Journal of Adult and Continuing Education

Covid-19 has brought surprises in the educational landscape. Educational institutions had to hurriedly migrate all teaching, learning and assessment activities to online platforms. Such was the case of adult learners who had signed on to the access course for entrance into the University of Ghana. This study sought to find out how the e-learning experiences of adult learners differed across gender as they studied English language, Logic and Mathematics online. From a quantitative analysis of the data, the online experience of students with regard to Mathematics learning did not differ along gender lines. Therefore, the experiences of males and females were similar. Though, there were differences across gender groups regarding Logic and English language experiences, those of Logic experience were much bigger, where males provided overall more positive ratings than females. Specifically, for Logic experience, instructors’ show of respect to students, understanding of the learning needs of students and effective communication were rated generally better among males than females. Going forward, Logic instructors should pay equal attention to both groups irrespective of their gender to identify their learning needs and support them accordingly. Furthermore, all the instructors irrespective of their course could continue to improve their delivery of the courses as well as their relationships with the students in order to enhance future experience of the students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on university students across the world. In a short period of time from 2020 to 2022, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) had to pivot their modes of delivery to ensure they could meet the needs of their students. The move to digital platforms has been challenging for students from all ages, but particularly mature students. This study sought to explore mature students’ experiences of university during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. Utilising a qualitative approach, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with students from across the University of Warwick. The interviews were conducted by a staff member and a mature student during the pandemic and four themes were identified: Adapting to online learning, relationships, external factors and response of the university. This research study has identified that some participants responded well to the emergency situation, others had caring responsibilities which impacted on their studies but that peer relationships and collaborative learning is key to their success.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many tertiary institutions switching overnight from taught to online lectures without much preparation. Studies suggest that the sudden change has impacted on students’ satisfaction with online learning in differing ways. Yet, little is known about how this change impacted specifically on adult part-time students, which is the focus of this study. Methods: Part-time adult undergraduate students responded to a mixed methods online questionnaire. Close-ended questions were analysed quantitatively in order to determine levels of satisfaction with online learning during COVID-19 as well as its correlates. Open-ended questions were analysed qualitatively in order to explore the perceived benefits and challenges associated with online learning during this period. Results: Levels of satisfaction with online learning were found to be high, especially among students who were female, those who did not have young children, had partners who worked in excess of 40 hours, were able to follow lectures from locations other than the home, and those following non-technical courses. Several benefits of online learning were identified, including time saved on commuting, the ability to study from the comfort of home and the fact that lectures could now be recorded. Challenges included those related to technology, a lack of interaction amongst students and part-time lecturers who struggled with the sudden switch to online learning. Despite this, most students indicated they would like online lectures to continue to various degrees even after it was safe to return to class. Conclusion and implications: Online lectures were generally rated positively by adult part-time students. In view of the benefits and some of the challenges associated with online learning, it is recommended that future academic programmes adopt a blended approach whilst more support is provided to those who find it challenging to follow lectures from home.

This study examines learning in an exceptional situation. The study was carried out during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when the organisations’ operations changed suddenly as the crisis broke out. The aim of the study is to structure activities during the crisis and the learning related to the adaptation of organisations. The study compares organisational learning in two different types of organisations, one in the health care sector and the other in the social construction and property sector.

This study examined whether emotion regulation difficulties and resilience in college students moderated changes in mental health over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (N = 321) completed surveys assessing mental health, in addition to levels of emotion dysregulation, and resilience during the pandemic, then utilized an anchoring prompt to recall mental health experiences before the pandemic. Correlations revealed participants with higher levels of emotion dysregulation also reported lower levels of resilience. Analyses using the SPSS Macro MEMORE (Montoya, 2019) revealed participants with higher levels of emotion regulation difficulties had greater increases in depression and insomnia, and greater decreases in well-being over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, while participants with lower levels of resilience had greater increases in depression, anxiety, and insomnia over the course of the pandemic. These results highlight the importance of additional support services and mental health training at universities to meet college students’ immediate and long-term emotional needs stemming from the pandemic.

This paper demonstrates the effects of education on cognitive functioning which could serve as an alternative preventive method to halt or delay cognitive decline in older adults. The purpose of this proposal is to discuss and illustrate the benefits of improving cognitive ability through continuing education. As such, taking advantage of educational programmes that are already in place would not only provide mental stimulation for older adults, but would be a source for social networking, as well as technology training and physical education activities. To establish a link between cognition and education, this paper provides examples from a number of studies as well as a review of a longitudinal study on educational differences in the prevalence of dementia. The findings of this systematic review revealed a connection between cognitive decline and education after considering regions and economic status. Suggestions from these reviews imply that keeping one’s mind stimulated could be influential in delaying the onset of dementia resulting in possibly extending the time older adults are independent.

