ADULT STUDENTS RETURNING TO SCHOOL.   Term Paper ID:28933 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Discuses whether this age group has the study skills necessary to succeed in college. Studies on intellectual ability of older adults. Adaptation. Admission test scores & achievement outcomes.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Discuses whether this age group has the study skills necessary to succeed in college. Studies on intellectual ability of older adults. Adaptation. Admission test scores & achievement outcomes. Paper Introduction: With many older people returning to school to continue their education, the question has arisen as to whether they possess deficient study skills and whether study skills training is essential for older students to succeed in college. According to the College Board, 45 percent of all college students are 25 years of age or older, and only about 20 percent of college students are full-time and under 22 years of age (Culross, 1996). Adult students are represented in all sectors of higher education from the community college to the research university, says Culross. Many adult students completed high school at a time before universities instituted admission requirements. Also, Culross points out, women were often discouraged from taking math and other @hard@ courses in high school and from attending college. In today=s job market, worke Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. NewYork, NY: Oxford University Press. From their extensive review of theliterature, Richardson and King (1998) conclude that the idea that adultstudents are deficient in their study skills is unfounded and not backed upby evidence because there is no specific set of study skills thatconstitutes effective studying in higher education. If it was indeed true that adult students possess deficient studyskills and that skills training is essential to ensure an older student=ssuccess in college, then by definition their academic outcome should bepoorer than that of traditional younger students. 75-88). (1984). Adultstudents have proved that they can manage their time better than youngerstudents, and have a deeper approach to their studies. As further evidence that adult students should be at least assuccessful as younger students, there is a belief that students who aresuccessful manifest an approach toward studying which fosters comprehendingthe meaning of materials at a deeper level, while unsuccessful studentsunderstand things at only a superficial level, and just learn what isneeded for tests. B. They believe students must understand and use study aids in atextbook; prepare for, and participate in, class; think critically; displayknowledge; and learn for learning=s sake. critical thinking). In P. In fact, adultstudents are usually more adept at time management than younger students,and adopt a much more desirable approach to studying than their youngercounterparts. A. D. 38-41. Reading, 32, p. Culross, R. Toward a neofunctionalistconception of adult intellectual development: wisdom as a prototypical caseof intellectual growth. (1996). From the research cited above, there is no evidence forthis. The goal of teaching studyskills, they point out, is to have students use them in all their classes,and to do this the instructor must be able to make the students recognizethat the skills are applicable across a broad range of subjects (p. Johnson, D. Caplan, S. They quote a study whichshowed that students over the age of 25 at the time of their entry intouniversity reported better time-management strategies than those agedbetween 21 and 24, and traditional students. J. Helping students think and read more critically. Elias found that mature studentswere less apprehensive than traditional ones in oral communication and moretolerant of ambiguity. Studies have shown that many accounting students are deficient incommunication skills even though it is well known that writing and oralcommunication skills are very important to employers in hiring andpromotion decisions. O. Ed. Reading, 33, p. The older the better? (1989). Draft statement for National Councilfor Excellence in Critical Thinking.http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink Wheeler, S., & Birtle, J. (1998). N. Learning skills instruction improves studentretention and academic performance. In Ed., 32, pp. He believes thatbecause of their lower apprehension, such students will usually benefitmore from programs designed to improve communication skills. 4 -44. There are somedifferences in the types of subjects studied, but overall older studentsperform as well as younger students. Higher Ed., 69, pp. The authors suggestthree reasons for this: adult students are motivated by intrinsic goalsrather than by vocational ones; younger students developed superficialstudy habits during their later years in high school; and the lifeexperience of adult students promotes a deeper approach to studying. 6, pp. Adult students in highereducation: burden or boon? (1993). Wheeler and Birtle (1993also suggested that older students may not have the work speed andretentive capabilities of younger students, which would place them at adisadvantage. J. ForBus., 75, pp. (1984). J. It is notso much that the adult students do not have adequate study skills, but thatthey have not taken the prerequisite courses for today=s college coursesbecause of changes in course materials and previous attitudes to education. 