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Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Abstracts of Papers
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Select the letter from the list above to jump to appropriate section of the abstracts index. Abstracts are in alphabetical order by the first letter of the author's last name.
NOTE:
Abstracts contain links to online copies of papers.
Published Conference Proceedings -
Oklahoma State University
Information is available regarding the 1997 published version of the conference proceedings compliled by Oklahoma State University.
Archie-Booker, Elaine
The politics of planning culturally relevant AIDS
education for African-American women.
AIDS cases are growing faster among African-American women than for any other ethnicity-gender group. Until a vaccine or cure is available, education offers the primary means to control education. In this paper, I examine a community-based AIDS education provider to determine to what extent were their programs culturally relevant for African-American women.
Armstrong, P., Birbeck College
Towards fin de siecle: A time to revision Durkheim's
sociology of education?
This paper builds on earlier work on values and ethics that argued the need to re-vision the ideas of Emile Durkheim, by suggesting that the argument is supported by the notion of fin de siecle, which implies that the challenges of post-modernity are by no means new, and that there is evidence of a patter or even a cycle that would seem to re-appear at the end of each century. Approaching the 21st century and the millennium, the notion of fin de siecle has additional significance. But is it merely a matter of history repeating itself? And is this important to the educators of adults?
Baird, Irene C
Imprisoned bodies - free minds: Incarcerated women and
liberatory learning.
Using women's literature as a medium for self-exploration for self-awareness, incarcerated women learn to free their minds from their limiting situation. Examining the model through prison, Freirian, feminist methodologies affirms its significance/effectiveness as the essential first step for saying things differently, for liberation from oppression.
Barlas, Carole
Developing white consciousness through a transformative learning
process.
This qualitative case study sought to examine a process of group learning in which individuals and group experienced a transformative change in consciousness about white privilege. This study resulted in understanding one process for expanding capacities for continued transformational learning.
Bierema, Laura L., Michigan State University
Executive businesswomen's learning in the context of
organizational culture.
Case study analysis was used to investigate executive women's learning and development in corporate culture. Eleven executives were interviewed. A model of their development is proposed, detailing their learning tactics, negotiation strategies and transition characteristics over the course of their career development.
Boshier, Roger, University of British Columbia
Theoretical perspectives on preventing fishing vessel
accidents.
Despite the availability of new technologies, fishing vessels come to grief far too often. Prevention education is excessively functionalist and not sufficiently focused on human factors. The author interrogates the problem from contrasting theoretical perspectives and claims prevention educators should embrace subjective as well as objectivist ontologies and place power relations at the centre, not on the margins, of their efforts.
Brooks, Ann K. and Edwards, Kathleen
Narratives of women's sexual identity development: A
collaborative inquiry with implications for rewriting transformative learning theory.
Transformative learning theory has attended primarily to cognition and our capacity to understand experience in terms of increasingly inclusive, discriminating, permeable, and integrative perspectives (Mezirow, 1991). However, it does not allow for an understanding of the intersubjective nature of meaning-making, nor does it address the workings of oppression or how learning occurs in relation to oppression. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to rewrite transformative learning to allow us to theorize the integration of the individual with the socio-historical and to enable the understanding of the relationship between individuals and social change.
Brown, Angela Humphrey, University of Georgia
The myth of the universal adult educator: A literature
review.
This paper critically evaluates the adult education literature with respect to how it deals with the race and the gender of the teachers as a factor in the teaching-learning environment. The mainstream literature perpetuates the myth of the universal teacher while the narratives of African American women transcend the myth.
Burnham, Byron R. and Walden, Beth, Utah State University
Interactions in distance education: A report from the
other side.
This observational study investigated the kinds of interactions among and between students, instructors, the media, and the environment in distance education courses. In addition to confirming the interaction types reported in the literature, learner-environment interaction was documented. Interaction chains, interaction objects, and interaction subjects were described.
Clark, Carolyn M. and Watson, Denise B., Texas A&M University
Women's experience of academic collaboration.
