This paper explores the application of the card-sorting interview technique in understanding the complex interplay of motivations and barriers faced by adults engaging in learning. Traditional research methods, whether quantitative or qualitative, often fail to capture these nuanced interactions or to provide scalable insights for policy…

There is an increasing need of gerontological education in social work to enhance the knowledge of aging and interests in senior care among students. This study is conducted based on an experiential-learning strategy with a combination of having an ethnographic interview with an older adult and writing a reflection paper afterward as an assignment…

Instructional designers are tasked with making instructional strategy decisions to facilitate achievement of learning outcomes as part of their professional responsibilities. While the instructional design process includes learner analysis, that analysis alone does not embody opportunities to assist instructional designers with demonstrations of…

There is an increasing need for cross-cultural qualitative studies in an era of globalization. A focus group of five researchers, who were involved in a large international research project, identified effective strategies and challenges associated with five key domains of qualitative research with key informants: identification, recruitment,…

Over the past 5 years, teaching staff at the School of Continuing Education, VIA University College, Denmark, has been designing digitally supported teaching within diploma programmes and tailor-made courses in the fields of health, education, social sciences and management. More and more of these programmes and courses are designed as blended…

Adult learners in the early 21st century are no longer the fringe group they once were because their numbers and their significance are both on the rise. Thus, the time is right to reframe our understanding about how adult learners of today perceive their experiences of going to school while also managing their other life-role responsibilities.…

Cross-cultural qualitative research is essential to develop practical approaches to promote adult education and training in diverse societies. Yet, little systematic guidance is available to successfully conduct a large-scale cross-national qualitative inquiry in general, and in virtual settings in particular. The purpose of this study is to…

Adult Arab learners of Finnish as second language (FSL) often encounter communication difficulty when dealing with official documents. They also cannot help their children in their school homework. FSL proficiency is an essential requirement to get an employment and to obtain the Finnish citizenship. The aim of this paper is to explore the use of…

This paper discusses retirement as a learning process, where learning, be it formal or informal, enables retirees to adjust to the transition from work to retirement. Such discussion is important given the fact that the world population is aging and that more people are retiring in the next few decades. Moreover, people are experiencing an…

America's democracy is dependent on citizens to engage in ways that address public concerns which range from volunteerism to electoral participation to running for elected offices. Each of these activities is necessary for sustaining a thriving democracy and the communities within it. Rural communities throughout the United States are faced with…

This study examines the science learning experiences across the lifespan of two groups of college students: adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities in a post-secondary inclusive program, and adults in a preservice secondary education teacher candidate program. Data, in the form of personal narrative science stories were…

Science hobbyists engage in self-directed, free-choice science learning and many have considerable expertise in their hobby area. This study focused on astronomy and birding hobbyists and examined how they used organizations to support their hobby engagement. Interviews were conducted with 58 amateur astronomers and 49 birders from the midwestern…

Adult learners represent a significant, and growing, portion of enrollment at higher education institutions. Despite their growing enrollment, adult learners are not retained at nearly the rate of their "traditional" peers, leaving colleges and universities with the need to identify programs and services that specifically address the…

The Miqqut project was a participatory action research project through which Inuit language and literacy learning was embedded in a traditional skills program. Community-based researchers tracked learners' progress through entrance, exit, and post-program interviews and questionnaires, as well as through participant observation. Results show that…

Our research is a comparative qualitative study. The material has been gathered from the cities of Helsinki and Catania. The target cities showcase varied successes and models of smart cities. In the cities, key people involved in the smart city concept--with different kinds of professional backgrounds--were interviewed, both individually and in…