Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

The writer attempts to present a fictional account of the first years of marriage of a young couple in order to emphasize and demonstrate the importance of adult education in the lives of the people. The latter part is an analysis of the principles and issues involved in the episode. The purpose of this study is to present a brief picture of some problems which inevitably arise in all communities at one time or another. This study is further intended to show how adult education may be an instrument by which a community can be molded into a cooperative citizenry. / Typescript. / "August, 1954." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Virgil E. Strickland, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-40).

Spirituality is an elusive, hard-to-define quality that is impossible to measure. Spirituality is often conflated with religion, even though the two have different definitions and purposes. For these reasons and more, spirituality is regularly an overlooked or taboo topic in K-12 education. Likewise, spiritual pedagogy, which considers spirituality a central aspect of education, is often ignored. Yet empirical research is revealing that humans, at our core, are spiritual beings. Studies indicate that when education affirms the animating life force of humans and focuses on the development of people’s inner lives, humans thrive. Thus, the phenomenon of teaching with secular spiritual pedagogy is well worth investigating. First, however, the phenomenon needs to be understood. Therefore, this study explored the following research question: What is the lived experience of teaching with secular spiritual pedagogy? The research employed a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology to illuminate the essence of the lived experience of teaching with secular spiritual pedagogy. I conducted two in-depth interviews with each of seven K-12 teachers who employ secular spiritual pedagogical practices. Interviews were conducted as open-ended guided conversations, asking teachers to describe what spirituality looks and feels like in their classrooms and to reflect on how they make meaning of their experience. In addition, four of the teachers participated in a focus group to reflect on the early findings. The findings indicated that teaching with spiritual pedagogy is an extra-ordinary spiritual learning opportunity that some teachers consider to be a spiritual path. Findings are organized into The Path of Spiritual Learning, a conceptual map with six essential themes. The Path is framed by the theme of Meaning and Purpose, has Connection as a foundation, and moves toward Authenticity. The themes on The Path are synthesized with transformative learning theory, Heron’s theory of personhood, whole person learning, and the developing theoretical understanding of authenticity within the field of adult learning. Recommendations for K-12 and adult education are to evolve toward a participatory, or relational, epistemology, where the interconnectedness of life is the guiding ontological framework – one that values the flourishing of all human life as the central goal of education.

The ways in which individuals act within the world around them and the ways in which individuals engage with commodities as consumers play a vital role in providing insight into innate human values and opportunities for growth. By exploring the seemingly mundane and small but meaningful ways individuals engage in the consumer process and space, fruitful data display an interconnected outline of cyclical pathways toward mending the gap between reality and desired individual values, identity, and behaviors. Building on literature from both sociological and adult learning fields, diverse avenues for decision making and strategic outcomes are highlighted to isolate an array of individual consumer experiences and subsequent triggers for ongoing learning and reflection. While consumer research has an extensive theoretical history, by dissecting the nuanced nature of the individual experience, this literature adds a vital layer to the evolving consumer narrative by integrating the hidden fruit of perceived failure. To achieve this, an exploratory study was designed to dissect the lives of 20 individual consumers and their experiences with the intersectionality between their values, identity, and learned consumption behaviors. Several prevalent findings of the study included the identification of self-directed learning as a driving force for enacting agency and lifelong development, the essential nature of motivational drivers that sustain overt and covert degrees of commitment to individual values and the vital presence of coping mechanisms as accessible entry points to engage with the identification and confrontation of shifting values and identity. By tracing socialized behaviors through seemingly mundane acts of consumerism, individuals unlock opportunities to evolve through the increased exposure of varying experiences of others. As such, by adopting practices grounded in radical transparency with self, innate barriers to aligned behaviors can transform into stepping stones for growth, deep renewal, and empowerment. Thus, by capturing identities and values in action, this narrative displays a portraiture of the distorted consumer space and the individuals that consume and are consumed within it.