This study examines the experience of collaboration for women academics in adult education. While the women describe a range of collaborative experiences, they place the greatest value on more complex forms of collaboration in which the self, the partner(s), and the work exist in a highly dynamic and interactive relationship. This study suggests that collaboration provides one way in which women are creating life-giving spaces for themselves within the masculinist culture of the academy.
Collins, Mary A., Brick, J. Michael, and Kim, Kwang
The measurement of participation in adult education.
This paper examines the disparate rates of participation in adult education that have been reported by the Current Population Survey and the National Household Education Survey. The authors examine issues including population coverage and sampling, survey nonresponse, the use of proxy respondents, and survey context effects.
Conti, Gary J., Kolody, Rita C., and Schneider, Bobby
Learning strategies in the corporate setting.
The learning strategies of financial planners with American Express were assessed with SKILLS. Results with this group of professionals confirm the distinct learning strategy groups uncovered in previous learning strategy research.
Cunningham, Phyllis and Curry, Regina
Learning within a social movement: The Chicago African-American
experience.
A study of the Empowerment Zone in which over one thousand poor residents mobilized to learn, create knowledge, and formulate a plan to reinvent government and alleviate poverty.
Daley, Barbara J., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Creating mosaics: The interrelationships between knowledge
and context.
This qualitative study analyzed the interrelationships between knowledge gained in continuing education programs and the context in which professionals practice. Findings indicate that the process of constructing a knowledge base was affected by the structural, human resources, political and symbolic frames of the context of practice.
Dean, Gary J.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's GED graduates progress.
A follow-up study of 3,099 GED graduates in Pennsylvania from 1974 through 1994 was conducted to identify changes in employment characteristics, living arrangements, and income, as well as preparation for the GED, further education, and outcomes of passing the GED. All findings indicated that GED graduates perceived obtaining the GED as extremely beneficial.
Dilworth, Robert L., Virginia Commonwealth University
Orchestration of learning style differences and
other variables in an action learning experience.
Research centered on 31 students who participated in a two-week International Action Learning Seminar in Salford, England. International participants were assigned to action learning sets on the basis of several variables. Composition of sets (six to seven individuals) was purposely mixed to enhance diversity and promote learning.
Donaldson, Joe F., University of Missouri-Columbia and
Kuhne, Gary W., Pennsylvania State University
Researching professional practice: The integrated
practice perspectives model and continuing education.
The "Integrated Practice Perspectives" model reframes previous efforts to link education with professional practice by using theories of situated cognition and learning. Reframing allows other variables in professional performance to be identified, performance to be more thoroughly linked to social and cultural contexts, and a more integrative and deeper conceptualization of professional practice and context to be developed.
Duchesne, Robert, University of Connecticut
Critical thinking, developmental learning and
adaptive flexibility in organizational leaders.
Organizational leaders in today's global marketplace must continually make decisions, solve problems, and chart effective courses of action to ensure that their companies survive and flourish. The ability to think critically is essential for today's leaders, yet leaders are often unable to do so. This study examined how developmental learning and adaptive flexibility related to the level of critical thinking in a sample of organizational leaders. Results showed years of education to be the only significant predictor of critical thinking in the leaders studied. Adaptive flexibility scores indicate minimal levels of reflective observation suggesting automatization of decision-making. The factor analysis of developmental learning experiences identified several factors that characterize the developmental learning of the leaders studied. The theoretical and practical significance of the findings is discussed.
Elliott, Gabrielle Ann Scott, and Pollard, Lisa, University of
Tennessee-Knoxville
Voices of the participants: The selling of popular culture at Wounded Knee.
Popular culture narratives surrounding the Occupation of Wounded Knee have worked to neutralize the significance of the acts of resistance by participants, particularly women.
Fleming, Jean Anderson
Participant perceptions of residential learning.
