In a movement toward workforce development as an academic entity, the identity of adult education as projects for inquiry is troubled. In some academic programs, adult education has been termed adult learning in the service of promoting teaching and learning for the workplace. However, adult education's inquiry, its projects, might be more…

People are living and traveling to places all over the world. An exploration of how this movement influences learners' worldviews has implications for adult development, identity, and learning. The purpose of this paper is to present a phenomenological study conducted in the U.S. that examined how individuals' living or traveling…

Media and popular culture reach broad audiences and have the potential to be an invaluable teaching resource in terms of promoting adult education and learning. Human resource development instructors can use media artifacts (e.g., films, television, novels, and cartoons) as useful methods to demonstrate learning theory and adult development…

Too often, educators, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of adult education and human resource development rely on traditional curricular materials and an academic body of knowledge for teaching, evaluating, and training adults. This assumes a coherent body of prior knowledge, assumptions, worldviews, and experiences in their students…

In this article, I describe my reflections on developing student authors through a class research project. I review the assignment origins and description and my role in the students' developmental journey from transforming a class assignment to a publishable work. (Contains 1 figure.)

Adult educators often struggle with finding creative ways to help students understand adult learning theories and applications of those theories in professional practice. Media analysis of popular culture can uncomplicate this task by engaging learners in understanding concepts, principles or theories (Baumgartner & Merriam, 1999). The purpose of…

The purpose of study was to explore the change process described in "The Shack" using Mezirow's (1997) phases of meaning-making in transformational learning. Results suggest that transformational learning is a useful lens for examining the individual change process in the novel, and offers teaching opportunities in classes that explore personal…

Examining media artifacts as a learning method has received little attention in human resource development (HRD) despite it being a predominate form of information and influence in popular culture. As Giroux (2002) opines, media functions as a form of public pedagogy by offering situations and contexts through which viewers can vicariously…

Adult education for social change can occur within social movements, and the fight for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer (LGBTQ) rights has included educational strategies designed to challenge heterosexist and homophobic systems of power. This article explores how the Queer Nation movement of the early 1990s deployed a Foucauldian…

The adult education literature on disruptive behavior of adult learners was reviewed and a survey on disruptive behavior of adult learners was conducted with adult educators. The findings are synthesized in a conceptual framework for understanding the types and causes of disruptive behavior, which fall into the categories of inattention,…

Humor is an intriguing topic that exists in the contexts of adult education and human resource development. This paper describes my experiences at developing and facilitating a graduate course on humor and adult learning. Researchers and scholarly practitioners in adult education and human resource development are encouraged to build their…

Malcolm S. Knowles stands as a giant catalyst at the juncture--past, present, and future--of andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn) within the field of Adult Education and Human Resource Development. For more than 50 years until his death in 1997, Malcolm devoted his personal and professional life to exemplifying the theory and…

This study aimed to study the andragogical and pedagogical orientations of adults learning English as a foreign language. The Turkish version of the Educational Orientation Questionnaire (Christian, 1983) was used. Sixty adults at evening classes in Turkey were included in the study. The results of the study revealed that the subjects were more…

This article describes the origins, development, and changing directions in the oldest peer-reviewed online journal in adult education. An analysis of journal issues by the first author provides evidence of the impact and legacy that "New Horizons in Adult Education" has had on the field of adult education around the world during the past two…

Adult Continuing Education (ACE) and Human Resource Development (HRD) have grown tremendously in the last quarter century. ACE experienced tremendous growth in the 60s and 70s, with over 17 million attending colleges and universities, and local school and community adult education programs by the end of the 1970s. More ACE programs were started…