To create a more supportive and collegial learning environment, many educational administration preparation programs are using cohort groups of students. This article traces the development of coho...

Cohort Groups in Educational Administration: Promises and Challenges:

Sixty-one adult (age 25 and over) and 95 traditional-age (ages 18 through 24) two-year college students responded to a battery of instruments (Adult Classroom Environment Scale, Adaptive Style Inve...

Learning Styles, Classroom Environment Preferences, Teaching, Styles, and Remedial Course Outcomes for Underprepared Adults at a Two-Year College:

This article reports the comparison of MSW student perceptions of the classroom learning environment among one on-campus and two distance sites linked electronically via interactive instructional television for 13 courses from 1994 through 1998 The authors describe supports provided by the school to make the distance classroom environments comparable Data analysis revealed no statistically significant differences in students’ overall perceptions between distance and on-campus sites or between the two distance sites, although some differences in policy and practice courses are noted Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are presented

Assessing the Comparability of Classroom Environments in Graduate Social Work Education Delivered via Interactive Instructional Television

Adult education literature suggests that the instructional perspective of the teacher has an important effect on adult satisfaction with learning. In this study, the relationships between instructional perspective, satisfaction with language learning, and certain teacher and student characteristics were investigated. Study participants were adult students enrolled in noncredit foreign language courses offered through a community college‘s Continuing Education program and their teachers. Henschke‘s Modified Instructional Perspectives Inventory (MIPI) was used to evaluate teacher-reported use of andragogical principles. The MIPI is comprised of seven subscales: Factor 1: Teacher Empathy with Learners, Factor 2: Teacher Trust of Learners, Factor 3: Planning and Delivery of Instruction, Factor 4: Accommodating Learner Uniqueness, Factor 5: Teacher Insensitivity toward Learners, Factor 6: Experience-based Learning Techniques (Learner-centered Learning Process), and Factor 7: Teacher-centered Learning Process. The MIPI-S, an adaptation of the MIPI, was used to assess student perceptions of their teachers‘ instructional perspective. Students reported satisfaction with language learning on a Likert-type scale found on the Personal Information Form-Student (PIF-S). Each student used her/his own unique, subjective, internal, unarticulated definition of satisfaction with personal language learning in responding to this item. The MIPI-S summative score as well as scores for Factors 1 through 6 were found to have significant positive relationships with satisfaction with language learning. As foreign language students perceived increased use of andragogical principles in the classroom, satisfaction with learning increased. MIPI-S Factor 1 was found to be the strongest significant Ryan, Linda , 2009, UMSL, p. iii predictor of student satisfaction. MIPI-S Factor 7 had a significant negative relationship with satisfaction with language learning. As foreign language students‘ perceptions of Teachercentered Learning Process decreased, satisfaction with language learning decreased. When the relationship between satisfaction and certain student characteristics was examined, achievement of the foreign language student‘s primary goal was found to be the strongest significant predictor of satisfaction with learning, and second strongest was general experience with language study. The portrait of noncredit foreign language students and their teachers found in this study contributes to understanding a population and a learning environment which is not represented in the literature on adult education, language learning, educational satisfaction, or Continuing Education. Ryan, Linda , 2009, UMSL, p. iv

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Adult Learning Satisfaction and Instructional Perspective in the Foreign Language Classroom.

The nature of the knowledge acquisition process trainers use to achieve content expertise

Educational climate represents the social and contextual qualities of an organization as perceived by the participants. The theoretical construct of educational climate encompasses a range of variables which have been categorized as ecology, milieu, social system, and culture (Tigiuri, 1968). These categories are similar to the elements of the andragogical process described by Knowles (1984). In this research, the theoretical climate category of social system emerged as influential in an ethnographic study of an elective university program. Findings revealed that shared decision making and communication patterns were instrumental in the quality of the adult learning experience.

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Xiao L. Zhang

Papers

Educational Climate in Elective Adult education: Shared Decision Making and Communication Patterns