This article queries how one type of human difference--alterity, the experience of multiple distinct consciousnesses, or "alters," by one person--is pathologized in American culture. This experience is inscribed as a mental illness, labeled now as dissociative identity disorder (DID) and formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). In…

Studies of student persistence at the undergraduate level are numerous and well known to those in the field, but at the graduate level, they are far more limited. The latter generally focus on doctoral candidates or those enrolled in professional programs. Master's-degree candidates, especially those who pursue a degree on a part-time basis at a…

This article describes a model that can be used to analyze student enrollment data and can give insights for improving retention of part-time students and refining institutional budgeting and planning efforts. Adult higher-education programs are often challenged in that part-time students take courses less reliably than full-time students. For…

The "men's sheds" movement is a grassroots phenomenon that has engaged and inspired men from communities across Australia in hands-on, workshop-based social activity. This article seeks to "unwrap" one of several forms of learning that have been found to be enthusiastically embraced by older men previously thought of, almost…

Adult learning is not a tidy business: adults fit learning into the spaces left by the other demands on complex lives, and into the spaces left in administrative structures overwhelmingly designed for other people. No simple metric can capture adults' diverse purposes and achievements, and no single programme can capture the full range of things…

Faculty and administrators of higher education today face a challenge with their student populations, many of whom are part of what is known as the net generation. As students become more technologically advanced, faculty must be technologically ready to meet the needs of students. Many college faculty and administrators are from earlier…

This article is the culmination of the Cultural and Linguistic Autobiography (CLA) writing project, which details narrative descriptions of adult English language learners' (ELLs') cultural and linguistic experiences and how those experiences may have influenced the ways in which these learners constructed and reconstructed their identities.…

Adult second-language (L2) learners' perception of L2 phonetic segments is influenced by first-language phonological and phonetic properties. It was recently proposed that L2 vocabulary size in adult learners is related to changes in L2 perception (perceptual assimilation model), analogous to the emergence of first-language phonological function…

Today, more than any other time in history, student demographics of college and university students in the United States are experiencing rapid and profound changes. Along with these increases in nontraditional student enrollment comes an increasing percentage of working nontraditional college students with a multitude of commitments that serve to…

Dyslexia is a well-known phenomenon and help and assistance are offered to pupils and students who experience literacy difficulties on a regular basis. But what help do they need and want? In this article the responses people with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia give to this question are discussed. What, if we take the student's own…

Many language training software packages are intended for self-study and marketed as complete language learning solutions; however, little is known about how well they work or under what conditions they should be used. This article reports on a research study conducted at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language that…

Adult learners are already involved in the process of self-regulation; hence, higher education institutions should focus on strengthening students' self-regulatory skills. Self-regulation can be facilitated through formative assessment. This paper proposes a model formative assessment strategy that would complement existing university teaching,…

Since its inception, the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) has focused on teaching and assessing basic skills in contexts that are relevant and important to adult learners. CASAS has developed and continues to refine a highly formalized hierarchy of competencies, the application of basic skills that adults need to be fully…

This reflective paper discusses aspects of the author's personal development as an adult learner. Though that development is reflected in her practice as an adult educator, she does not explore those implications in the paper. Instead, she grapples with what it means to make meaning, to determine how she knows what she thinks she knows. The author…

Being an international English as a Second Language (ESL) graduate student from China studying in the U.S., the author has undergone various types of transformation. Taking her first online course is one poignant example in which multiple layers of transformation occurred. In hopes of easing the transformation of other international ESL students…