The concept of diversity should include special needs and differences of learners in terms of disability, ethnicity, culture, language, age, gender, experience, and geography. A range of instructional approaches and technologies should be used to help each person learn effectively. (Contains 20 references.) (SK)

Interviews with 8 distance course developers, 22 tutors, and 14 students in Hong Kong found that coordinators agreed that values education should be incorporated into distance education through counseling, support services, specific courses, or appropriate examples. Coordinators and tutors thought adult students might resist, but students appeared…

A survey of 116 London Open College Network programs found that 53% of enrollees in Access courses completed certificates; 51% progressed to higher education. Partial completers were often able to apply credits to higher education later. Subjects with the highest Access completion rates did not necessarily have the highest progression to…

Discusses student writing as it relates to adult literacy education and describes "Write First Time," a newsletter of adult literacy students' writings. Suggests that having writing published gives learners a different view of other printed texts. (JOW)

Today's information technology-based economy makes job-related knowledge and workplace skills obsolete faster than ever before. As a result, many adults are heading back to school, often because of the demands of the marketplace that has little place for those without current credentials. (Author/JOW)

Unsuccessful mature applicants to University College Dublin (n=74) identified barriers encountered in the application process: low number of older applicants admitted due to demand from younger applicants; lack of standardized assessments for mature applicants; and lack of recognized access routes. (SK)

Holistic teaching and learning must be concerned with the spiritual lives of adult educators and learners. Educators should design processes that invite the involvement of the whole person while leaving room for diversity and mystery. (Author/SK)

A survey of 82 adults in noncredit programs on the arts and lifelong learning and interviews with 25 identified their motivations and outcomes. They valued noncredit learning for the opportunity to try something new in a nonthreatening environment. These learning opportunities benefited their social involvement, health, and well-being. (SK)

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed…

A shared document-based annotation tool was presented, and its usefulness in two different real-life web-based university-level courses (adult learners, n = 27 and adolescent learners, n = 23) was empirically investigated. The study design embodied three data collection phases: (1) a pretest measuring self-rated motivation, learning strategies,…

The purpose of this study was to describe the current practices (band setup, musical instruction, member interactions, and challenges) of adult beginning instruction in ensemble settings. Subjects in the current study were 35 adult band/orchestra directors from 19 US states and one province. The responding directors were 24 men and 11 women…

This study systematically investigates the English writing research in Taiwan, over the span of time from 1989 to 2008, a 19-year time period. Data collection consisted of five major sources. Guided by Juzwik et al's (2006) study, the data were analyzed based on the general problems under investigated, the age groups being researched, the…

Research addressing the effectiveness of feedback for learning has focused on many dimensions of feedback, including the timing (Kulik & Kulik, 1988), type (Mory, 2004), and amount of available information (Dempsey et. al, 1993). Much of the feedback research in education has tacitly assumed that the available information is perceived, and any…

This study examined barriers experienced by veteran school paraprofessionals attempting to complete a 4-year degree leading to public school teaching credentials. The study followed culturally and linguistically diverse, nontraditional student-participants through their 1st and 2nd years as sophomore/junior students in a large urban university.…

To increase the rate at which adult basic skills students advance to and succeed in college-level occupational programs, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) developed the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, or I-BEST. In the I-BEST model, a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor team…