teaching and research have both been the subject of analytical discussions within adult education. Feminist research supervision has received rather less attention. We focus on two main issues, the role of experience and the feminist analysis of power/knowledge dynamics, in order to highlight the similarities and differences between the three areas.

Adult Education Programs Of The New Deal: The Case Of Oklahoma, 1933 - 1942, Randal Ice, Bob Nolan

Adult Education Research Conference

The federal Adult Education programs of the Great Depression represented the response of the New Deal to unemployed teachers. Although these programs were essentially relief projects intended to take unemployed teachers off the rolls and hire them as adult educators, they resulted in: 1) establishing adult education as a legitimate field of practice with unique educational needs and methods; 2) introducing the nation to adult education theory as it then existed; and 3) teaching large numbers of adults to read for the first time.

Is Our History Bunk? Adult Education’S Historiography And The Notion Of "Learning Society", John Holford

Adult Education Research Conference

The notion of "learning society" presents a paradigm shift necessitating radical rethought of approaches to historical research in adult education. This paper re-evaluates the English-language historiography of adult education from a "learning society" perspective.

From Motherhood To Sister-Solidarity: Home-Making As A Counterdiscourse To Corporate Environmental Polluting, Robert J. Hill

Adult Education Research Conference

This presentation examines the conjunction between women-homemakers and contaminated spaces, both public and private. Learning for the women was embedded in concerns about motherhood and domesticity. Although the women never expressed their solidarity in terms of sisterhood or feminist language, they functioned as a cohesive group consciously aware of their marginalized status as women. But the "girls solidarity" was not the source of political action, rather it was the context for it. Domesticity and motherhood was a substantially stronger antecedent for action that enabled the women to build the notion that they could challenge power relations, values and beliefs of …

From Global Consciousness To Social Action: An Examination Of Adult Education Theory, Lilian H. Hill

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper links 1) social action theories in adult education, and 2) literature about the transition to a global consciousness, a world view emerging in the latter part of this century. Global consciousness does not emanate from a single body of literature, but exists within many disciplines.

Negotiating The Discourse Of Work: Women And Welfare-To-Work Educational Programs, Elisabeth Hays, Wendy Way

Adult Education Research Conference

This critical qualitative study explores women's experiences in a short-term welfare-to-work job training program. In this paper, we examine how the women's efforts to combine schooling, work, and family life were affected by what we identified as a dominant discourse of work. The study contributes to knowledge of the ideological assumptions underlying dominant conceptions of work-related knowledge and skills, and points to the need for more critical approaches to work-related adult education.

Cognition And Practice: Adult Learning Situated In Everyday Activity, Catherine A. Hansman, Arthur L. Wilson

Adult Education Research Conference

Theories and procedures used to teach adults to write often lack an understanding of the central constitutive dimensions of activity, tools, and culture in adult learning. A situated view of teaching writing is introduced.

Like Peeling An Onion: An Examination Of Cultural Identity Among Adult Learners, Talmadge C. Guy, John W. Schell, Jennifer Burnside, Grace Thorton, Kenner Scott

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper describes the results of a study concerning the cultural identity of adult learners in graduate programs at the University of Georgia. Employing analytic induction research design the research team, itself a culturally diverse group of graduate students and professors, analyzes focus group transcript data. The conclusion is reached that verbal statements aside, cultural identity is complex and manifested situationally. Adult educators are advised to adopt sophisticated tools to assess learner identity issues in order to challenge learners to think more critically about their assumptions and biases toward those who are culturally different.

Adult Education And The Body Politic: Radical Intervention Or Palliative Care?, Garnet Grosjean

Adult Education Research Conference

Problems of legitimation have eroded adult education’s distinctiveness and sense of social purpose. Attempts are made to diagnose the condition of adult education and determine the etiology of the crisis.

Adult Education As Building Community: The Parameters And Realities Of Enterprise Identity In North America (1945-70), André P. Grace

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper takes up aspects of building community in North American adult education (1945-70). It looks at adult education’s efforts to build community in itself and explores the degree to which the enterprise built community in education and society.