Recent trends in higher education indicate a steady increase in the number of adult and non-traditional learners returning to complete college degrees. Though higher education can provide numerous economic and career enhancement opportunities, adult learners experience several challenges when they return to college. The purpose of this qualitative…

This follow-up study aimed to examine (a) the impact of 4.5 years participation in postsecondary education (PSE) on students with intellectual disability (ID) compared to adults with ID who did not participate in PSE, (b) whether a different impact on crystallized and fluid intelligence after 4.5 years would be found among PSE students with higher…

The impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on nonformal adult education has become a frequently discussed issue in lifelong learning. Nonformal adult education is understood here as all organised adult learning outside formal education that usually does not result in official certification. Many scholars have considered the pandemic as the…

Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis…

Competent L2 writing has been described in research in terms of an increasing incidence, variety, and length of clauses; a countervailing compactness and tightness with reduced number of clauses even as clause length expands; and various interrelationships between syntactic realizations of texts and the genres they represent. These partly…

Disarticulating conceptions of writers and good writing from the academy and elevating conceptions of writers as reflecting communities, as intellectuals with important ideas and images to share no matter their academic pedigree is of paramount importance to developing a sense of writerly self-efficacy, or "students' self-perceptions of their…

Virtual reality (VR) as an emerging technology has extreme potential to revolutionize online higher education for adult students through immersive and engaging learning experiences. Lower cost and advancing research in VR technology and immersive simulation software offers unique opportunities for adult students to engage in a virtual learning…

Institutions are aggressively recruiting adult learners and developing adult degree completion programs. This is a hyper-competitive market. Many institutions lack experience working with this population. This paper outlines proven strength-based enrollment management strategies to instill confidence and provide student support for adult learners.…

Over the past decade, Tennessee has invested in several policies addressing the educational attainment of adult learners. One of these policies, Tennessee Reconnect, is a last-dollar scholarship for eligible adults to attend community college free of tuition and mandatory fees. In 2021, two community colleges participated in a year-long pilot…

Adult learners, or undergraduate students aged 24 years or older, represent one third of the undergraduate student population in the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore the pathways to thriving for undergraduate adult learners, taking into consideration their entering characteristics and life circumstances. Thriving has been…

This mixed methods study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the fit of a model of thriving in 264 adult Hispanic undergraduates, then performed a content analysis of student comments. Thriving was defined as intellectual, interpersonal, and psychological engagement in the student experience. The student comments confirmed the SEM…

In current Western societies, the number of students dropping out of school is high. At the same time, the importance of education leads to an increase in Second Chance Education (SCE) initiatives as an alternative way to obtain a degree. Little is known about the roles SCE can play as a learning environment for students "'dropping in'"…

The focus of this paper is to report the findings of a qualitative study whose purpose was to analyse the experiences of adult learners pursuing evening postgraduate degree programmes at the university level in Tanzania. Using ethnographic research combined with multiple case research design, together with in-depth interviews and documentary…

A college graduate who is employed full-time will earn more than someone with a high school diploma or a college dropout. Students who do not persist tend to drop out or stop-out by the fifth term (the beginning of the third year). How best to track these students is disputed. Some argue that the second-term retention rate is the best predictor.…

Self-Directed Learning (SDL) is a process in which adult learners initiate their inner motivation to learn by themselves to increase their knowledge, skills and experiences from resources and evaluating learning outcomes. Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and resources of an…