31-48.). They found that olderadults= learning curves, regardless of task complexity, were characterizedby greatervariability in performance quality between trials than those of youngerstudents. Bird, M. (1999, March pp. They add that these results are consistent with changes inprocessing speed and working memory capacity that are believed to occurwith advancing age. He suggests that older students may possess more ofthe qualities needed by the accounting profession. However, inthe area of critical thinking and comprehension, there is no singleapproach which has been found to improve study skills. Using a least-squares regression analysis,Daniel and Keeley found that the MAT scores over-predicted the grades ofthe younger and older groups, and under-predicted the scores for the middlegroup. (1984). Brim, Jr. Adults, it has been shown, are more likely than youngerstudents to adopt the deeper approach, i.e. Res. G. Previous studieshad shown that younger students earned grade point averages that were lowerthan those predicted by their GRE scores, while older students earnedgrades that were higher than predicted by their GRE scores. T. Several methods have been tried to improve study skills in students.Many colleges and universities have programs designed to help studentsimprove study skills and reading comprehension (Bird, 1989). K.: Society for Research into Higher Education and OpenUniversity Press. (1989). 738-748. B., Dittman-Kohli, & Dixon, R. (1996). According to the College Board, 45 percentof all college students are 25 years of age or older, and only about 2 percent of college students are full-time and under 22 years of age(Culross, 1996). Some adult students lack the required reading, writing, and mathskills required for enrollment in some college-level courses, eitherbecause they failed to take them in high-school, or because the coursesthey took are no longer sufficient and they need to take Amake up@ coursesto prepare them for today=s college curriculums (Culross, 1996). Their maturity andtheir life experiences may make them a better candidate for a highereducation. Richardson and King (1998) dispute the idea that adult students areless effective and less successful than younger students simply because oftheir age. J. Alexander & E. In other words, they display the learningcharacteristics which higher education traditionally tries to instill inyounger students (Richardson and King, 1998, p. A study of mature studentperformance in British universities. Commun. Acquisitionof message-production skills by younger and older adults: effects of age,task complexity, and practice. Baltes, Dittman-Kohliand Dixon (199 ) suggest that adults tend to optimize their adaptation tothe demands of everyday life, even with reduced central capacity, by de-emphasizing irrelevant skills. With many older people returning to school to continue theireducation, the question has arisen as to whether they possess deficientstudy skills and whether study skills training is essential for olderstudents to succeed in college. J. Monographs, Conway, M., & Ross, M. Scriven, M., & Paul, R. Accounting students with highoral communication apprehension are unlikely to advance in their careersand less likely to speak up in class. & Soc. Critical thinkinginvolves a set of skills to process and generate information and beliefs,and a habit of using those skills to guide behavior (Scriven and Paul,1996). Getting what you want by revisingwhat you had. They should be morelikely to fail their courses or withdraw from them, and if they do succeed,they should attain much lower academic achievement than their youngercounterparts. J. Richardson, J. Phys. These authors point out that many students do not even bother topurchase required textbooks, let alone read them. Adult students do succeed academically. However, even though changes in intellectual performance do occur withage, these changes occur in what is known as Afluid intelligence@ or, inpsychological terms, the available central capacity for informationprocessing. Remediation: real students, real standards.Change, 28, pp. B. Differential prediction ofadult student performance from Miller analogies test scores. Some adults returning toschool do lack the reading, writing and math skills required for enrollmentin some college level courses because of increased standards, but this doesnot necessarily mean they do not have the required study skills to make upthese differences and achieve success in higher education. Kras, Strand, Abendroth-Smith and Mathesius (1999) identified fivelevels for teaching students to take responsibility for their studying andlearning. E., & Greene, G. The ages of the students using the Centerare not given, so it is not possible to see if older students utilized orbenefitted from the program. (1996). Woodley, A. J. An examination of nontraditional accountingstudents= communication apprehension and ambiguity tolerance. Students also need to be taught about the different types of teststhey will have to take - multiple choice, true/false, essay - and how toprepare for them, these authors believe. 