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Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education

In the last decade, there has been a shift of more non-traditional adult learners returning to pursue undergraduate education. Though traditional age students are in the majority, a rising population of adult learners has been steadily increasing. They are typically students who are 25 years and old...

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Autores principales: Kalavar, Jyotsna, Magda, Kirsten, Ariyo, Raquel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681473/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2829
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author Kalavar, Jyotsna
Magda, Kirsten
Ariyo, Raquel
author_facet Kalavar, Jyotsna
Magda, Kirsten
Ariyo, Raquel
author_sort Kalavar, Jyotsna
collection PubMed
description In the last decade, there has been a shift of more non-traditional adult learners returning to pursue undergraduate education. Though traditional age students are in the majority, a rising population of adult learners has been steadily increasing. They are typically students who are 25 years and older, attend part-time, work full-time, and tend to juggle family or dependent demands with schoolwork. Studies show that these adult learners are at high-risk for academic underachievement and dropping out. However, educational institutions still operate with the same traditional learning paradigm that they previously used (without acknowledging the wealth of life experiences that adult learners bring), leading us to the question of how adult learners perceive their academic learning experiences. In this study, 171 adult learners (students aged 25 and older at the time of matriculation) at a regional college in Atlanta, participated in an online survey that examined their academic experiences, specifically meaningfulness of coursework, course delivery approaches, and the advantages as well as disadvantages of being an adult learner. Majority were females (83%), and the ethnic breakdown was as follows: White (41%), African American (26%), Hispanic (12%), and 22% reported other. Results of this study indicate that academic institutions need to pay attention to the learning experiences of this burgeoning student population. Understanding their perspectives on their academic experiences hold major implications for long-term meaningful change in academia.
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spelling pubmed-86814732021-12-17 Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education Kalavar, Jyotsna Magda, Kirsten Ariyo, Raquel Innov Aging Abstracts In the last decade, there has been a shift of more non-traditional adult learners returning to pursue undergraduate education. Though traditional age students are in the majority, a rising population of adult learners has been steadily increasing. They are typically students who are 25 years and older, attend part-time, work full-time, and tend to juggle family or dependent demands with schoolwork. Studies show that these adult learners are at high-risk for academic underachievement and dropping out. However, educational institutions still operate with the same traditional learning paradigm that they previously used (without acknowledging the wealth of life experiences that adult learners bring), leading us to the question of how adult learners perceive their academic learning experiences. In this study, 171 adult learners (students aged 25 and older at the time of matriculation) at a regional college in Atlanta, participated in an online survey that examined their academic experiences, specifically meaningfulness of coursework, course delivery approaches, and the advantages as well as disadvantages of being an adult learner. Majority were females (83%), and the ethnic breakdown was as follows: White (41%), African American (26%), Hispanic (12%), and 22% reported other. Results of this study indicate that academic institutions need to pay attention to the learning experiences of this burgeoning student population. Understanding their perspectives on their academic experiences hold major implications for long-term meaningful change in academia. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8681473/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2829 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Kalavar, Jyotsna
Magda, Kirsten
Ariyo, Raquel
Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title_full Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title_fullStr Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title_full_unstemmed Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title_short Examining the Experiences of Adult Learners in Higher Education
title_sort examining the experiences of adult learners in higher education
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681473/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.2829
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