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DEVELOPMENT OF A VALID AND RELIABLE INSTRUMENT TO IDENTIFY A PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF ADULT EDUCATION

This study resulted in a valid and reliable instrument that identifies an individual's personal philosophy of adult education. The Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory yields scores which categorize an individual's personal philosophy of adult education with respect to five prevailing adult education philosophies: Liberal, Behaviorist, Progressive, Humanistic, and Radical. Support for the need for adult educators to identify their personal education philosophy was offered from literature which included adult education, educational philosophy, values clarification, organizational development, and human resource development and training. / The Inventory was field-tested by 78 individuals over a period of ten months. After revision, it was tested for content and construct validity, internal consistency, and stability. Content validity was establiched by a jury of six individuals; construct validity was established through factor analysis. Data for factor analysis and reliability testing were obtained from 86 individuals from six states and the District of Columbia. Internal consistency and test retest stability were determined based on Pearson product moment correlations for individual response options, items, and overall scales. The instrument was judged to have a fairly high degree of validity, based on jury mean scores of > .50 (on a 7-point scale) on 93% of the response options and communality coefficients of > .50 on 87% of the response options. Reliability coefficients of > .40 on 87% of the response options and alpha coefficients ranging from .75 to .86 on the five scales were considered measures of moderate to high reliability. Test-retest data were judged unreliable due to the small size of the sample (n = 8); however, retest data did show a tendency toward moderate to high reliability (r of .48 to .83) for the five scales. / The Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory was designed to assist the adult educator to begin a process of philosophical inquiry which will potentially result in greater effectiveness in selecting instructional content; establishing teaching and learning objectives; selecting and/or developing instructional materials; interacting with learners; and evaluating educational outcomes. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, Section: A, page: 1667. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75111
ContributorsZINN, LORRAINE MARIE., Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText
Format223 p.
RightsOn campus use only.
RelationDissertation Abstracts International

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