Marshaling Resources| A Classic Grounded Theory Study of Online Learners

<p> The purpose of this exploratory qualitative research study was to identify the elements of adventure travel experiences that contribute to the process of transformational learning in adults. A qualitative research design was employed for this study. The sources of data were twelve pre-existing and de-identified interview transcriptions. A textual analysis was performed on the data, using an <i>a priori</i> approach to coding and analysis. An analysis of the data identified seven key themes that were critical for transformational learning in adults: (a) A Call to Adventure; (b) Being Open to Experience; (c) Entering a Zone Unknown; (d) Extra-Ordinary &amp; Challenging Experiences; (e) Meaningful Interactions with Others (f) Re-Connecting to Self; and (g) Taking Action. These themes suggested a process for transformational learning in adults. In addition, (a) the authentic nature of the experience and (b) trip length, were also found to be important factors in transformational learning for these interviewees. These findings also suggest that intentionally designing adventure travel programs around these themes and the emergent transformational learning process has the potential to increase the likelihood of participants experiencing transformational learning through adventure travel.</p>

<p> Much of the resistance for returning to education seems to be related to the same reasons students left school to begin with. The reason for dropping out and resisting to return to school may be a result of too much emphasis on academic preparation and too little emphasis on satisfying the perceived needs for preparing a youth for adulthood. Four themes emerged from the field-note based interviews: (1) all students do not learn the same way, (2) there is a need for more participatory learning, (3) learning should be relevant to life as perceived by the student, and (4) there is a dislike of computer content that is not supported by personal instruction. While these themes are supportive of past research efforts and may not seem remarkable, the solutions offered by the participants to improve these problems are worthy of consideration, and may be of use to both secondary and adult education.</p>

<p> This study documents an experience in which a small group of cognitively and developmentally disabled adults expressed their personal goals and views related to art museum visits. A review of literature related to disability studies, museum access and inclusive programs, art therapy, and person-centered thinking provide background and context. Case study and qualitative interviews are used as methodologies to support an investigation of the use of person-centered thinking in the implementation of art museum programming for the study participants. Person-centered thinking is considered and assessed as an approach to structuring meaningful collaborations between visitors with disabilities and art museums. Data collected in the forms of visual and written response, observation, and documentation of interviews inform the findings, discussion, and analysis of the study&rsquo;s research goals. The resulting case study may be used by museums to structure visits with similar groups. This study contributes to a growing body of knowledge pertaining to how museums can best collaborate with disabled populations to create inclusive programs.</p>

This research focuses on the gender problem within popular education. It is centered on a case study of Mujeres para el Dialogo, a non-governmental organization in Mexico City that draws on popular education techniques to empower grassroots and peasant women. The general theoretical framework is based on critical theory, from which critical pedagogy is developed to establish the connection with popular education. The work also includes a feminist critique to both critical theory and pedagogy, supported by the field work on Mujeres para el Dialogo. The methodological approach is shaped by qualitative analysis such as participatory research, using participant observation, interviews, and review of documentation as analytical tools. Gender, social class, and spirituality were the categories that guided the field work and analysis. Findings suggest the convenience to incorporate gender in popular education techniques in order to procure a more integral methodology in every conscious awareness process, as well as the need to document women's experiences in a historical perspective.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis, can academic advising, based on the adult learning characteristics of andragogy, be an effective advising approach in assisting undergraduate students in their developmental learning, decision making strategies, and transition and adaptation into a university. This study examined two groups, each with ten graduating seniors, who were advised in the advising center of a large public institution of higher education in the Southwest. One student group was advised in the university's conventional advising manner; the second group was advised using the Advising Learning Method of Andragogy or ALMA. The methodology used to examine the hypothesis was done in the following manner: The quantitative stage, consisting of the ALMA Likert student survey and ALMA and Non-ALMA student group grade point average chart. These findings demonstrated an initial grade point average difference between the ALMA and Non-ALMA groups favoring the Non-ALMA group. While both groups improved their mean grade point average, the ALMA group's grade point average improved at a consistent pace as these students transitioned into the university, with both groups' mean grade point average reaching near convergence after five years. The qualitative stage, the survey and interview findings revealed that the ALMA and Non-ALMA groups were similar in their views that the university's large size, bureaucratic complexity, and limited advising resources had adverse effects on their success and sense of participation within the university community. The ALMA and Non-ALMA groups differed in several respects. The Non-ALMA group frequently mentioned the importance of outside support of family, friends, high school advisors, the use and retrieval of prior learned skills, and peer competition, while the ALMA group did not. The ALMA group frequently mentioned the importance of university OAS advising, technology, and study skills acquired at the university, while the Non-ALMA group did not. ALMA advising is not merely a change in the perspective method undergraduates use to access advising. ALMA represents a shift in the paradigm and approach taken in advising, which focuses on facilitating the development of the student's problem-solving skills and decision-making strategies.

