This research study examined African American farmer participation in Virginia Cooperative Extension as a step toward fully understanding the role participation plays in supporting African American farmers as legitimate learners within the Cooperative Extension system.  This study, therefore, focused on exploring participation in African American farmer programs through the single case of Virginia Cooperative Extension\'s Small Farm Outreach and Technical Assistance Program.  This program, which is housed at Virginia State University, aims to support minority farmers who have limited access to benefits from USDA programs.  Historically, limited resource farmers have been challenged to gain full access to programs offered by Cooperative Extension. Using a qualitative case study design, individual interviews were conducted with African American farmers, extension specialists, small farm agents, and the program administrators.  Two focus groups were conducted with the Small Farm Program agents and another with African American farmers that participated in the program.  A review of the findings indicated that the Small Farm Outreach and Technical Assistance at Virginia State University provide various educational opportunities to African American farmers. The program provides one-on-one technical assistance, distribution of information, USDA loan application assistance, workshops and conferences, and networking.  Participants stated that agents being "hands on" was a great way to talk and effectively provide assistance to them.  The findings for the study characterized barriers relaying from challenges in the program to communication between program and farmers. Family motivation, technology, and the USDA were other unknown barriers that were revealed in the study. The data suggest improvements for the program; first, the involvement of more farmers in the program planning of educational opportunities at Virginia State University would increase participation. Second, the current evaluation of strategies should be continued as a method of usage.  However, a pre and post survey should be conducted to analyze and discover farmer's usage in modern to traditional communication systems. Third, providing additional technological advancement training to agents, specialists, and director to be more advance in the new age, and lastly at conferences and/or workshops, construct more engaging informative discussions on adult learning and farm family motivation factors. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

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The value of video games in education has been displayed in more than one field (Gee, 2007; Devlin, 2011). The possible effects of using video games as a learning tool have been studied in numerous academic situations: with young students ranging from elementary to secondary levels (Barab et al., 2009; Cipollone, 2015; Kellert, 2018; Seidel et al., 2019; Sherry et al., 2019; Tüzün et al., 2019), with postsecondary students (Mahood & Hanus, 2017; Smith et al., 2020; Vásquez & Ovalle, 2019), and with educators employing video games in the classroom (Bell & Gresalfi, 2017). The purpose of this study was to investigate how adult gamers perceive their learning when playing video games for enjoyment. To conduct this study, Barbara Rogoff's interpretation of sociocultural theory (2003) was adopted, which offers a closer look on the influences of cultural communities. This study recruited a sample size of 6 adult gamers and adopted a narrative inquiry model, allowing participants to share their lived experiences about video game play and everything related to it. The results indicate that what participants were learning during their video game play could fall under one or more of these four themes: wellbeing, problem-solving, transferable skills, and multimedia literacy. By understanding how video games function as an inherent learning tool, this study helps create a foundation for future research in the field.

Using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) 212 th session of the National Academy, a residential adult learning environment, as a case study and the 1996 research on participant's perception of residential adult learning environments by Dr. Jean Anderson Fleming, this study examined the relationship among the characteristics (overarching themes: detachment and continuity and descriptive themes: building relationships in residence, learning in residence, and individual change in residence) and how this relationship impacts the participant's attitude of satisfaction with the program. A 33-item Likert scale, developed by the researcher, was used to collect the data from 244 police officers and the Kropp-Verner Attitude Scale was used for measuring the overall participant attitude of satisfaction with the residential learning environment. Demographic data were also collected from the participants to provide an overall profile of the respondents and each police officer had the opportunity to respond to an open-ended question at the end of the survey. Six hypotheses formed the basis of the study and were investigated through bivariate and multivariate analysis. Univariate analysis was used to describe and summarize the collected demographic data, as well as the frequency responses to each statement by the participants, while multivariate analysis was used to determine the best model for the prediction of satisfaction. Positive relationships existed between each of the five independent variables (detachment, continuity, building relationships in residence, learning in residence, and individual change in residence) and the dependent variable, satisfaction. The overarching themes of detachment and continuity were combined to form a new variable, DECONTI. Individually, (bivariate regression) DECONTI was the most significant predictor of satisfaction, while building relationships in residence exhibited no significance. Multivariate analysis (standard and stepwise regression) suggested that the model of DECONTI, learning in residence, and individual change was the best predictor of satisfaction. The analysis of the characteristics of residential adult learning environments and their impact on participant satisfaction was quantitatively supported in this study. The results of this study supported the assertions of Fleming, the literature, and the research questions, while offering new observations and insights into the effectiveness of residential adult learning environments. / Ph. D.

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No description available.

