Rethinking Research in English with Nontraditional Adult Students

Adult students of diverse experiences, disciplines, and identities can become valued contributors to faculty-directed research while also benefiting from the experience. However, national data show that older students participate in mentored research at one of the lowest rates among all groups tracked. This article forwards principles for facilitating nontraditional students’ involvement in collaborative research. These were developed during studies conducted about and with adult undergraduates at a historically Black university. Student researchers’ insights, adult learning theory, and the scholarship of undergraduate research and mentoring indicate interlacing benefits that students, faculty, and English studies may gain from developing such research partnerships.

The socio-demographic profile of Spanish adult undergraduates: university-level compensatory policies vs life-course (dis)advantages

PurposeTo uncover age inequalities in participation in higher education (HE) in Spain, the socio-demographic profile of Spanish adult undergraduates is compared to that of the general population of the same age group (25–54). Specific attention is devoted to differentials between face-to-face and distance adult students.Design/methodology/approachThe study is mainly based on a comparative analysis of quantitative data generated by an online survey conducted by the authors among students over the age of 25 enrolled in Spanish public universities. Concurrent secondary sources have been considered as well.FindingsEmployment and family obligations appear as powerful conditioners of adults' access to HE, their choice of study mode (face-to-face or distance) and their area of study. The possession of previous HE qualifications also appears as an important factor differentiating adult undergraduates from the general population.Research limitations/implicationsThe online survey is intended to reveal the main socio-demographic barriers to adult access to HE in Spain, rather than to draw a statistically representative profile of the target universe. The standard methodological recommendations have been followed to control the expected low response rate for the online questionnaire.Practical implicationsThe study points to the need to deeply articulate current university-level compensatory mechanisms with macro-level age-sensitive social policies.Social implicationsLife course policies aimed at reducing age educational inequalities are advanced.Originality/valueThe social conditioners of adult participation in HE are addressed through a conceptual framework combining the life-course perspective with the prevalent research approach, centred on the notions of lifelong learning and non-traditional learners' unequal access.

Time to Pay Attention? Information Search Explains Amplified Framing Effects Under Time Pressure

Decades of research have established the ubiquity and importance of choice biases, such as the framing effect, yet why these seemingly irrational behaviors occur remains unknown. A prominent dual-system account maintains that alternate framings bias choices because of the unchecked influence of quick, affective processes, and findings that time pressure increases the framing effect have provided compelling support. Here, we present a novel alternative account of magnified framing biases under time pressure that emphasizes shifts in early visual attention and strategic adaptations in the decision-making process. In a preregistered direct replication ( N = 40 adult undergraduates), we found that time constraints produced strong shifts in visual attention toward reward-predictive cues that, when combined with truncated information search, amplified the framing effect. Our results suggest that an attention-guided, strategic information-sampling process may be sufficient to explain prior results and raise challenges for using time pressure to support some dual-system accounts.

Persistence of Adult Undergraduates on a Traditionally-Oriented University Campus: Does Donaldson and Graham's Model of College Outcomes for Adult Students Still Apply?

The purpose of this study was to explore the social and academic experiences of non-traditional students pursuing a bachelor's degree at a traditionally-oriented residential university and how these experiences promote or impede their persistence to graduation. The study explored components of Donaldson and Graham's Model of College Outcomes for Adult Students and confirmed their proposed influences, including prior experience and personal biographies, adult cognition, psycho-social and value orientation, life-world environment, and the connecting classroom. Three additional specific findings focused on a strong personal striving characteristic among students, the motivation to attend and stay in college to be role models for their children, and gender difference regarding the use of and expectation for faculty support.