<p> The purpose of the study was for the researcher to explore adult education techniques and tools that could be used to explore eating habits within research study groups. The participants enrolled in the research study groups brought their own way of thinking on eating habit discussions based on their unique experience in life. The researcher explored different techniques that could help improve the participants&rsquo; quality of life and other positive solutions to benefit the participants. </p><p> This research study explored the impact of learning contracts on participants with eating habit research-based study groups. The study explored the degree to which learning contracts may be a beneficial tool to positively impact eating habits. Pre and post-surveys were administered within the research groups that participated. The purpose behind the study was to learn the impact learning contracts could have on eating habits. In addition, the study explored differences, positive impacts, benefits, and outcomes for participants utilizing learning contracts on eating habits.</p><p>

<p> This study investigates a possible link between a students&rsquo; willingness to engage in out of class communication (OCC) with an instructor and the level of mediated immediacy that the instructor presents through his/her online presence. The hypotheses were that students viewing a Facebook page would be more willing to engage in OCC than those viewing an institutional web page with low levels of mediated immediacy and that students viewing a Facebook page would also be more willing to engage in OCC with their instructor for relationship focused reasons than those who viewed an institutional web page. While both hypotheses were found to be false, this study uncovered a correlation which suggests that the institutional web page creates a higher willingness to engage in OCC for task-focused reasons than a Facebook page and invites further research into the topic.</p><p>

Adult literacy training is known to be difficult in terms of teaching and maintenance (Abadzi, 2003), perhaps because adults who recently learned to read in their first language have not acquired reading automaticity. This study examines fast word recognition process in neoliterate adults, to evaluate whether they show evidence of perceptual (automatic) distinctions between linguistic (words) and visual (symbol) stimuli. Such a mechanism is thought to be the basis for effortless reading associated with Visual Word Form Area activation that becomes "tuned" to scripts as literacy skills are acquired (McCandliss, Cohen, Dehaene, 2003). High density EEG was recorded from a group of adults who are neoliterate in two reading tasks: (1) a one-back task requiring implicit reading (available only to those who have attained automaticity), and (2) reading verification task, an explicit reading task, in which participants detected mismatches between pairs of visual and auditory words. Results were compared to recordings from a comparison group of adults who learned to read in childhood. Left-lateralized N170 ERP was targeted as an index of automaticity in reading. Participants from the comparison group showed left-lateralized N170 to word stimuli in both the implicit and explicit reading tasks. Conversely, N170 effects were not found on the participants form the study group on either implicit or explicit reading tasks. This suggests that automaticity in reading can be indexed in neoliterate adults using the ERP component N170, and that automaticity had not been acquired by the study group investigated here.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

<p> Lifelong learning in professional communities is changing to adapt to professions in the anesthesia field with input from the public and various stakeholders. An extensive review on learning styles identified a gap in literature, specifically evidence on sensory learning styles among adult professionals. Changes in Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) recertification requirements, most importantly the incorporation of an assessment component, prompted the research to address CRNA enhancement methods in learning. The main purpose of the current study was to contribute to the body of literature if a CRNA&rsquo;s knowledge of sensory learning styles mix influences test score achievement. The posttest-only control-group design was utilized, wherein a Sensory Learning Styles Self-Assessment (SLS-SA) instrument was piloted to establish content validity and internal reliability prior to its application with the treatment group. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) Learn&rsquo;s Health and Wellness Module 1 provided the 10-hour posttest, which measured the test score achievement among participants. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted and yielded a nonsignificant effect of the current study&rsquo;s treatment on test score results among CRNAs. Interaction effects of the CRNAs&rsquo; gender and years of practice were also examined, which produced the same results (e.g., not significant). No effect was established in the current research, however, several research limitations were identified and specific outcomes on an individual participant level were acknowledged, which were recommended to substantiate further research. </p>

Thesis (M. Ed.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1984. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2774. Abstract appears on leaves [1-2]. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67).