This study explores persistence and non-persistence among adult undergraduate students with particular focus on these students' lives, their stressors, their coping resources including academic supports, and their styles of coping. The study approaches the issue of non-persistence not as a personal failure but rather as a consequence of multiple…

The current study merges theory and research in higher education and organizational psychology in order to investigate student retention in adult learners. Factors that are associated with student retention were examined and points of intervention are recommended. Specifically, this study focuses on the role of campus environment, classroom…

Adult education literature generally acknowledges the appropriateness of the incorporation of instructional strategies that stress students' prior experience. Whether this appropriateness applies to students from diverse cultural backgrounds, such as adult students in ESL programs, is not clear. Based on the assumption that students from different…

Many adult basic education (ABE) programs do not achieve a high success rate in meeting student academic needs. Rooted in Knowles' theory of andragogy and Bandura's theory of modeling, this quantitative causal comparative study examined the effects of individualized instruction (IGI) and of facilitated, participatory group programs (SPOKES) on the…

Unlike so many other fields, the sciences tend to sort people early in their lives between insiders and everyone else. Those excluded early--or who eventually drift away from science--are rarely, if ever, welcomed back. As a result, scientific understanding, except for those who make it their career, atrophies over time. The sciences do not…

The relationship between the academic labour market and the global labour market provides an important context for this research. There appear to be growing numbers of part-time lecturers at universities worldwide, which is seen as an extension of casualisation of labour more generally. From a social justice perspective, it is therefore of concern…

The purpose of this study was to examine the self-reported technology competencies of adult online learners and whether self-reported technology competence was related to students' intent to continue learning via web-based courses. The results indicated that there was no relationship between self-reported level of computer competence and intent to…

Community workers are often described as unsung heroes who work for, with and alongside others in order to make qualitative differences to the communities they serve. This paper reports on the story of a community-based arts educator, Morgan Jai-Morincome, winner of the ACT Adult Learners Week Award for an outstanding program in 2007. This…

Originally aimed at young learners, Robert Schumann's maxim that "There is no end to learning" also applies to increasing numbers of people beginning and continuing to learn music as adults. This article presents a discussion on how researchers in the field of adult education discuss the adult learner and learning. Topics include: (1) adults'…

In this paper, I advocate for enhancing critical thinking skill development in undergraduate education by taking advantage of the increased experiential maturity of today's students. I argue that many undergraduates are in fact "adults", by virtue of their age or experiential maturity, and they should be educated as such. Undergraduates who have…

Opportunities for incidental vocabulary acquisition were explored in a 121,000-word corpus of teacher talk addressed to advanced adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) in a communicatively-oriented conversation class. In contrast to previous studies that relied on short excerpts, the corpus contained all of the teacher speech the…

The theme for the 60th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Literacy: The Critical Role of Teacher Knowledge. This Yearbook provides a snapshot of the highlights of the meeting and sampling of some of the proceedings. The focus is on three questions surrounding the conference theme: (1) What do…

This report examines three focal points for understanding incoming first-year students' motivation to complete college: (1) academic motivational barriers and opportunities; (2) social motivational barriers and opportunities; and (3) financial motivational barriers and opportunities. [For "2016 National Freshman Motivation to Complete College…

This qualitative study embraces the pedagogy that effective General Education Development (GED) teachers can enhance students' academic learning. The study explores what makes an effective GED teacher, such as attributes and instructional strategies. Three methodologies are used: 1) two ninety minute interviews with GED teacher using Seidman's…

The English Language Institute at Gallaudet University participated in the Electronic Networks for Instruction (ENFI) Project in 1989. The purpose of this paper is to do a literature review of the ENFI Project within the scope of Gallaudet University and to contribute content that is specific to the English Language Institute. The research…