This overview of the characteristics and needs of adult, nontraditional students attending community colleges argues that enhancing the self-concept and self-esteem of adult students fosters and increases their academic success and life chances. After chapter I introduces the issues and defines terms, chapter II provides a literature review…

Designed to assist adult basic education (ABE) teachers and administrators in coping with learning disabled adults, Project BEST (Better Educational Services through Testing) centered on training selected Kansas adult educators in the use of a prescriptive-diagnostic tool for evaluating adults, on providing these teachers with the most current…

This document, intended to provide Peace Corps volunteers with practical skills and underlying theory, includes 8 chapters, a 35-item bibliography, an index, and a user reaction form. Chapter 1 describes nonformal education (NFE) through an example from Togo. Chapter 2 provides three case studies of NFE in action: (1) finding space to make school…

The results of two studies describing the strategies and attitudes of adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) are reported. The first study compared two groups of high/intermediate students (n=94) taking ESL in two settings, a traditional university and community extension classes. The second study examined intermediate and advanced…

The multimedia self-instructional systems approach to reading instruction utilized at Wascana Institute in Canada has helped a growing number of adult learners succeed in their career training courses. The self-paced program involves sequential instruction in perception and conception, focusing on the minimum essential skills assessed by the…

An study was conducted in an adult education center and a community school in Scotland to determine the perceived effectiveness of a range of methods for teaching English. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, observation of teaching, course documents, and informal conversations with 47 students and 2 teachers. Findings included…

Six of 11 papers presented at a symposium on language aptitude testing are included in this document. "Cognitive Abilities in Foreign Language Aptitude: Then and Now" (John B. Carroll) reconsiders language aptitude testing 30 years after publication of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT). "Preliminary Investigation of the…

Several factors to take into account when assessing the effectiveness of programs for teaching educational administration are reviewed in this paper. Three of these factors relate to those engaged in learning: their stages of individual development, their tendency toward initial dependence, and their needs to master and to belong. Three more…

This literature review traces the evolution of community colleges from institutions for recent high school graduates to learning centers for the entire adult population; describes the various learner needs that are met by community colleges' collegiate, vocational, and community education curricula; and discusses the contributions of a study being…

This report provides an abstracted review of 75 available sources on the subject of adult learning problems, disabilities, development, and solutions in adult education. Documents from many levels of education are included; most of the works cited are unpublished reports, papers, and dissertations. Entries are arranged in chronological order…

Andragogy has been posited as a theory of adult learning that provides a unifying concept for the practice of adult education. Because the assumptions of andragogy only indirectly adduce the needs of society and do not purport to accommodate the proprietary interests of institutions at all, it would seem that andragogy would not be appropriate as…

A one-week, five-hour course in survival Spanish taught at an Elderhostel at Winthrop College included in its content the process of introductions and courtesy expressions, numbers and counting, telling time, days of the week, months, seasons, colors, cognates for describing people, talking about jobs and hobbies, verb forms for questions and…

Results of a survey of 91 innovative state humanities projects are presented, and the literature and theories about how adults learn are summarized. The representative sample of 91 public humanities projects are covered in alphabetical order. Most of the projects were selected because of their good humanities content and their success in…

In March 1959, Howard McClusky introduced his Power Load Margin (PLM) theory and proposed that it be used for studying the adult years and for developing and building realistic educational programs for adults. His formula, which states that the key components of adulthood are load (the demands made upon the individual by self and society) and…

In traditional education, the teacher is responsible for the students' learning. The teacher lectures to the students who take notes and then regurgitate the material for examinations to earn grades and diplomas. This type of learning situation may not be appropriate in a community college, where many students are adults who bring life skills and…