This research aims to disrupt and expand "given" understandings of educational leadership by exploring particular leadership instances of the everyday practice of adult education. Seven adult educators, including the author, offer narrative accounts of planning, designing, teaching, managing, and creating programs for adult learners with a particular interest in the little examined dimension of practice - educational leadership. The author works with the conceptual resources of Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, primarily through the theoretical, evocative, and scholarly work of David Jardine. Phenomenology and the corner of this philosophical field referred to as interpretive inquiry, seeks not to explain why or even how we may practice leadership within our educational practices, but rather to understand the phenomenon and its living manifestations through the particular. Narrative texts are interpreted hermeneutically through a constructed conversation that highlights both the common and uncommon understandings of what it means to be an educational leader. Through writing and reading each of these stories, a living and breathing notion of educational leadership is created. In dialogue with others, the author becomes more literate about the meaning of her own experience. Such a dialogue invites the possibility of recognizing the significance of teaching as leading, and educational leadership as leading conversations about what matters in adult education, and in doing so one gains a greater sense of one's own leadership capacity. Implications for the development of educational leaders are considered. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The adult education literature offers little analysis and understanding of the practical knowledge of the program planning process planners hold and use. Rather, a comprehensive review of theoretical sources revealed the widespread use of the academic model, informed by Tyler’s rationale, which has yielded a linear model of planning and a technical view of planners. By contrast, the theoretical sources on practical knowledge and on curriculum and teachers’ thinking pointed to the use of an experiential model, informed by Schwab’s theoretical concepts, which has presented planning as deliberative, and planners as creators and possessors of knowledge. The purposes of the study were to: gain an understanding of the kinds of practical knowledge planners in a university continuing education unit find useful and relevant to their decision making in program planning; acquire a greater understanding of the planning process from their perspective; and develop categories for interpreting these understandings. The research was guided by an interpretive perspective and qualitative methods. The study was conducted in two phases. A pilot and a follow up study. In total, a purposive sample of six planners, two males and four females, none of whom had pursued graduate study in adult education, working in the same institution, were interviewed. It was concluded that practical knowledge, which informs planning practice, consists of three kinds of knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional which stand in dialectical relationship to one another; and that planning practice requires that planners have and use all three kinds of knowledge. Further, planning is indeterminate and contingent on the context and planners’ knowledge. These planners’ practical knowledge incorporates a framework of concepts, rules and routines or strategies, beliefs, values, principles, and metaphors of practice. This framework has implications for planners’ criteria of valid and reliable knowledge, informal and formal planning strategies, the ideological character of knowledge, and ethics of practice. As well, these planners use a combination of planning approaches which are directly related to the nature of the planning context and their own capabilities. The contextual and problematic nature of planning is made explicit. The study challenges the prevailing assumptions associated with a traditional view of planning. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis was to construct and validate a programmed instruction booklet for the use of university students studying to become adult educators. The concept of methods of adult education and the classification scheme for methods as devised by Dr. C. Verner were used as course content. The branching or intrinsic model was selected and a criterion test and frames were constructed. The booklet was empirically tested through a developmental test and two field tests. Sixty-two students enrolled in three classes of Education 412, during the 1974 summer and 1975 winter sessions at The University of British Columbia, participated in the validation procedure. The developmental test group consisted of twelve students who sat with the programmer, one at a time, as they studied the booklet and completed a pre and post criterion test. The field test was designed as a course take home assignment and students were responsible for returning written answers to a pre and post criterion test. Ten students volunteered to study the booklet during the first field test. The second field test assigned twenty students to a pre and post criterion test only control group design and twenty students to an experimental group design who studied the booklet and completed a pre and post criterion test. Analysis of the data following the developmental and first field tests revealed many areas of weakness in the booklet frames and in the criterion test. Consequently many major revisions were made to both. Examination of the data following the second field test indicated the booklet met the standards of an effective teaching program. