<p> The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to illuminate the prevalence and configurations of peer mentoring programs at Central California Community Colleges with emphasis on how the programs impacted student retention. The study&rsquo;s sample was drawn from ten campuses and five centers that operate within five California Community College districts serving approximately 90,000 students annually. Using purposeful sampling, the researcher interviewed five administrators from four campuses and three districts toward obtaining in-depth information about their peer mentoring programs. Eight of the 15 campuses in the subject pool offered a peer mentoring program. All peer mentoring programs were instituted since 2013, and most of the peer mentoring programs were instituted between 2014 and 2016. Diverse peer mentoring programs across sites and districts were instituted between 2013 and 2016. It was revealed that quantitative data to track how peer mentoring impacted retention had not been gathered. This recent proliferation of community college peer mentoring programs refuted the historical underutilization noted in the scholarly literature. Recommendations for future research and practice included investigating whether the Central California Community College peer mentoring program proliferation that was discovered holds true in other areas of the state or country, examining why more campuses in the subject pool did not establish peer mentoring programs, and using quantitative methods to evaluate the efficacy of community college peer mentoring programs.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how college and career readiness teachers describe their lived experiences as they guide students from a K-12 district in Phoenix, toward their postsecondary aspirations. This study was derived from the funds of knowledge theory, status attainment theory, and social capital theory. Using these theoretical foundations collectively provided a stronger foundation for the study. Through interviews with 10 teachers, that taught a combination of fourth-through eighth- grade students, this study is an attempt to understand their lived experiences. This study was not an attempt to develop a new theory. However, this study was able to understand the perceptions and perspectives of college and career readiness teachers as they guided students toward their postsecondary aspirations. The results of this study present an analysis of the data in a non-evaluative, unbiased, organized manner that relates to the lived experiences of college and career readiness teachers. This study had five themes. The themes were: The idea that the structure of the schedule influences relationships; the influence of school support in relation to curriculum for the college and career readiness program; the influence of the socioeconomic status of the students in relation to the teacher&rsquo;s instructional outcomes; the importance of postsecondary education; and parental influence in relation to student aspirations. Given that at the time of this study the researcher was unable to find any literature related to elementary students postsecondary aspirations, this study potentially opens the door to additional future research in the area.</p><p>

This research project investigated the question, What are the qualitatively different conceptions of instruction held by instructors of adults in the workplace? The research approach of phenomenography was used to discover how instructors of adults interpreted their instructional experiences. The sample studied consisted of twenty-two members of the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development who were trainers in various workplace settings. The respondents' understandings of instruction were sought through semi-structured interviews that focused on one of their instructional experiences. Three conceptions were found through an iterative process of examining units of meaning in the context of the individual interview and the context of all the interviews. The global meaning of each conception is: instruction is (a) imparting information to learners who receive and apply it on the job (Transmission Conception), (b) assisting learners to share and apply ideas and experiences (Enablement Conception), and (c) involving learners in an experiential process of discovering and constructing meaning (Constructive Conception). The structure of each conception was then analyzed to maximize the differences among them. Several findings emerged: (a) each conception had several components that were more clearly about learning than about instruction; (b) all the conceptions had one structural component that was the same - learning involves applying new knowledge on the job -suggesting that this may be an essential component of instruction in the workplace; and (c)two characteristics of meaning and connectedness appear to divide the conceptions placing the Transmission and Enablement Conceptions on one side and the Constructive Conception on the other. It was concluded that (a) there are more than the two dichotomous ways of viewing the instruction of adults that is suggested in the literature (teacher-controlled and collaborative); (b) there appears to be a generic conception of instruction common to many settings, that instruction is about transmitting information; (c) understandings of knowledge are related to conceptions of instruction; and (d) the context in which instruction occurs is a framing factor for thinking about instruction. The set of conceptions that was found can be used to study instructors' thinking about instruction in other settings as well as for their training and ongoing development. