Thomas J. Sork

A Descriptive and Evaluative Analysis of Program Planning Literature, 1950-1983

Literature which presents a complete program planning model was described and analyzed using explicitly defined and uniformly applied descriptive and evaluative dimensions. The analysis included 93 publications consisting of book-length and shorter pieces which contained explicit or implicit planning models. An analytical summary chart, that resembles those found in Consumer Reports, is used to report results of the analysis. Careful study of the chart reveals similarities and differences between the models which enhance or limit their theoretical or practical utility. The charts can be used by practitioners, students, and researchers to identify literature designed for use in a particular adult education milieu and with qualitative characteristics appropriate for the intended use. Several observations about the current state of the program planning literature are made and recommendations designed to strengthen the literature are offered.

Confessing Regulation or Telling Secrets? Opening up the Conversation on Graduate Supervision.

The supervisory relationship is at the heart of the institutional and interpersonal structures that make up graduate education, but it is rarely problematized (publicly) or used as a site for the analysis of university adult education. This article results from the challenge issued by a (feminist) woman graduate student to her male nonfeminist adviser to do just that. It aims to encourage others in the field to join the dialogue, to demonstrate how a personal narrative methodology can deepen understandings of the student-supervisor relationship, and to explore how the power dynamics of this relationship affect both knowledge creation (and its legitimation) and the socialization process in graduate education. We alternate between telling our stories, connecting them to the existing literature on supervision, and drawing (different) conclusions about ethics, power relations, institutional and interpersonal responsibilities, research, gender, and the (re) production of academic and (inequitable) social structures in university adult education.

Ethical Issues and Codes of Ethics: Views of Adult Education Practitioners in Canada and the United States

Although the ethics of practice has become increasingly visible in the adult education literature over the past two decades, little empirical research has been done to inform the dialogue and debate. The purpose of this study was to examine the views of adult education practitioners in British Columbia about the need for a code of ethics and about the ethical issues, concerns, and dilemmas experienced in their practice. The study was an approximate replication of research carried out in Indiana reported by McDonald and Wood. This study was undertaken to broaden the empirical database within adult education, provide further insight into the ethics of practice, and determine similarities and differences between Canadian and American adult educators in their encounters with ethical issues and their views about codes of ethics. Major findings confirm positive practitioner views about codes of ethics and are generally consistent with the findings reported by McDonald and Wood.

Creating a "World Class" Programme: Reciprocity and Constraint in Networked Global Collaboration

The article reflects on the construction of a common Master’s programme across four universities located on four continents, in order to explore the role of networks in international educational collaboration. The study draws on the documented processes of the principal members of the programme team. It is presented as a case study of the development of the programme that uses ideas drawn from actor‐network theory to draw attention to the conjunction of human and non‐human actors that shaped the resulting web‐based courses. Constraints arising from major institutional and systemic obstacles were addressed through the effects of the actor‐network. The reciprocity of action and de‐centring of individual activity made possible through the collaboration enabled the human actors to sustain a level of innovation within their own institutions that would not have been possible through them acting alone.

How Pregnant Women Learn about Selected Health Issues: Learning Transaction Types.

Understanding the nature and scope of learning during pregnancy is the basis upon which educators can assist pregnant women during their learning as well as have a positive effect on pregnancy outcome. The purposes of this research were to determine how women learn about weight gain, alcohol consumption, and tobacco use during pregnancy and to identify the relationship between learning, knowledge, and health behaviors. Learning transaction types were developed for this study and provide adult educators with a profile of the environmental learning circumstances of pregnant women. Development of learning transaction types was based upon an adaptation of Toughs concept of planners and Knowless concept of self-directed learners. Transaction types consisted of the following components: time in learning, settings of learning, and initiators of the learning episodes. The ex post facto research design involved one hour interviews with 127 women at eight hospitals. The majority of women had spent most of their time engaged in other-initiated learning episodes in the one-to-one and nonhuman settings. Learning transaction types were not associated with health behaviors, but were associated with knowledge about smoking issues.