This paper reviews findings from a study of participant perceptions of residential adult learning. Residential learning programs were defined as programs in which participants live and learn together, full-time, in the same location, for the full duration of their program.
Grace, Andre P., Dalhousie University
Taking it to practice: Building a critical postmodern theory
of adult learning community.
This paper considers research themes important to contemporary Canadian federal HRD (human resource development) policy, research, and experimentation. It takes up security, work, and learning concerns affecting today's citizen workers and learners and develops aspects of a critical postmodern theory of adult learning community.
Hall, Abby G. and Donaldson, Joe F., University of
Missouri-Columbia
An exploratory study of the social and personal dynamics that
deter underserved women from participating in adult education activities.
This study explored the social and personal dynamics that deter underserved women from participating in formal adult education. From a grounded theory perspective, an inductive analysis revealed four integrated categories of deterrents that describe factors leading to nonparticipation (a) preadulthood factors; (b) patterns of nonsupport in adulthood; (c) conventional deterrents; and, (d) lack of "voice" in adulthood.
Hansman, Catherine A., Georgia Southern University and
Smith, Sherwood E., University of Vermont
The mirror within the mirror: Reflections on
multiculturalism, theory and practice.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which adult education graduate students' perceptions of race, class, gender and sexual orientation were transformed by the end of graduate adult education courses which included readings, reflection, discussions and other activities designed to foster self-awareness, critical reflection and cultural sensitivity.
Harris, Gerald W.
Identification of the workplace basic skills necessary for
effective job performance by entry-level workers in small businesses in Oklahoma.
A modified Delphi technique was used to identify the workplace basic skills needed by employees in small businesses employing 50 or fewer workers. Employers rated a list of 36 skills from the SCANS Report, in importance, on a scale from 1-little importance to 10-extreme importance. The ratings along with written comments and verbal responses to preplanned questions in phone interviews were used to determine if the SCANS skills could be validated for small businesses in Oklahoma.
Hullinger, Hallet, Oral Roberts University and Nolan,
Robert, Oklahoma State University
Antecedents of intercultural adjustment of American
expatriates in the People's Republic of China.
A greater understanding of the antecedents of intercultural adjustment of Americans working in China can assist organizations in selecting, training and supporting employees who work in this country. Interviews with forty Americans and seven Chinese living in Beijing yielded seven categories of adjustment factors labeled as personality, expectations, prior overseas experience, motivation, language skills, intra- and intercultural relationships, preparation and training. Four categories could be classified as endogenous, that is originating within the person, and three could be considered exogenous, that is originating within the environment.
Johnson-Bailey, Juanita and Brown, Angela Humphrey, University of
Georgia
Participation and retention factors relating to
Black reentry graduate and undergraduate women in the College of Education.
This qualitative study, which focused on participation and retention factors, examined the educational experiences of nine reentry Black women who were students at a predominately White research university. The research centered on extracting common themes and on identifying factors that influenced or hindered their educational tenure.
Kaufmann, Jodi Jan
Radical pedagogy in action: A case study of a Chicano/a
autobiography class.
This ethnographic case study explored, from the perspective of the participants, the instructional experience in an adult higher education ethnic literature course taught through the lens of radical pedagogy.
Kilgore, Deborah W., Texas A&M University
A researcher and activist in the Mexican borderlands.
Dual roles of activist and researcher in a collective social movement highlight conflicting research needs for objectivity and subjectivity that may be reconciled through self-conscious critique. This was demonstrated during a study of a collective workers' rights movement on the U.S.-Mexico border in 1996.
Lauderdale, Elliott, University of South Alabama
How adult experience as a supervising decision-maker
can inhibit learning: An examination of undergraduate senior projects.
This paper reports on a preliminary investigation of a hypothesis generated from an ongoing examination of the senior research projects of a interdisciplinary adult degree program at an urban university. A review of adult education writing addressing the work of Chris Argyris reveals a tendency to overlook its application to this research problem. Does positive supervisory experience inhibit adult learning?
