This article speculates on an underlying order obscured by the details of the Boshier-Collins cluster analysis and the mapping of Houle's types onto it. A table illustrates an interpretation of cluster analysis on Boshier's Education Participation Scale. (CT)

The Education Participation Scale was administered to 611 students enrolled in adult education courses at one college in the U. S., and results were compared to results from a similar study in New Zealand. There was some variation in expressed reasons for participation between different sex-age groupings. (Author/AG)

In this study, Education Participation Scale data from 13,442 learners in Africa, Asia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States were combined and subjected to a cluster analysis designed to examine the extent to which Houle's typology fitted the phenomenological reality that exists within adult education participants. Results are described.…

The methodology employed in fourteen motivational orientation studies is reviewed. All studies used either the Education Participation Scale, the Continuing Learning Orientation Index, or the Reasons for Educational Participation Scale. Issues discussed concern factor scoring, factor analysis, rotation, scaling, reliability, and the extent to…