2019 Annual Conference

Adult Development

Shared Concurrent Session (Approx. 12 or 20 minutes)

Military/veteran students still face many challenges as they transition to higher education.Technology as transitional tool has shown the support and potential opportunities in transition from military to college. However, there is still a gap in the literature regarding to utilizing technology to assist military students with transition to college life. 

This literature review could facilitate and encourage educators to learn how technology is effective practicing for military and veteran student in transition to higher education. In addition, it could help involvement of more researchers and practitioners to attend to issues and concerns of this topic in future studies.

Learners will gain a deeper understanding of the following issues:
1) To identify the challenges and support military and veteran students experience in transition to the college life and academic success as they are described in the literature;
2) To explore the effectiveness of utilizing of technology military and veteran students' transition to higher education as reported in the existing literature;
3) To synthesize technological strategies utilized by military and veteran students in their transition and suggest directions for future research.

Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill was enacted in 2009, more than 600,000 veterans have entered higher education. Additionally, in higher education, technology as a learning tool has also been practiced extensively. Although much research has been conducted on military and veteran students, there is limited research that focus on veterans/military utilizing technology as a transitional tool.  On this premise,  an integrative literature review was conducted which can serve as a valuable resource for veterans/military students in higher education  Additionally, there is much discussion and strong implications for best practices for adult educators to incorporate technology in their learning environment. An integrative literature review will be conducted based on three criteria: 1) reported empirical investigations; 2) were published in peer-reviewed journals between 1981 and 2018; 3) assessed antecedents, correlates, and consequences of technology in transition for students from military to higher education. The year 1981 was used as the starting point since Schlossberg (1981) debuted a conceptual model to examine adults’ experience in transition at different times and situations in 1981.

This session will begin with a presentation of the literature review followed by a facilitated discussion and would include interactive scenarios that would encourage audience to participate the discussion regarding the role of  technology in military/veteran students in transition to higher education and the adult educator’s role.