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Older women are a rapidly growing sector of the Canadian population and will number about 4 million by the year 2031. They are also a group which must be recognized as being at risk in later life for reasons often beyond their control or comprehension. Elderly women experience higher levels of poverty, institutionalization and criminal victimization than older men. While many of the vicissitudes of old age are unavoidable, aging is much more problematic for women due to socially constructed inequities rooted historically in cultural patterns of age and gender relations. Consequently, women's economic, social and personal resources are more vulnerable in old age because of gender limitations experienced across their entire life course. Educational opportunities have not kept pace with the challenges encountered by women as they age nor has there been adequate educational programming to help older women negotiate the many changes in society that directly affect the quality of their personal lives. Yet education is considered to be a major strategy for developing and strengthening resources in later life and to be an effective means for promoting individual and collective empowerment among older women for improving their economic and social prospects as they age. By grounding educational objectives in a resource development paradigm, efforts can be made to enhance individual resources and to promote changes in the social relations of power, privileges and opportunities upon which current access and allocation of resources are based. Educational programming aimed at resource development falls into three categories: fostering political and social identity, facilitating economic equity, and aiding in later life transitions. Based on this approach to educational needs analysis, several program and policy recommendations are developed. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to determine whether adult students enrolled in credit courses in a public adult night school assigned the same degree of importance to various functions of an adult education counsellor. A Q-sort of fifty items representing four categories of functions--educational counselling, occupational counselling, personal counselling, and the counselor-adult relationships-- was administered to a volunteer panel of one hundred adult students in the Surrey School District of British Columbia. The hypothesis postulated no signifi cant difference in the importance which adult students enrolled in credit courses in a public adult night school assign to various functions of an adult education counsellor. It was tested with regard to the total population and to a number of sub-groups established by sex, age, previous counselling, education, and occupation. In all instances the hypothesis was rejected at the .05 level, thus indicating that more importance was assigned to certain functions than to others. By multiple comparisons designed to examine the relative importance assigned to the different functions, it was found that in the total population and almost all sub-groups educational counselling was considered significantly more important at the .05 level than either personal counselling or the counselior-adult relationship, and that the combination of educational and occupational counselling was considered significantly more important than the combination of personal counselling and the counsellor-adult relationship. In addition, the unemployed female group viewed occupational counselling as significantly more important than either personal counselling or the counselor-adult relationship. Comparisons were made between pairs of sub-groups by sex, age, previous counselling, education, and occupation to investigate possible differences in the importance which they assigned to the counselling functions. The following results were significant at the .05 level: the female group regarded occupational counselling as more important than did the male group; the employed female group viewed occupational counselling as more important than did the unemployed female group; the unemployed female group considered the counselor-adult relationship as more important than did the employed female group. In the total population studied, the nine items considered most important reflected the adult student's desire for practical assistance in selecting courses, in establishing goals, and in better preparing himself for learning. The nine items considered least important indicated that the adult rejected the need for assistance in matters which he felt capable of handling on his own, and that he had little desire for counselling of a personal nature. In addition to pointing out the specific counselling needs felt by the adults involved, this study demonstrated the particular concerns of women and the necessity for more research in this area. The usefulness of the Q-sort technique in such a study was shown. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The study problem was to analyze adult education participation in a rural community in conjunction with a detailed survey of the community and its residents. Three hypotheses were tested to ascertain whether or not there were any significant differences between adult education participants and non-participants with respect to socio-economic characteristics, social interaction patterns, and locality of residence. The analytical survey method was used and the principal means of data collection was the personal interview. One hundred fifty-eight non-Indian household heads and a sample consisting of thirty-two native Indian respondents were interviewed. The community studied was the Pemberton Valley in British Columbia which is an isolated mountain valley one hundred miles northeast of Vancouver. Approximately one-fifth of the non-Indian respondents were classified as farm while the remainder were not engaged in agriculture. In general, the non-Indian population had similar characteristics to the residents of other rural areas in the province. They had a median of nine to eleven years of school completed, an average annual income of slightly less than $6, 000, and worked mainly in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations. The Indians by comparison had less education, lower incomes, and were marginal in the labour force. Systematic adult education in Pemberton was limited almost exclusively to night school courses. Twenty-three courses offered between 1964 and 1966 had a total enrollment of 352 adults. Some 22. 