University students’ passion for their studies has been previously demonstrated to be important for both their academic performance and their personal well-being. However, no studies to date have explored the role of passion for one’s studies on both academic and personal outcomes in a single model. The present research sought to determine the role of passion in adult university students’ self-regulated learning and psychological well-being (Study 1), as well as the process by which passion shapes these outcomes, namely academic emotions, in Study 2. It was hypothesised that harmonious passion would positively predict both self-regulated learning and psychological well-being in Study 1. Furthermore, the mediating role of academic emotions between passion and outcomes was tested using a prospective design over time in Study 2. Results provided support for the proposed model. Implications for future research and practice focusing on the role of passion in facilitating adaptive emotions, use of self-regulation and well-being in adult students are discussed.

The increase in the number of adults returning to complete their university education as ‘non-traditional students’ brings more attention to the challenges of a standard degree format. This paper examines the experiences of seven non-traditional students undergoing a cooperative education programme in Singapore, where students would alternate spending a few days in a week at a university while working full-time for the remaining days, in relation to the challenges and opportunities of the programme. Using qualitative thematic analysis, we discovered four themes greatly affected by the programme design – motivations for enrolling, transferability of knowledge, work–study balance and coping mechanisms. Overall, some obstacles hindering adults from continuing education were addressed by this cooperative education programme. The strong integration of work and study roles ensured that adults did not need to leave their job before starting university, reducing time and money-related pressures while increasing their commitment level to education. Additionally, rigid institutional practices were mitigated by the flexibility given by teaching faculty and work supervisors. We suggested several improvements to better suit the rising number of adults wanting to attain a degree. With the research results and recommendations proposed herein, this paper is useful to various universities willing to adopt cooperative education.

Mid-career men and women professionals describe their pervasive sense of ‘lateness’ retraining in law. Against industry patterns of lawyers wishing to leave the profession, these individuals had chosen to assert or reassert a desire to become lawyers partway through existing careers. What cultural narratives mediate the process of making this professional career shifts? In contrast to younger students, these ‘later’ career changers differed in career experiences and expected career trajectories. They all spoke about their personal sense of career lateness relative to time-flow norms, but only some reflected on the subsequent implications of their career shift. Interviewees worked in Victoria, Australia and in New Zealand. This article applies Bourdieu’s concept of hysteresis to career lateness along with other career transition concepts to explore career changers’ internal disquiet about their ‘off time’ career transitions. Perceptions of career lateness – hysteresis in Bourdieu’s terms – arise from changing fields, losing/re-positioning occupational capital or stretching between old and new habitus in their post-transition career as lawyers or work using their new law degrees.

A common observation in Transformative Learning (TL) literature is the scarcity of ways to gauge the extent of personal transformation. This is despite a recorded history of more than four decades and the existence of multiple schools of thought in TL. Also, there has been insufficient exploration of the personal transformation of profession changers in the TL space. We believe it is important to operationalize the key concepts of the TL theory through quantitative methods to make way for newer insights. In this paper, using the case of profession changers from India, we extend Mezirow’s work on six types of ‘Habits of Mind’ beyond their original conceptualization by identifying constituent latent factors. We examine and establish the reliability and validity of these factors and recommend a factor-based scale approach for application.

Guided tours of memorial museums have sought to have an impact on visitors through an affective learning environment and critical reflection leading to ‘action’. However, there is limited work investigating the pedagogical underpinnings of such guided tours in order to understand whether they can facilitate action. This paper presents reflections of 21 students’ experiences of educational visits to the former Nazi extermination and concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland between 2017 and 2018. Students identified the guided tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau as having an affective dimension that enhanced understanding and brought about a perspective transformation but action was ill-defined. In considering ill-defined action, this paper attempts to frame understanding of the guided tour of the memorial museum within the context of Transformative Learning. It concludes that guiding practices should incorporate space for reflection and provide examples of potential ‘action’ so that visitors can mobilise their deeper understanding and experience long-term personal ‘change’.

This article analyses and identifies the extent to which the different pre- and post-independence typologies of governance in Benin have facilitated the promotion of lifelong learning as instrument for development. Relying on the thematic content analysis method, the article identifies three themes and three main typologies of governance spanning the independence preparation period and post-independence era. Of the three styles of governance, only the Marxist–Leninist government succeeded in promoting lifelong learning by default. Lifelong learning being one type of learning that promotes the re-engineering of society through the constant dissemination of knowledge, information and know-how and through the constant retooling of the citizenry for purpose of investment of their talents in ever renewable ways, Benin is called upon to prioritise the promotion of lifelong learning soon. Specifically, Benin has been advised to restructure her national educational sector by bringing the whole sector under one Minister of Education with a view to enabling a seamless interaction across all sections of the national education. This restructuring as described in Figure 1 within the article, would facilitate timeous access to knowledge, information and skills that would enable individuals to participate in different sectors of the economy and thereby advance rapid national socio-economic development.

Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, involving adoption of contemporary skills development approaches, is integral in alleviating the region’s high youth unemployment rates as it will equip the youth with skills needed for employment. Skills that are needed are those that holistically develop the youth skills-set, including technical/hard and soft-skills, dubbed whole youth development (WYD) skills. This paper thus explores Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students’ understanding of soft-skills and its development. The paper utilizes data collected from a TVET study in Kenya that was carried in 9 of the 47 counties, targeting learners aged 15–24 years. The selected counties were those that had national polytechnics for national representation, except one (Turkana county), which was selected to represent youth from marginalized counties. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for this study. The findings indicate that there is a good understanding of soft-skills among the targeted respondents, with extra-curricular activities playing a key role in promoting TVET students’ soft-skills. However, inadequate human resource and low level of awareness on soft-skills among instructors contribute to inadequate soft-skills learning. This calls for a concerted effort among key education stakeholders on the development of instructors’ and institutions’ capacities for a plausible soft-skills outcome.

Education is a major tool for development and equalizer. This somewhat accounts for the quest for education, at various levels, including adults who were unable to attain an education degree earlier in life. Thus, Adult Education and Training (AET) programmes are established in different community centres to promote adult literacy in different parts of the world inclusive of South Africa. However, many AET community centres tend not to be achieving the aim for their establishment due to various challenges. Hence, this study examined the challenges that are facing adult community learning centres using KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa following that it has one of the highest rates of illiteracy that causes unemployment and poverty. Social Cognitive Theory was employed for theoretical framework. Qualitative method was adopted for the study; hence, face-to-face interviews were conducted for nine purposively selected centre managers from both rural and urban KwaZulu-Natal. The collected data was coded and thematically analysed. The findings show that adult learners, facilitators and government factors inhibit the community learning centres progress. Meanwhile, centre managers strive to support adult community learning by involving different stakeholders in adult education and prioritize same. The study recommends amongst others the adoption of systemic approach where visions of AET are clearly stated to all stakeholders such as learners, facilitators, and the government.

The present study is part of an exploratory research study conducted to understand the Learning experiences of adult learners in Higher Education Institutes in India. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the motivational orientations of adult learners for lifelong educational courses and hence, the Educational Participation Scale (EPS) by Boshier was used to examine the motivational orientations among adult learners enrolled in selected lifelong courses. In total, seven motivational factors were identified among the adult learners to enrol in the Programmes: Communication skills and Social contact, Professional advancement, Intellectual recreation, Cognitive interest, Family Togetherness, Children Relationship and Educational Compensation. Age, gender, type of course and educational background had varying influences on the motivational orientation of the adult learners. Though professional advancement was found to be higher, Communication skills, social contact and family togetherness was found to be significantly higher among older research participants aged 50 years and above.

This study examined the associations between adult education and training (AET) participation, educational attainment, literacy skills, gender, and race/ethnicity among the U.S. adult population aged 25 to 65 years old (n = 5,450). Given the socioeconomic advancements of women and racial/ethnic minorities in the last few decades, including higher educational attainment, increased labor force participation, and greater income, and as new data becomes available, it is important to re-examine AET participation by gender and race/ethnicity in the U.S while controlling for educational attainment and literacy skills. This study employed the 2012/2014 Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) public-use file (PUF). Binary logistic regression was used to examine (1) any AET, (2) formal AET, and (3) non-formal AET across all variables of interest. Indeed, educational attainment and literacy skills are associated with greater AET participation. Further analyses showed that more women than men participated in all forms of AET, and there were some variations in AET participation by racial/ethnic minorities. More Black, Hispanic, and other racial/ethnic minority adults participated in formal AET, and more Black adults participated in all forms of AET, compared to their White counterparts. This study also provides within-race/ethnicity group variations.

Although there has been a rich amount of research about lifelong learning providing benefits such as economic advancement and personal fulfillment, less is known about factors that increase or decrease a person’s likelihood of pursuing it. Nonetheless, knowing these predictors and barriers can have practical consequences on encouraging people to have continued education. Using a national US dataset (n = 1651), our analyses showed people’s pursuit of different lifelong learning modalities and revealed significant predictors and barriers of lifelong learning. Counterintuitively, employment and time constraints did not prevent individuals from pursuing educational opportunities; they actually helped predict it. Additionally, limited information—rather than cost—was a stronger driver in preventing people from pursuing lifelong learning. Taken together, the research has implications for encouraging people to pursue lifelong learning.

The aim of this study is to analyse how formal adult education in Sweden is enacted locally. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, background data on municipalities from public statistics and interviews with representatives of 20 municipalities. Swedish formal adult education, which includes general, vocational and Swedish for immigrants courses, is a responsibility of the municipality, but courses are not necessarily organised internally by the municipality. The results show how adult education is enacted in different ways. There are systems for outsourcing courses to various other providers, typically private training companies. There are thus both private and public providers, but courses are paid for by the municipality, which is also responsible of quality assurance. The quality assurance is typically enacted with a focus on students, via surveys and statistics on outcomes, but quality measures also target providers. Swedish adult education is characterised by extensive marketisation with many private providers and a broad supply of courses, but the municipalities are experiencing quality problems among providers, and some municipalities are considering extending their internal provision. There is also a labour-market focus where training programmes to improve adults’ employability are prioritised.