The purpose of this case study is to describe the faculty development workshop experiences of the participants and facilitators of the Laptop Workshop, a workshop designed to support the reform of undergraduate teaching and learning at a Research I institution in the Southwest. In this case study, I utilize a qualitative research paradigm and take an interpretative approach. The research study includes in-depth interviews with the workshop's designers and facilitators, beginning and ending workshop surveys administered to the participants in three 2001 workshops, an online questionnaire administered to 150 of 165 participants, a field study of one faculty participant, and interviews with seven faculty participants. This study was nested in four timely areas of scholarly research, namely post-secondary faculty development, technology-centered faculty development, the diffusion of innovations, and educational reform. Through the research questions, I sought to understand the workshop from the perspectives of the facilitators and faculty participants. Their perceptions illuminated the ways in which this instructional intervention impacted their behaviors and beliefs about integrating technology tools and teaching strategies in their courses. The qualitative data reported and analyzed in this study are shared in the form of profiles and vignettes constructed from the study participants' own words. This faculty development initiative contributed to the success of another educational reform effort on this campus. It effectively addressed the participants' learning needs and helped to diffuse technology-enabled teaching methodologies. The findings suggest a unique convergence of people, place and process created an effective learning environment that supported 21st-century university faculty development.

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes held by higher education art educators pertaining to art education for older adults and to investigate how art education curricula in colleges and universities are preparing students to teach art to older adults. A 21-item survey was distributed to 889 art education faculty members containing 13 Likert-type items relating to attitudes towards art education and older adults. An eight-item follow up survey containing open-ended questions was submitted to 51 art educators who indicated that they address this area within their coursework. The results show that the majority of art educators are not addressing this topic, although they feel it is important to do so. The majority of those who are including this area are doing so by providing their students with fieldwork and volunteer experiences teaching art to older adults.

<p> This dissertation explored a type of qualitative case study based on the experiences of 11 graduates from Leadership Collier, a Naples, Florida-based leadership program, who had run for public office after completing the program. The researcher assessed the program goals, participant experiences and motivation with regard to community involvement and running for elected office. It was the belief of the researcher that there was a need for more qualified and effective leaders to run for public office at the local, state, and national levels of government. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation study was to understand what leadership experiences gained through participating in a leadership training program could empower and motivate a person to run for public office. </p><p> Information provided in this dissertation includes an introduction, the study&rsquo;s purpose and research questions, methodology, critical terms, an examination of the literature review, study findings, researcher reflections, and recommendations for future studies. Data analysis codes in this study include sense of community, social capital, program design, confidentiality, diversity, bonding, empowerment, and motivation. Research findings showed that Leadership Collier has motivated and empowered select citizens to run for public office by providing experiences that have enabled individuals to develop leadership skills, become aware of community issues, develop confidence and a sense of community, expand social capital, and increase engagement in the community.</p><p> <i>Keywords: leadership, public office, empowerment, motivation. </i></p>

<p> This study was conducted to develop a grounded theory of connections between individual and collective (group and organizational) levels of analysis through the examination of play and sense-making as integral parts of organizational learning (OL) by relying on the meta-paradigm theoretical framework. The study employed grounded theory as its methodology, and its participants included 23 employees of Company A, a U.S. consulting company, who were selected using purposeful maximum variation criterion-based sampling. One semi-structured 30-60-minute interview was conducted with each participant by phone or face-to-face. </p><p> In this study, OL took the form of sense-making through play that was a social and linguistic process of organizing the information flux and coping with uncertainty that expanded knowledge and practices within the organization. The source of flux and uncertainty was the interaction of multiple social worlds and sub-worlds (such as Company A, its project teams and clients, partnering organizations, etc.) that disrupted practices and discourses within them. Uncertainty and information flux caused confusion, discomfort, anxiety, and stress in individuals, who paused in order to bracket the flux and suspended existing knowledge, discourses, and practices. Individuals then created new knowledge, practices, and discourses while developing intersubjectivity, and validated them with multiple social worlds. The results of OL as sense-making through play were captured in collective practices that linked knowledge and action and incorporated multiple social worlds. </p><p> OL as sense-making through play occurred in the ludic space of sandbox, or a physical, social, and mental space that brought together work and play, and had a dichotomy of stability and change. OL as sense-making through play had four dimensions (intuition, improvisation, experimenting, and having fun) that were responses to specific situations of the interaction of social worlds. These dimensions reflected the dichotomies of tacit and explicit knowledge and their exploration and exploitation, and shared several characteristics (situatedness in the interaction of social worlds, adaptive instantiation of other social worlds, leaping between social worlds, abductive thinking, and focusing on results). The connections between the levels of analysis of OL as sense-making through play were non-linear, multi-directional, and situationally-specific with discontinuities and interruptions so that individual sense-making through play did not necessarily become collective. </p>