Barry G. Sheckley

Predicting the Academic Success of Adults from Diverse Populations

This study assessed the predictive validity of the Risk and Promise Profile©1 with a diverse sample of 542 two-year and four-year older college students at six educational institutions. The profile is a seventy-eight-item, self-report, paper and pencil questionnaire that can be used to outline a profile of personal and social influences that are related to persistence. Hierarchical multiple regression and ANOVA indicate that the profile explains significant portions of the variance associated with academic success. The results also suggest that different measures are related to the success of Caucasian students and African-American students. Further, the study suggests that race per se should not be used to identify students “at risk.” Instead, combinations of personal and social measures are more appropriate predictors of academic performance.

Adult Learning in a Non-Western Context: The Influence of Culture in a Senegalese Farming Village:

In Senegal, as in many developing countries, the education of adults is often guided by theories of adult learning developed in Western societies. There is little evidence, however, that such theories are useful for educating farmers living in rural African villages. This study, conducted in a rural fanning village in Senegal, explored what, when, why, how, and from whom do adults in African villages learn? Using ethnographic research methods, information was collected from the village chief, six key informants, and individual villagers (N = 38). The results suggest that a communitys social-cultural norms and values exert a powerful influence on the learning of African adults. For this reason, educational programs in African villages would be most effective if they were woven into the social-cultural fabric of the community. The results also suggest that cultural traditions influence the what, when, why, and from whom-but not the how-of adult learning.

Clinical Reasoning and Reflective Practice: Implications of Fieldwork Activities

Objectives. Theories and research suggest that learning clinical reasoning skills requires students to be reflective in their practice. To explain this proposition, five research questions were developed to examine the effect of: (a) the fieldwork experience on clinical reasoning skills, (b) degree of participation in different clinical reasoning activities on clinical reasoning skills, and (c) the total number of clinical reasoning activities in which students participated related to clinical reasoning. Method. Data (n = 70) were collected using a researcher-developed case analysis test, the Adaptive Style Inventory, and a questionnaire. Paired t tests, ANCOVA, and multiple regressions were used to analyze the data from the research questions. Results. Fieldwork does improve clinical reasoning skills (large effect size). Participation in activities thought to develop clinical reasoning skills was mixed. Conclusion. The results support the improvement of fieldwork as a mode of developing clinical reasoning skills in occupational therapy students.

Out on the Floor

Abstract Drawing on the foundational theories of experiential learning, this article explores recent developments in theory and research on experiential learning and addresses how this work can enhance the professional development of museum docents. We introduce theories of adult learning and professional development that emphasize experiential learning as a way to foster workplace learning in museums. We illustrate the use of experiential learning interventions in the preparation of docents, and suggest how experiential learning can be applied to museum staff learning, including engaging docents more fully in experiential learning, introducing the use of portfolios to assess docent learning, and increasing the emphasis on helping docents develop skills to self-regulate their learning.

Indicators of Client Satisfaction in Academic, Career, and Personal Counseling in Higher Education.

There will be an increasingly older cast to American society during the next twenty to thirty years. Middle-aged and older Americans will face numerous changes in the workplace, including technological change, a global economy, lack of promotional opportunities, and layoffs. As a result of these changes, many adult workers will chose to enter or re-enter college programs to upgrade their employment skills. Personnel within institutions of higher education, including those in the counseling office, may not be fully prepared to serve these older students who will need assistance with their transition to college. Without such aid, these students might drop out of higher education, exacerbating the retention problem faced by many colleges. The retention literature indicates that the identification of and commitment to career goals as well as the development of relationships with the institution are two important contributors to the retention of college students. Additionally, the literature on the adult student has focused on the need for supportive counseling 1) to help adult students establish and navigate their personal relationship to the institution, and 2) assist them to resolve conflicts that may accompany their transition to college. If they are to help adults persist in their college programs, counselors need to know how to best address the problems and issues these older learners face. Counselors need to know the outcome of their counseling sessions with adults, so they can ascertain the best methods and processes to utilize; a common method used to assess outcome is client satisfaction, a form of self-report. This study explored three research questions: Among students who use counseling services, 1) To what extent can a combination of environmental (i.e., social climate), demographic (i.e., age, individual differences), and process (i.e., number of sessions) variables predict client satisfaction; 2) To what extent does client satisfaction differ between men and women; 3) To what extent can reason for attending counseling sessions (i.e., personal, vocational, educational) predict client satisfaction. Analyses were conducted using hierarchical multiple regression (Question 1), ANOVA (Question 2), and standard multiple regression (Question 3). The research sample consisted of 199 students at a comprehensive state university who attended at least one session of counseling. The results indicated that the relationship (cohesion) between a counselor and client is the most significant factor in a students satisfaction with counseling, whether the student is an adult student or one of traditional age. For this reason, institutions of higher education should strive to develop a sense of cohesion, in the form of close relationships, with its students. Programmatic strategies, including those for adult students, are discussed.

SELF‐DIRECTED LEARNING AMONG ADULTS ENROLLED IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Relationships between self‐directed learning projects of adults and the directed learning activities comprising a community college curriculum need to be developed and clarified. Learning projects are defined as a series of related episodes where individuals intentionally spend seven or more hours to gain and retain fairly certain knowledge, information or skills. Trained interviewers used a structured interview format to investigate a total of 290 learning projects conducted by 41 males enrolled in a community college. During the 12 months preceeding the interview, subjects completed an average of 7 learning projects, devoting an average of 285 hours to each learning project. The learning projects were self‐directed (56%), for immediate or future use (57%), not motivated by academic credit (79%), acquired information from another person (57%), and resulted in a large amount of knowledge gained (63%). The results suggest that, even when adults are enrolled in a formal academic program, their learning proj...

Lineal and Recursive Perspectives on Change: Describing the Development and Amelioriation of Agoraphobia

Change is a relativistic construct. Understanding the nature of human change is essentially an epistemological endeavor that involves making multiple distinctions from numerous vantage points. Change cannot be conceptualized independently from some arbitrarily defined unit(s) of analysis, and how these unit(s) are constructed determines how people perceive the causes, directions, magnitudes, and, ultimately, the meanings of change. Within different analytic frames, human movement may be interpretable as “beneficial” versus “detrimental,” “managed” versus “spontaneous,” “volitional” versus “accidental,” “straightforward” versus “convoluted,” “continuous” versus “discrete,” “real” versus “illusory” and in a multitude of other ways.