Lawrence, Randee Lipson, National-Louis University
The interconnecting web: Adult learning cohorts as sites
for collaborative learning, feminist pedagogy and experiential ways of knowing.
This paper describes research conducted to understand and given meaning to the experience of adults learning in cohort groups, in non-traditional graduate and undergraduate degree programs in higher education. The researcher sought to enter into the lived world of the learners to view the experience from their perspective.
Marsick, Victoria and Kasl, Elizabeth
Factors that affect the epistemology of group learning: A
research-based analysis.
This examination of factors that affect group learning is a first step toward developing a pedagogy of group learning, in contrast to individual learning.
Martin, Larry G., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Academic vs. integrated functional-context literacy
programs: Responding to the needs of low literate clients of welfare.
The "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996" promises to usher in a new era of literacy programming as practitioners attempt to design short-term programs that address the academic and employment needs of low-literate welfare recipients. A comparative analysis of academic and integrated literacy/occupational skills programs is presented.
Nelson, Alex, University of Technology, Sydney
Imagining and critical reflection in autobiography: An
odd couple in adult transformative learning.
Adult education approaches to transformative learning generally emphasize the interpretive role of critical reflection and critical thinking. This explanatory understanding of transformative learning as autobiography claims that the learner composes their life, by using imagination and critical reflection to interpret their life story within the social context.
Pandak, Carol A., Northern Illinois University
Voluntary organizations and nonformal adult education in
Hungary: Professionalization and the discourse of deficiency.
This paper explores issues of professionalization and the discourse of deficiency in Hungarian voluntary organizations and nonformal adult education. The argument is made that transformational adult education, e.g., Freire and Mezirow would be useful to dispel the myth of individual deficiencies.
Pearson, Elaine, University of South Dakota
Podeschi, Ronald, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Humanism and individualism: Maslow and his critics.
Using broad-based literature, this study explores Abraham Maslow's humanistic psychology within the contexts of ideological criticism, 20th century U.S. adult education philosophies, and the theoretical issue of philosophical categories.
Reybold, Lucy Earle
A sociocultural perspective of knowing: A grounded theory
of epistemological development of Malaysian women.
The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the epistemological development of Malaysian women in Peninsular Malaysia. Based on constant comparison analysis of 14 in-depth interviews, a substantive theory of epistemological development was identified, including the process of that development and cultural factors that promote changes in epistemology.
Schied, Fred M., Carter, Vicki K., Preston, Judith A. & Howell, Sharon L.
Pennsylvania State University
Knowledge as "quality non-conformance": A
critical case study of ISO 9000 and adult education in the workplace.
This study examined the rationale behind the adoption of ISO 9000 standards and determined the ways in which knowledge was conceived and used. The study focused on the impact of the process seeking ISO 9000 registration and the way in which learning processes come to be defined as defective.
Sissel, Peggy A., Birdsong, Margaret, & Silaski, Barbara
"A room of one's own": A phenomenological
investigation of class, age, gender and politics of institutional change regarding adult
students on campus.
This collaborative phenomenological investigation reveals the experience of adult student advocates in a university setting. The setting was interpreted as being mediated by interlocking systems of oppression. Issues included concepts of class, age, gender, and institutional politics related to resource allocation and meaning about the nature and needs of adult students.
Smeby, Curtis University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast
Sisco, Burton University of Wyoming
A replication study of the attitudes of selected academics
and decision-makers towards adult students.
The investigation examined the attitudes of selected academics and decision-makers towards adult students 15 years after the original study was conducted, in another rural state, and in another region of the United States. While the primary purpose was to replicate the original study, a secondary purpose was to compare and identify changes in attitude.
Smith, Douglas H. and Lewis, Ralph G. Florida
International University
The effectiveness of total quality management: a response to
the critics.
A recent paper strongly berates total quality management, claiming it is a tool of management used to adversely manipulate workers in pursuit of corporate gain. This paper questions this supposition, arguing it is the abuse of TQM by management that is at fault. Effective TQM is based on four principles, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, speaking with facts, and respect for people. It is the lack of the genuine respect for people that is the demise of most TQM initiatives.
Sparks, Barbara
Doing cross cultural research in adult education:
Methodological and epistemological considerations.
While doing cross cultural research is not new, the growing acknowledgement of the perils of crossing cultures unconsciously is gaining support and calling for change. This paper examines some methodological and epistemological considerations of doing cross cultural qualitative research in adult education. Reliance on partial knowledge and middle class cultural and political bias point to the need within the field for critical reflection on how and why empirical realities are studied in the ways that they are and at the same time require rethinking and revision of traditional research methods while designing new methods of inquiry.
Spencer, Bruce Athabasca University
Adult education on-line.
Does the addition of the electronic classroom change distance education from individualized study to social education? Experience suggests that it does, but computer-network distance education needs to be critically evaluated by adult educators.
Tang, Yongming
Synergic Inquiry (SI): An alternative framework for transformative
learning.
This paper discusses SI which intends to help address a number of challenges facing transformative learning teachers and researchers. The SI framework is briefly introduced with the focus on how it creates contexts, processes and catalysts for transformative learning as well as its relationships with some existing learning theories.
Takano, Masaji
A narrative assessment of synergic inquiry: Its effectiveness in
fostering transformative learning in cross-cultural settings.
This empirical study examines the effectiveness of Synergic Inquiry as a practical methodology for fostering transformative learning experience in cross-cultural settings. The study qualitatively analyzes the life narratives of participants who engaged in action-oriented projects conducted abroad that applied the Synergic Inquiry framework.
Taylor, Edward W., Antioch University, Seattle
Implicit memory and transformative learning theory: Unconscious
cognition.
Recent research has found that the transformation of meaning structures (schemes and perspectives) can occur without critical reflection. This phenomenon seems to be explained by a concept called implicit memory -- the unconscious development of thoughts and actions. This paper involves a review of related literature on implicit memory from the fields of neurobiology and psychology and its implications for the theory and practice of transformative learning.
Taylor, Rosemary, University of British Columbia
Innovation as knowledge and learning.
Innovative small and medium enterprises now play a vital role in the economy, but their survival often depends on being at the leading edge of their field. Without an abundance of time or money for education or training, they rely heavily on obtaining knowledge informally through a variety of channels.
Tisdell, Elizabeth J., Antioch University Seattle
Perry, Clarice, Antioch University Seattle; California Institute of
Integral Studies
Teaching across borders: A collaborative inter-racial
"border" pedagogy in adult multicultural education classes.
This qualitative action research study examined how power dynamics were manifested between and among instructors and students in two graduate level classes team-taught by a black and a white female co-instructors where diversity and equity issues in education was the primary course content. The study also attempts to identify adult education practices that lead to growth and social change among participants in such classes that are at times both uncomfortable and controversial.
Wilson, Arthur L., North Carolina State University
Cervero, Ronald M., University of Georgia
Beyond disciplinary consumption in program planning courses: Dilemmas in teaching
with and about power.
Power matters in teaching program planning because such courses are not just mere sites of instruction but are also mechanisms for constructing power relations. In the paper we raise questions about dilemmas and responsibilities faced by faculty and students once issues around power are made transparent in the curriculum itself.
Tominaga, Ako, San Francisco State University
Myths and realities: Voices of Japanese female graduate students.
This ethnographic study identified sources of misperceptions about Japanese women and offered insight into the concept of Western feminism and the role it plays in these Japanese women's lives in a postmodern, cross-cultural context.
Yang, Baiyin, Auburn University
Development and validation of an instrument to measure adult educators' power and
influence tactics in program planning practice.
This paper reports a study designed to develop and validate an instrument to measure adult educators' power and influence tactics in program planning practice. The results indicate that planning behaviors are measurable and accountable by the planning theory that takes into account organizational political contexts.
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