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This study investigated the extent to which motivational characteristics influence an adult's decision to engage in an education program. The purpose of the study was to determine the efficacy of a growth-deficiency model of motives for participation in adult education programs, and to determine the concurrent validity of the Education Participation Scale as a measure of growth or deficiency motivation. Few theoretical models have been developed to explain why people participate in adult education courses. Combining adult life cycle concepts, Maslow's motivational concepts, and research by Boshier, a growth-deficiency model of motives for participation was described. Growth or deficiency motivation was hypothesized as being associated with continuous or sporadic participation in adult education. It was also hypothesized that the age or stage of the life cycle and the socio-economic status of participants are associated with growth or deficiency motivation. The model was tested with 240 Richmond adult education participants. Subjects completed a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Eysenck Personality Inventory, (E.P.I.) the Seif- Actualizing Values (S.A.V.) subscale of the Personal Orientation Inventory, (P.O.I.) and the revised Education Participation Scale, (E.P.S.). E.P.S. data was subject to factor analysis and orthogonal rotation with six factors being produced. E.P.I. Neuroticism scores, S.A.V. scores, and E.P.S. factor scores were related through correlation and analysis of variance to variables such as age, participation index, educational attainment, occupational status, personal and family income, course content, marital status and sex. The results indicate that continuous learners tended to be growth motivated while sporadic learners tended to be deficiency motivated. Older participants, in comparison to younger participants, were growth motivated while younger participants were deficiency motivated. High socio-economic status participants tended to be growth motivated while low socio-economic status participants tended to be deficiency motivated. The findings generally confirm the growth/ deficiency model, but further research is required to clarify the motivational orientations of adults, 55 years of age and older, as an insufficient number of older adults were represented in the sample. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Adult education is a field of practice which has given rise to an emerging discipline concerned with the creation of its own body of knowledge. The field and the discipline exist in a reciprocal relationship where information is diffused both ways. One method for disseminating information is the Adult Education Research Conference (A.E.R.C.) which promotes research in the discipline and encourages professional collaboration among adult educators. Information dissemination processes are vital to the discipline and field, and are studied through meta-research. In the present study, abstracts submitted to Steering Committees for the Adult Education Research Conference in 1978, 1979, and 1980 were examined to clarify variables associated with acceptance or rejection. The study was grounded in social science literature focusing on variables associated with the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts submitted for publication. A 41-item instrument was developed to assess the characteristics of A.E.R.C. abstracts. As A.E.R.C. abstracts are judged "blind" (i.e., authors are unknown to judges), the study examined "internal" abstract variables. These concerned the content (adult education focus and methodological orientation), the research processes employed, and the composition of the abstract. Procedures aimed at measuring the reliability and validity of the instrument were executed. Expert judges (the 1981 A.E.R.C. Steering Committee) attested to the content validity of the instrument. For test- retest purposes, 97 abstracts were coded twice and 20 were coded three times to yield a mean item stability-across-time coefficient of r=.68. Inter-judge reliability was established by having five judges code nine randomly selected abstracts. A repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the five judges made consistent decisions concerning 37 of the 39 variables. During a second procedure, the coding decisions of the researcher were compared with those of the judges. "Researcher-judges" data were subject to analysis of variance which revealed acceptable levels of agreement on 37 variables; the two "unreliable" results stemmed from the non-conforming decisions of a judge, not the researcher. During pilot procedures, scales and coding criteria were systematically refined. It was concluded that the final form of the instrument was content valid and reliable. Using this instrument, 329 accepted and rejected A.E.R.C. abstracts were coded on 39 variables. Item means of abstracts accepted and rejected in 1978, 1979, and 1980 differed significantly on nine, six, and nine variables respectively. Variables differentiating between accepted and rejected abstracts were entered into discriminant function equations for 1978, 1979, and 1980. Profiles for accepted abstracts differed by year. In 1978, accepted abstracts were primarily written in an active voice, had a clear and logical argument, were oriented towards use of a particular research methodology, had "clearly identified" instrumentation and implications for the field, and did not focus on agency sponsorship of adult education programmes. In 1979, accepted abstracts were methodologically oriented, focused on programme planning issues but not agencies, had a clearly defined inductive theoretical development, and were not well anchored in the literature. The 1980 "profile" showed that accepted abstracts focused on foundations of adult education or characteristics of adults and learning, had "clearly identified" data collection procedures, used higher-order (e.g., multivariate) data analysis, and only moderate amounts of dysfunctional jargon. Separate discriminant function equations for each year successfully classified 81 percent of abstracts in 1978, 71 percent in 1979, and 78 percent in 1980. It was significant that, in general, variables associated with acceptance did not have the same, or even a similar, effect in each of the years studied. Judges appeared to weight variables differently by year. This raises questions concerning the abstract selection process and the election of Steering Committee members. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Adult educators acknowledge that one of their greatest challenges is to develop strategies that increase participation by members of the lower socio-economic groups in adult education programs. To develop such strategies adult education researchers must systematically modify or remove barriers to participation and study the resulting effects. A frequently named barrier to participation is cost. Knowledge concerning the impact of fees on enrollment and attendance is incomplete. Consequently this study examined the extent to which socio-economic and motivational variables interacted to determine enrollment and attendance behavior when fees were modified for leisure-oriented adult education courses. Three hypotheses were tested. 1. There are significant differences in the social, economic, demographic, or motivational characteristics of participants enrolled in fee and non-fee courses. 2. There is a significant difference in the number of participants enrolled in fee and non-fee courses. 3. There is a significant difference in the attendance behavior of participants enrolled in fee and non-fee courses. This was essentially a correlational study but it had characteristics of a quasi-experimental design. However, unlike a quasi-experimental design which sometimes involves random assignment of subjects to treatment groups, this study involved random assignment of courses to a fee and non-fee condition. Seven hundred and twenty-one adults enrolled in one of 51 leisure-oriented courses offered at Guildford Park and Cloverdale Community Schools in Surrey. On the second session of each course proctors administered two questionnaires: the E.P.S. (Boshier, 1971) and a socio-economic/ demographic questionnaire. A daily attendance record was maintained for each course. The data was analyzed using a variety of univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical techniques suited to the analysis of nominal, interval, ordinal, and dichotomous data. The results supported the following conclusions. There did not appear to be an important overall difference between the socio-economic and motivational characteristics of participants in fee and non-fee courses. The overall differences were of little administrative value in the determination of whether different fee strategies attracted participants with different individual characteristics. Removal of the registration fee did not appear to result in greater participation by members of the lower socio-economic groups, as compared to their participation in fee courses. Removal of the fee appeared to benefit the traditional 'middle-class' participants, but did little to attract the traditional non-participant—members of the lower socio-economic, groups. It appeared that the absence of a fee was a powerful inducement which increased gross enrollment. Both socio-economic and motivational variables influenced enrollment behavior; however, no single variable accounted for large amounts of variance in fee status. Socioeconomic variables accounted for more of the fee status variance than did motivational variables. Attendance in fee courses was significantly better than attendance in non-fee courses. The findings confirmed that both socio-economic and motivational variables accounted for differences in attendance behavior. Individuals with the most education, higher personal and family incomes, more dependants, and previous participation in adult education programs had the best attendance. Socio-economic variables accounted for more variance in attendance behavior than did motivational variables. However, motivational variables were more powerful predictors of attendance behavior than they were of enrollment behavior. Removal of the registration fee can be a powerful tool to increase enrollment of the traditional participant. However, this study confirmed that both enrollment and attendance behaviors are complex phenomena stemming from multivariate origins. It appears that attempts to increase participation by members of lower socio-economic groups will require more than providing 'entitlement1. The results support the conclusion that personal and environmental variables which impel or inhibit participation must be modified if members of all socioeconomic groups are to benefit from participation in leisure-oriented adult education programs. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

This study examines some of the fundamental issues concerning the role of television in adult education. The nature of adult education is examined using existing theory as a basis for establishing key concepts about the processes which go into making an educational experience for adults. These criteria are then related to existing knowledge about educational television with a view towards establishing definitions to describe the nature of ETV in adult education. The study draws a distinction between two different functions of television: first, its use in the formal instructional setting, which is defined as educational, and, secondly, its role in the natural societal setting, which is defined as educative. The study shows that both educative and educational television have a part to play in adult education, the latter as an integral part of the process, the former as a device for information and enrichment which at times may be associated with adult education. Educational television is further defined as a method of adult education, a way to organize individuals for purposes of instruction. ETV is also defined as a device where it performs one or more of the following functions: it extends educational experiences outside the boundaries of an institution or it acts as a source of information or enrichment within the formal instructional setting. A conceptual scheme of seven categories is proposed to describe types of educative programs which under certain conditions may be of use in adult education but which are not really an integral part of the discipline because they are created for reasons other than education and do not display the characteristics necessary to be recognized as educational television. Some issues concerning television's