The primary purpose of this study was to identify and secure perceptions of what personal and institutional factors influenced and attracted adult students to enroll in four year institutions in Oklahoma. The secondary purpose was to compare student responses by institution.
The more notable findings include: (1) dominant personal factors as to why adult students in this study returned to college were reportedly to improve/advance themselves, especially as it relates to their career; (2) flexible class scheduling was reported to be the most important institutional function for recruiting adult students, with academic quality and institutional costs of education next in importance; (3) almost 90% of respondents reported being under 45 years of age; (4) almost 85% reported commuting fewer than 50 miles to class; (5) approximately 90% reported enrolling each fall and spring (6) approximately twice as many respondents who returned to college reported they did so because it was more important to them to complete an unfinished degree than to begin a degree.
Conclusions drawn from this study are as follows: (1) adult students appear to be unlikely to enroll in classes meeting more than three times a week; (2) adult students in Oklahoma may no longer be described as part time and/or night students; (3) these students appear to be returning to college as full-time students, absorbing it into their daily lives and continuing their careers; (4) adult students in Oklahoma are homogeneous in that they tend to be relatively young, white, well educated and employed; (5) institutional officials should exercise caution about using the information given by these students as tools for recruiting adult students to their institutions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc278271 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Hatcher, Wayne (Wayne Robert) |
| Contributors | Kingery, Dwane, Newsom, Ron, Smith, Howard Wellington, Kozak, Michael R. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | ix, 159 leaves: ill., Text |
| Coverage | United States - Oklahoma |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Hatcher, Wayne (Wayne Robert) |
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