This dissertation describes a qualitative, participatory action research study conducted in western Massachusetts from the spring of 1997 through the spring of 2000. The study investigated the educational experiences of a group of fifty-five low-income female students in one western Massachusetts community using interviews, focus groups, writing activities, and surveys. The study examined how participants were affected by contemporary social and economic issues, particularly by the policies commonly known as “welfare reform” that were legislated in the United States in 1996. Welfare reform created new challenges in the lives of many low-income women and their families by severely limiting the amount of assistance recipients are eligible to receive in their lifetimes and restricting their access to education and to the supports needed in order to pursue education. All of the study participants were raising families, were current or former welfare recipients, were either enrolled in graduates of Adult Basic Education programs, and the majority were Puerto Rican women who spoke Spanish as their first language. Thus, the main contexts framing this study were welfare reform and adult literacy, as well as the implications of race, language, gender, and class on low-income women's educational experiences. Because the study employed a participatory action research approach, participants were full partners in all aspects of the research, including its design, methodology, analysis, and a variety of presentation activities. The study described in this dissertation explored three key topics in order to understand the educational experiences of participants: the wide range of meanings participants associate with education; the impact of welfare reform on their learning and achievement; and the variety of ways they made use of and created support systems in order to reach their goals as parents and learners. Finally, an important aspect of the study was that it employed metaphor analysis in two ways: (1) as the study's main tool for analyzing data and (2) as an innovative pedagogical strategy for the writing classrooms in which much of the data was generated. Thus, in addition to the study's findings related to participants' educational experiences, the study also generated findings related to educational practice.

This research explores the question of whether the current thinking in the adult education literature on how to teach adult students reflects the best thinking about good teaching. Two bodies of literature are reviewed. First, the literature on good teaching is reviewed to get a sense of the dominant ideas about how to recognize and judge good teaching. Then, the literature on teaching adults is reviewed both to determine the dominant ideas and to analyze the extent to which those ideas are reflective of the best ideas about good teaching. In depth interviews are presented with four people who teach in undergraduate programs at colleges or universities and who teach both 18 to 22-year old undergraduates and adult students. The teachers were asked to talk about their lives growing up and being students in order to show the effect of those events on their ideas about teaching. Each teacher then discussed the question of good teaching by talking about his or her own teaching practices. The analysis of the interviews concludes that none of the teachers use practices that are advocated in the adult education literature. The teachers all acknowledge that adult students are different from their younger counterparts; none of them say that those differences are fundamental to the activity of teaching. The conclusion of the dissertation is that good teaching is good teaching, no matter the age of the student, and that the adult education literature does not generally reflect the best ideas about good teaching. In fact, the research points out that much of the literature in the entire field of education does not incorporate the best ideas about good teaching. More research needs to be done on good teaching, and more work needs to be done to ensure that the best ideas about good teaching are reflected in the education literature.

Thesis (MEd(Education Management))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-25).

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 9, 2010). Includes bibliographical reference (p. 165-182).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-118).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1992. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Philip A. Fey. Dissertation Committee: Elizabeth Kasl. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 441-449).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Beverly L. Bower, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Educational Leadership and Policy studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 23, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-143).