Education Commons^™

Mid-Career Adult Learners In An Online Doctoral Program And The Drivers Of Their Academic Self-Regulation: The Importance Of Social Support And Parent Education Level, Peter E. Williams, Natalie Wall, Wade W. Fish

School of Educational Leadership

Adult professionals enroll in online graduate programs and rely on social support and on their ability to self-regulate to be successful. The literature on academic self-regulation among emerging adults (traditional college age) is ample, but we do not know how social support interacts with academic self- regulation among adult graduate students at mid-career, particularly among those students who are first generation college goers. This study addressed the following questions: (1) To what degree do parental education level and cohort progression predict academic self-regulation? and (2) What sources of social support – family, friends, loved one (significant other), and classmates – …