D. Litt. et Phil. / The South African academic information services are starting to pay attention to the role played by instruction librarians. There is an acknowledgement that librarians as ‘educators’ need to learn how to teach information literacy skills. Instruction librarians are either not trained educators or do not have a pedagogical background. Many instruction librarians were placed in, or found themselves, assuming a teaching role with regard to information literacy instruction, and subsequently refined their craft while on the job. The motivation for this study was that librarians as ‘educators’ are faced with challenges that impact on their teaching role. They have to understand the teaching methodologies and the application of adult learning principles to the facilitation of information literacy skills programmes. The success of facilitation and development of information literacy skills programmes depends on the instruction librarians’ ability to work in collaboration with academic departments, curriculum designers and other librarians. The study was carried out in two parts: a literature survey and an empirical investigation. The investigation was confined to academic libraries and information services that have an instruction librarian or subject librarian who facilitates information literacy skills instruction. The GAELIC (Gauteng and Environs Library Consortium) members were surveyed in order to limit the study to the nine participating libraries within the consortium. The findings of the study were supportive of the objective that there is a desperate need to have understanding, knowledge and skills regarding the dynamics involved in the teaching of information literacy skills, in order to make the programme a success. The study proposes a competency framework for implementation as a management tool for designing key performance areas (KPA’s) of instruction librarians.

ABSTRACT Globalisation and a continuous advancement in technology have necessitated a need for employees to be trained and re-trained. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence learner participation in the Adult Basic Education and Training programmes offered at the Johannesburg Department of City Power (Reuven). These include factors such as motivation, retention and barriers experienced by adult learners that are pertinent to learner participation. Data for the study was collected from ABET level 3 and 4 learners by means of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. The following emerged as pertinent factors influencing learner participation at City Power: a) personal development, b) language, c) support structures, d) the standby/shift system and e) remuneration.

This dissertation contributes to our knowledge about the development of Maltese cooperatives, placing the process in a wider historical and ideological perspective. More importantly it delves into the learning that goes on in and around co-operatives. Finally it contributes to the discussion about the potential which co-operatives have in enabling communities to work towards a more equitable world. Three were the guiding questions. What do people learn in the co-op, as they get involved in setting up and running a community-owned enterprise? What do people learn from the co-op, as they interact with it in its day-to-day business? What do people learn for the co-op, as they turn towards co-operation to create a more equitable world? To answer these questions, I first conducted research about the origins of co-operation in Britain, the dissemination of the model across the British Empire, and its development in Malta. Then I conducted a case study research with two Maltese rural co-operatives, one at the village of Mġarr, the Mġarr Farmers’ Co-operative Society, and the other located at Manikata, Koperattiva Rurali Manikata. I interviewed ten co-operators from each case study, followed up by a group discussion with each co-op’s committee. I analysed the transcripts by making reference to authors who have contributed to the discussion around democracy, critical citizenship and critical pedagogy. The case studies show that in co-operatives people learn how to turn personal problems into collective struggles. They develop their personal and collective identities in their activism. They learn to assume responsibility in contributing towards the common good, becoming aware that taking action is a learning process at the individual and the collective level. The case studies also show that people learn from co-operatives in different ways. The co-operatives under study both organised non-formal educational activities open to the members of the community. They provided goods and services to the wider community, and customers learned as they interacted with both co-ops. Activists from both co-ops sought to build bridges with civil society and with political authorities in their search for alliances over to achieve their objectives. In doing so they could open up learning spaces beyond the confines of the co-op. Finally the research makes the case for co-operatives by showing how they have the potential to give voice to local communities. They can ‘claim spaces’ where individual abilities are turned into collective strength through participation in democratic dialogical processes. Cooperatives can scale up the struggle for legitimacy around local structures of feeling as they develop into oppositional or alternative discourses to the status quo.

University of Technology, Sydney. / The study critically examines definitions of "informal learning", focussing on the term's application in workplace training contexts. Drawing on Foucault, Heidegger and Habermas, it is argued that we cannot understand ourselves (and thus our informal learning) without challenging the assumptions of modernity and coming to terms with what Lyotard has termed "the postmodern condition". Industry trainers are at the forefront of implementing "designer" corporate cultures which, in the rhetoric of "work-based learning", make enterprises more innovative and competitive. This study challenges that rhetoric, showing that the implicit philosophy of contemporary workplace learning and training is framed by an economistic "human capital theory". The "stories" of industry trainers from several multinational corporations challenge assumptions about what is learnt through competency-based training and about corporate uses of informal learning. It is argued that being at work entails far more than simply performing the tasks one is required to do, which, in turn, effects the links between informal learning and formal education. The final chapters are directed towards expanding and realigning interpretations of "informal learning" away from the narrow and instrumental purposes for which the term has been appropriated. Equity, respect for the dignity of others, and a philosophy of ethics have a place in "workplace learning". Informal learning is shaped by our deepest ethical and moral responses. It does not follow that measurable tasks, what one can be observed doing at work, represent one's learning.