2 per cent of the non-Indian respondents had taken at least one course within the three year period. There were statistically significant differences between the adult education participants and the non-participants with respect to nine socio-economic characteristics studied including age, number of children at home, birthplace, number of years resident in the area, number of related families living in Pemberton, farm or non-farm resident, father's education, perceived adequacy of skills, and desire for further education or training. Of the social interaction characteristics studied, social participation and road opinion differentiated between the participants and the non-participants. Locality of residence was related to adult education participation and the number of respondents who participated decreased as distance from the nightschool center increased. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This study discusses the nature of instructional devices in the adult education setting and presents a typology or classification scheme in which all such devices can be organized, classified, integrated or considered. It was important to carry out a fairly wide and deep review of all research that might possibly be pertinent, or even partially pertain, to the effectiveness of instructional devices, for they were regarded not just as audio-visual aids but rather as a means that could be used purposely to strengthen or enhance the effectiveness of the learning process, - whether a method or technique, and which could supplement either of these in the realization of the educational objective. This rather broad approach to instructional devices involved the author with some aspects of teaching supplements that are not usually found in a discussion of audio-visual aids, yet it was considered that such an item, for example, as "color" or "group size" should be regarded as a device that a teacher must consider, choose and try to use for the best instructional results. In summary it can be said that in this review of the research pertaining to the use of instructional devices in adult education it was found that their proper use can improve the effectiveness of most teaching situations. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The purposes of the study were: (1) to operationalize Pratt’s five conceptions of teaching (Engineering, Apprenticeship, Developmental, Nurturing and Social Reform), (2) to predict conception of teaching scores, (3) to determine the existence of dominant conceptions of teaching, and (4) to determine the extent to which personal, socio— cultural/educational and program variables predict dominant conceptions of teaching. A 75-item instrument, Conception of Teaching Scales (CTS) was developed to operationalize Pratt’s five conceptions of teaching. A pilot study revealed that the instrument had good face, content, and convergent validities as well as acceptable test-retest reliability and internal consistency. A sample of 471 Vancouver School Board and New Westminster School Board adult education instructors responded to a mailed questionnaire survey conducted in the Fall of 1993. Responses to the CTS were evaluated to determine whether Pratt’s five conceptions were operationalized successfully. Factor analysis was employed to determine whether the items in the CTS were representative of Pratt’s five conceptions of teaching. Results revealed that 63 out of 75 original items in the CTS successfully operationalized five conceptions of teaching, with Pratt’s Apprenticeship conception split into Apprenticeship-Practice and Apprenticeship-Modelling. Further refinement streamlined this number to a six—scale 50—item Revised Conception of Teaching Scales (CTS—R). Personal, socio—cultural/educational and program variables were used as predictors in multiple regressions to explain variance in six conception scores. There was no single common predictor of conceptions. On the average, the significant predictors in the six regression equations accounted for 14.5% of variance in the conception scores. The only prominent predictor which accounted for most variance (2R = 17%) in the Nurturing conception was personality—nurturance measure. An instructor’s dominant conceptions were predicted by nine independent variables, namely, gender, ethnicity, personality— dominance, personality—nurturance, years of teaching adults, content upgrade, living arrangement, level of education and class size. These variables were collapsed into three significant discriminant functions which correctly classified 34.7% of the 288 eligible cases into one of the six dominant conception groups. The study concluded that: (1) Pratt’s five conceptions of teaching could be operationalized and that a Revised Conception of Teaching Scales (CTS-R) was a valid and reliable instrument to assess people’s conceptions of teaching, (2) conceptions of teaching were independent concepts having their own existence, (3) most instructors held at least one single most dominant conception of teaching, and (4) dominant conceptions of teaching were predicted by four personal variables (gender, ethnicity, personality—dominance and personality—nurturance), four socio— cultural/educational variables (living arrangement, level of education, years of teaching adults and content upgrade effort) and one program variable (class size). / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

