In further education (FE), teachers and trainers are not legally required to undertake continuing professional development (CPD), with this mandate removed in 2013. Nevertheless, the Education and Training Foundation has emphasised the importance of maintaining and updating professional knowledge. Literature highlights CPD's contentious role among…

Mature adults comprise more than half of the UK higher education student population, indicating significant growth in participation opportunities. However, this expansion has not necessarily resulted in equal educational quality and outcomes for adult learners. This study addresses the research gap regarding the availability and quality of support…

Despite the plethora of research on widening participation in the last 20 years, access to the arts and humanities has remained relatively under-explored, especially in relation to the preparedness of adult learners. This article reports a case study investigating the impact of an arts and languages Access module at the UK Open University.…

This article explores the sustained impact of an Access module on mature students from disadvantaged backgrounds as they progress to undergraduate study. Framed in the context of OfS concerns about attrition and conceptualisation of dispositional, situational and institutional barriers, student survey and tutor focus group data were collected in a…

This evaluation report presents the findings from the project-level evaluation of the CareerTech Challenge, delivered between May 2020 and June 2021. The report examines how the design and delivery of evaluations were undertaken, the findings across process and outcome evaluations and key learning from capacity building support delivered by…

This article explores an idea the researchers are calling Andragogical Isomorphism. The idea being that adults who are motivated to learn become academic when in non-linear relationships with other learners and their tutors. When all are able to be curious, vulnerable and confident shifts in academic capabilities occur. The global pandemic…

Scholars and educators worldwide are grappling with the challenge of translating innovative research findings into tangible improvements within their classrooms. The chasm between theory and practice hinders the progress of education and leaves a wealth of untapped potential. The need for a process or approach to bridge these elements is urgent.…

As the UK's economy grows, in the context of global change, the needs of employers, employees and learners will also change. For the UK to prosper economically, compete internationally, and reduce economic disparities, the UK's skills base will need to be responsive and meet these changing needs. More flexible learning approaches have the…

This article discusses the reasons offered by one group of paraprofessionals to explain their decision to study for a work-related higher education programme. It reports on an ethnographically inspired piece of research that aimed to capture the initial motives that a group of teaching assistants had for studying for a Foundation degree at a…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2016, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, 1-3 July, 2016. This conference is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2016, 1-4 July. The e-Learning (EL) 2016 conference aims…

This book assembles over 50 papers from the 7th Triennial European Research Conference of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA), which was held from the 4th to the 7th of September 2013 at Humboldt-University in Berlin. The title of the conference was "Changing Configurations of Adult Education in Transitional…

This paper is based on a one-year research project in the UK designed to investigate teachers' strategies for motivating learners and managing non-compliant behaviour in the further education sector. Carried out in collaboration with 203 teachers in three colleges of further education, the inquiry set out to identify, through the use of…

This paper focuses on some of the author's research studies over the past thirty years and places these in a wider context to reflect on research into affective issues in learning technologies over this period, and to consider whether and how the issues uncovered by research have changed as technologies have developed over time. Three issues are…

Since the 1980s there has been significant growth in the engagement of higher education with workforce development, with among other things the emergence of a distinct if varied area of provision commonly referred to as work-based learning. Recent examination of practice and literature indicates a growing sophistication in the way that work-based…

The study described here is based on the work of creative writing students engaged in life writing for a piece of assessment in a distance-learning course. Using the finished assignment pieces themselves, the students' reflective commentaries on their completed task, and a follow-up questionnaire, the analysis was designed to explore the…