2016 Annual Conference

This session presents findings from a year-long, interview-based qualitative dissertation study of adult undergraduate learning practices situated in adult learning-focused institutions. It focuses on the shifts and contradictions evident in practitioner discourse about students' lives and learning, with implications for instructional and academic support practices.

The target audience for this presentation includes professors, administrators, advisors, and tutors.

This session will present findings from a year-long qualitative dissertation study of adult undergraduate learning practices in adult learning-focused institutions. Specifically, it will focus on the emerging shifts and contradictions evident in practitioner discourse about students' lives and learning. Semi-structured phenomenographic interviews with students and practitioners elicited reflective narratives that demonstrate divergences between the ways in which students and practitioners each described students’ learning practices, priorities, and lives. Many practitioners characterized adult students as spending insufficient time on or insufficiently prioritizing their college education. Practitioner narratives also demonstrated internal contradictions regarding perspectives on students. These contradictions also evidenced positive association between specificity of student examples and more nuanced or affirmative perspectives student lives and learning. Attention to these contradictions, in conversation with students' own narratives affirming their dedication to their college educations, can yield greater insights into the following two areas: the influence of dominant ideological narratives about adult undergraduates' insufficiency or marginality, even in adult learning-focused institutions (Sissel, Hansman, & Kasworm, 2001) and the implications of adult learning-focused practitioner positionality and bias for instructional and academic support practices (Casanave & Li, 2008; Donaldson & Rentfro, 2006).