In order to predict the possible future of adult education in British Columbia over a period of ten years to 1984, a panel composed of 20 adult education directors completed this Delphi forecasting study whose objective was to extrapolate current trends in adult education and to establish specific goals for those who will be involved in making decisions affecting future adult education policy. The methodology employed was that of the Delphi forecasting technique. The instruments' designs were a modification of those utilized by Enzer, et al. in their study: Some Prospects for Social Change by 1985 and their Impact on Time/Money Budgets. The study was conducted over a period of six months with three sequential rounds of questionnaires. The first questionnaire displayed thirteen graphed statistical indicators reflecting trends from 1961 to 1971 in areas relevant to adult education. Each indicator was accompanied by three possible developments related to the future changes in the indicator. The panel's responses to this material became the basis for the second questionnaire. The portion of the study dealing with the graphed statistical indicators was completed with the return of the second questionnaire. The second portion of the study which dealt with projected potential events, their likelihood of occurrence by 1984, their estimated effect on adult education, and the expected changes in adult education should the events occur constituted the material for both the second and third questionnaires. From 64 potential events listed on the second questionnaire, the panel narrowed the number of potential events to 29 for re-evaluation on the third questionnaire. This information plus the extrapolated graphed trends comprised the final data for analysis. The data received were both objective and subjective. With both portions of the study the total group response was considered (as in all Delphi studies) to lie in the median, therefore the results were analyzed only through the median response. Consensus was set at a 70 percent (or higher) panel agreement, and this consensus in addition to the number of reiterations of any individual trend constituted the refining of the data. An analysis of the panel's responses as well as the implications revealed seven specific trends in adult education. These trends were then correlated into goals presumed to be of primary importance in the next decade for those involved in decision making in the field of adult education. These goals were: the expansion of technical and vocational facilities, co-ordination of adult education services, training of all adult educators, recognition of and adjustment to the changing roles of British Columbia's community colleges and universities by adult educators, the recognition of and subsequent adjustment to the changing role of women in the labor force, the expansion and usage of existing public school facilities to embrace continuing education activities and the recognition of the equality of the status of adult education with present public school education. Accompanying each of the goals was a list of supporting events through which the goals might be achieved. It is an established fact that in a world of rapid technological change there can be a choice of futures. However, many routes or paths should be examined in order to choose the future most desirable in terms of achievement of objectives. The conclusions of this study should be considered therefore as representing one of a number of possible directions through which the best possible future for adult education in British Columbia may be implemented. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Problem: With a few notable exceptions, the history of adult education in British Columbia has received relatively little attention. What information there is, is often confined to somewhat narrow time frames, locations, or topics. A general overview of the history of adult education in British Columbia during the 20th century seems to be lacking. This study is a modest attempt to begin adding voice to this important but largely overlooked area. Conceptual Approach: The approach taken is one of historical review. The study, while to some degree quantitative, is much more interested in the qualitative aspects of the material examined. Newspapers, which the author suggests provide a unique historical record, serve as the sole source of data. Methodology: The B.C. Legislative Library Newspaper Index from 1900 -1999 is the source of documents for this study. A thorough reading of all newspaper articles (550+), cited as being related to adult education, was undertaken. Articles were grouped by decade and recorded. Within the decades certain themes were identified and also recorded. Two specific themes (lifelong learning and distance education) received special attention and were examined and recorded separately. Findings: There are a number of reoccurring themes that arise during the period examined. Many of these themes have a direct correlation to issues facing adult education today. These issues include, but are not limited to: • lifelong learning • distance education and related educational technology • duplication of services • libraries and adult education • defining/purpose(s) adult education. Since these and other issues are part of the current discourse about adult education, it seems reasonable that lessons learned/not learned in the past not be forgotten. With the benefit of historical hindsight, which includes sources that are not confined to potentially narrow interests, adult educators may become better informed by considering these issues. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate