Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1993

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Instructional Technology and Educational Studies

Major Professor

Walter A. Cameron

Committee Members

John M. Peters, Grady Bogue

Abstract

Growth in the adult student population has created a need for higher education to formulate or modify present student support service systems to include this emerging and diverse group. Student support services are designed to attract, integrate, and retain students by complementing the educational mission of the institution. The student support service system for adult students includes many components of a traditional student services program, but delivery and design requires modification to accommodate the needs of adults. The purpose of this study was to provide information on institutional priorities concerning adult student support services and specialized services designed for adult students enrolled in both state-supported and privately controlled colleges and universities located in the State of Tennessee. The population for this study consisted of administrators who were primarily responsible for providing an adult student support services system. Forty-seven requests for participation to identified administrators resulted in 41 (87%) completing an oral interview to determine professional and institutional characteristics, plus descriptions of student services provided for adult students. Forty (85%) returned a completed written research instrument designed to elicit administrator perceptions concerning institutional priority for providing an adult student support system. The participants included: 2 (5%) privately controlled two-year colleges, 16 (39%) privately controlled four-year colleges and universities, 9 (22%) four-year state-supported universities, and 14 (34%) two-year state-supported colleges. Quantitative analysis of institutional priorities indicated that two-year state-supported institutions demonstrated higher priorities in several areas for providing an adult student support system than did four-year state-supported and privately controlled institutions. Overall, state-supported institutions were similar to privately controlled institutions in their priorities for providing adult student support systems. Two-year institutions with enrollment above 5,000 evidenced higher priorities in several areas than did two-year institutions with enrollment below 5,000. Four-year institutions with enrollments above 2,000 were similar in priorities to four-year institutions with enrollments below 2,000 in every area except recruiting adult students.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS