The study focused on adult learners in the Bachelor of Technology: Somatology degree (B. Tech) at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). It served to establish the characteristics and experiences of part-time, predominantly adult women learners in order to facilitate their and future generations of formal higher education life-long learners retention , throughput and success rates at DUT. This is in response to national policy directives from the Department of Education and communiques from various non-profit organisations (NPO's) and political groups . The aim of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that motivate, facilitate and detract from part-time learner's formal learning experience in order for the Department of Somatology at DUT to consider ways to address these needs. A questionnaire and focus group discussion were used to acquire data from the current cohort of B. Tech. Somatology learners. The taped discussion was subsequently transcribed and the data obtained was analysed and interpreted by means of thematic analysis. Three major themes that related to the literature, the conceptual framework and the title of the study emerged as descriptions of the adult women learners' characteristics and experiences within their communities, their work and DUT. The dissertation concluded with a summary of the findings which directly related to the testimony of the adult learners' experiences as continuing formal higher education part-time learners. Recommendations which were recognised as facilitating successful lifelong learning in institutions of higher learning and which could be adopted by DUT's academic and administrative sectors were suggested . / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Definitions and concepts of learning in the workplace have evolved considerably in the last two decades in response to significant changes impacting most workplace environments throughout the industrialized world. Comprehensive definitions of learning at work go beyond an emphasis on improving performance to consider the workplace as a social environment which can be structured to enhance or thwart adult learning and development. A wider and more socially relevant range of approaches to workplace learning are emerging. / By focusing on learning as a process rather than a product, this study attempts to gain a deeper understanding of the daily informal learning experiences among a group of clerical and secretarial workers. Through interviews and a qualitative research approach it examines the meanings these women attribute to their workplace learning experiences. It explores some of the ways in which women's unique learning capabilities interface with a particular environment.

The intent of this record of study is to examine the effectiveness of the Defense Support of Civil Authorities program through the theoretical lens of adult learning. The study explores the program graduates’ individual and organizational attempts to make sense of their new role of support of civil authority during a national crisis. Using a case study approach, selected aspects of the program were observed, reviewed, and analyzed. This approach included a series of interviews and a focus group discussion that allowed graduates to describe both their program experiences and the potential impact on their understanding of their roles during a national emergency. These experiences were then interpreted through the lens of adult learning theory. The findings suggest graduates must create a new definition of competence based upon their emerging role of supporting others in charge, rather than their previous notion of self-direction. The main conclusions drawn from this study provide preliminary evidence that suggests these adults must construct new meaning for themselves and for their organization in order to make coherent the complex arena of homeland security. Recommendations for further research include a focus on adult knowledge construction and the role of perceived individual and organizational contributions as a means of enhancing perceived adult competence.

By telling and retelling their life stories in everyday social interaction, adult learners describe times of continuity and change in their lives, and give an account of their self-formation. A disjuncture between the learners' life stories and events experienced either in their social context or in their inner life invites their reflection on its significance. Transformative learning occurs when reflection on such experience leads to interpretations which change the learners' meaning perspectives and their social practice. These changes are incorporated into a new version of the life story. Adult education approaches to perspective transformation have generally emphasised the interpretive role of critical reflection and thinking. Autobiography, as a metaphor for transformative learning, proposes that transformative learning also has the quality of a narrative constructed with imagination. Through ongoing interpretation of events in their inner and outer experience, learners compose their lives and their life stories. The social context is a dynamic setting for autobiographical learning. Its structures and institutions concretise the learners' social and cultural tradition, which has been shaped by design and historical circumstance. Through the prejudgments of their tradition, learners perceive reality and construct corresponding lives and life stories. Theoretical approaches to interpreting life experience differ in their estimation of the value of the learners' tradition. In adult education theory and practice, Habermas' critical theory has been enlisted as a conceptual basis for perspective transformation. Little attention has been afforded to either Gadamer's hermeneutic consciousness, or Ricoeur's critical hermeneutics as ways to understand the interpretive activity which leads to the learners' self-formation and the re-invention of their life story. Six former Roman Catholic priests participated in a cooperative inquiry, telling their life stories of remarkable change in life choice. They sought deeper self-knowledge, as well as an understanding of the widespread social phenomenon of Catholic priests choosing to marry. Their autobiographical accounts indicate that, as they gradually composed new life narratives, these learners gained personal authority as the authors of their lives. The stories also indicate that, at one time or other, a state of stagnation developed in the authors' lives. Despite the learners' lengthy periods of consciously attempting to resolve the stalemate, it was an act of spontaneous imagination which illuminated a way through. The explanatory understanding of autobiographical or transformative learning proposed here claims that imagination, which bridges the domains of conscious and unconscious knowing in the author, is a partner with critical reflection in interpreting the life in its social context. Through transformative or hermeneutic conversation, adult educators may foster and promote the formation of autobiography and transformative learning. Further research, linking autobiography and transformative learning, would purposefully explore the role of other internal processes in transformative learning, such as feeling, and examine their relationship with imagination. It is likely that the acknowledgment of imagination as integral to transformative learning would lead to research which considers models of personhood other than those which emphasise ego as the conscious director of knowing and learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Antioch University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 29, 2008). Advisor: Carolyn Kenny, PhD. "Submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership & Change Program of Antioch University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October, 2007"--from the title page. Keywords: transformative learning, middle-age, portraiture; artists, phenomenology, Jungian psychology, midlife, depth psychology, life change. Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-273).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 2001. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 380-392).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1995. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-90). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-77). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Georgia, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.