role in instruction are discussed and anomalies in the research are examined which have affected the development of theory in instructional television. An alternate approach to the study of ITV is proposed based on the recognition that television has a role to play in instruction as a communication device but is not, in itself, a complete instructional process. Finally, the study examines the work of various agencies concerned with educational and educative programming. The particular focus is directed towards Canadian contributions, specifically the work of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some examples from outside the Canadian scene are considered as well, particularly the work of Britain's Open University. The contributions made by the CBC to educational television are found to be marginal, due largely to constitutional constraints imposed by the nature of Canadian federalism which restrict the CBC's role to that of advisor and resource agency to other educational institutions. On the other hand, CBC contributions to educative programming are significant. As an agency for mass communication it provides a wide range of programming which serve to support its mandate to provide information and enrichment programs for Canadian viewers. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Along with the accumulation of evidence supporting the role of entrepreneurship in economic development (Acs & Armington, 2006; Kuratko, 2005, Reynolds, 2007), governments have persisted in encouraging people to become entrepreneurs (Acs & Stough, 2008; Brannback & Carsrud, 2008). These efforts have tried to reproduce the conditions under which entrepreneurship emerges. One of these conditions is to develop entrepreneurial skills among students and scientists (Fan & Foo, 2004). Entrepreneurship education within higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion in the last 20 years (Green, 2008). To develop entrepreneurial skills among students, scholars have proposed different teaching approaches. However, no clear relationship has been demonstrated between entrepreneurship education, learning outcomes, and business creation (Hostager & Decker, 1999). Despite policy makers demands for more accountability from educational institutions (Klimoski, 2007) and entrepreneurship instructors demands for consistency about what should be taught and how (Maidment, 2009), the appropriate content for entrepreneurship programs remains under constant discussion (Solomon, 2007). Entrepreneurship education is still in its infancy, professors propose diverse teaching goals and radically different teaching methods. This represents an obstacle to development of foundational and consistent curricula across the board (Cone, 2008). Entrepreneurship education is in need of a better conceptualization of the learning outcomes pursued in order to develop consistent curriculum. Many schools do not have enough qualified faculty to meet the growing student demand and a consistent curriculum is needed for faculty development. Entrepreneurship instructors and their teaching practices are of interest because they have a role in producing the entrepreneurs needed to grow the economy. This study was designed to understand instructors’ perspectives and actions related to their teaching. The sample studied consisted of eight college and university entrepreneurship instructors. Cases met predetermined criteria of importance followed maximum variation strategies. Results suggest that teaching content were consistent across participants while different teaching goals were identified: some instructors inspire and develop general skills of students while others envision the creation of a real business as the major outcome of their course. A relationship between methods reported by instructors and their disciplinary background, teaching perspective, and entrepreneurial experience was found.

Recognizing literacy as a key to community development, government, non-government and international organizations in Nepal are offering literacy classes as a strategy for community development. Consequently, a great number of neo-literates are emerging every day. However, rural areas of Nepal are not meeting the challenge of neo-literates, as there is still a lack of literate environment. Therefore, literacy professionals in government or non-government organizations are pondering the question of "After literacy what?" and how to sustain people's enthusiasm and skills of literacy so that their energy and skill can be channeled in community development. Video technology has pervaded even the rural areas of developing countries like Nepal. However, community members are still media consumers rather than producers. Media technology, like video, can be an effective tool for consciousness raising when used in a participatory approach and developed locally, involving community people. Therefore, the present study is to develop a model for participatory community video as a post-literacy activity in Nepal. Four major steps have been taken in the study. First, a literature review is done to explore what other developing countries are doing for post-literacy and how much media technology has been integrated in literacy as well as in rural community development. Second, interviews were done with seven Nepal experts to explore their opinions on using video in rural Nepal as a tool for consciousness raising. Third, based on these interviews a model for participatory community video was developed. Fourth, this model was field tested in one of the rural communities in Nepal. The field test showed that use of video is an effective tool for adults to raise consciousness and develop leadership quality in neo-literates. This study is significant for Nepal because it brings into sharp focus the existence of multiculturalism in the country and efforts to develop indigenous knowledge without local cultural values being wiped out. It provides ambitious neo-literates the opportunity to be creative and to work for their own community rather than migrating to urban areas. Communities will produce their own leaders to cope with globalization through media.