Nan L. Travers

Academic Perspectives on College-Level Learning: Implications for Workplace Learning.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore faculty definitions of college‐level learning in order to develop a universal definition to assist employers, career counselors, and academic institutions in assessing college‐level workplace learning.Design/methodology/approach – Faculty were administered an electronic survey to gather definitions of below college‐level, undergraduate level and graduate level learning at a USA university.Findings – A total of 20 per cent of the faculty completed the survey, representing an even distribution across disciplines offered at the university. Data were analysed using qualitative methods to determine themes arising from the faculty definitions; member checking occurred through a representative faculty group. The resulting framework had commonalities to other current college‐level learning schemas (e.g. American Association of Colleges and Universities). Terminology used by the faculty indicated students must understand and utilise different relationships across k...

PLA Philosophy, Policy, and Practice Implications: Revisiting the 2009 Hoffman, Travers, Evans, and Treadwell Study.

Address correspondence to Nan L. Travers, PhD, Empire State College, Two Union Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, USA (E-mail: nan.travers@esc.edu). 1 Readers may contact the author for a copy of this article. It is no longer available online. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 61:54–58, 2013 Copyright

What Is Next After 40 Years? Part 2: Prior Learning Assessment: 2012 and After

The previous article, “Prior Learning Assessment: What is next after 40 years? Part 1: Prior Learning Assessment: 1970–2011” (March 2012) focused on the history of prior learning assessment (PLA) in the United States over the past 40 years. After exploring more recent recognition and development of PLA across institutions of higher education, the article ends with the question “What is next for PLA?” Research on PLA has generated interest across the nation as institutions seek ways to increase access to quality education for less cost. For example, the release of the CAEL study (Klein-Collins, 2010), which reports that PLA students have higher rates of degree completion than nonPLA students regardless of size, level, or type of institution, has spawned greater acceptance of PLA at many institutions. The likelihood of a relatively easy practice having greater impact on student success has sparked considerable interest at administrative levels.