35-5 . (199 ). Daniel, H. Dittman-Kohli, F., & Baltes, P. These studiesused students 24 years of age or less for the younger group, or 25 yearsand older for the older group. However, there is nothingspecific in these skills with regard to the age of the student, and many ofthese abilities may already be developed in adult students just because oftheir life experiences (e.g. Adult students are represented in all sectors of highereducation from the community college to the research university, saysCulross. Z. Elias (1999) looked at nontraditional students=communications skills, examining communication apprehension and ambiguitytolerance. Mature students have been the subject of many studies comparing themto younger students. A study at theUniversity of Missouri, which established a Learning Center in 1976 toprovide assistance in writing, math, science, study skills and reading,found that students who used the Center performed better and showed higherretention rates (Johnson, 1989). Their subsequent academicperformance was no better than the group on the waiting list, and even whenthey were told at a debriefing that the course had no effect, they stillinsisted that the course had been beneficial. There seems to be little or no decline with age, and possiblyeven a growth, in Acrystallized intelligence,@ and especially in tasks thathave to do with expertise and the development of systems of knowledge -what we commonly call wisdom (Baltes, Dittman-Kohli and Dixon, 1984).Dittman-Kohli and Baltes (199 ) believe that older people would be morecapable of exhibiting the interpretative, contextualized, and relativisticconceptions of learning that others have claimed constitute genuineintellectual development among university students. Critical thinking is essentialto really understand course material and analyze it. A handbook for personal tutors.Buckingham, U. Students need to come to class prepared, and toparticipate, otherwise they will not benefit from being in the class.Students need to know how to take effective notes in class, includingdeveloping an effective form of shorthand. 71). Psych., 47, pp. Two components of communicationapprehension are writing apprehension, which has an impact on a student=swillingness to write, and oral communication apprehension, a fear of realor anticipated communication with people. (1999). J. They also point out that most of the testsused to measure changes in intellectual capacity were originally designedto be used with children and young adults, and may be inappropriate for usewith older adults. Teaching study skills through classroom activities. Also, Culross points out,women were often discouraged from taking math and other @hard@ courses inhigh school and from attending college. Orlando, Fl; Academic Press. N., Abendroth-Smith, J., & Mathesius, P.(1999). 69).They add that Aformal study-skills courses that are organized apart fromthe general teaching program will probably be ineffective or evencounterproductive, even if they are taught by teachers of the relevantacademic discipline.@ The researchers quote a study by Conway and Ross (1984) who comparedstudents who had undertaken a study-skills program with others who had beenassigned to a waiting list. There is evidence that work motivation changes throughcareer development, and that student attitudes are related to achievementoutcomes such as grade performance and school withdrawal. The resultsare evidence that the predictive relationship between admission test scoresand achievement outcomes may not be the same for all adult students, andmay be age-related. a meaning orientation towardstheir academic studies. In today=s job market, workers areoften required to have a college degree, and also often need to be computerliterate, and possess advanced math skills and competency in oral andwritten communications. J., & Keeley, E. Pers. E. Another point is that most older students in highereducation are between the ages of 25 and 34, and so their cognitiveabilities should be similar to those of traditional students as they havenot yet reached the age where these abilities begin to decline. The area where some adult students might be expected to have aproblem, admit Richardson and King, is in time management, however this isnot a problem with most adult students (p. One possible explanation of the results is that motivation isgreatest in the middle-adult years, and these students earned higher thanpredicted grades. 5 -52. They need to be taughtthe importance of the textbooks to the course, and the need to do thenecessary reading. 226. There has been some discussion in the literature regarding theintellectual ability of older adults. Elias, R. Kras, J. Newperspectives on the development of intelligence in adulthood: Toward a dual-process conception and a model of selective optimization with compensation. They found that the main reason students whohad taken the course reported an improvement in their study skills was thatthey underrated their previous study skills. In one such study, Daniel and Keeley (1996) looked atthe MAT scores of mature students in three different age groups - 25 to 34years of age, 35 to 44 years of age, and 45 years of age or older - to seeif there was a predictive value for their GPA in college. In the past, many high-paying jobs could be found without auniversity degree, so many people did not go on to a higher education.Now, the more technological society is becoming, the more education skillsare needed to compete for high-paying jobs. As to adults not possessing the study skills necessary tosucceed, they point out that, while self-reports of studying behavior dosometimes reveal a study-skills factor, scores on this factor fail to showany consistent relationship with academic performance, and the idea thatthere is one specific set of skills that constitutes effective studying andtherefore guarantees better outcomes has largely been discredited (p. 32. Ed.,Rec., & Dance, 7 , pp. There is no evidence to suggest that they possess deficientstudy skills or that study skills training is essential to ensure an olderstudent=s success in college. 7 ). 4 ). Although no statistics are kept which allow a comparison in Americanuniversities, studies in British universities have found that there isreally no difference in the quality of graduates between younger and olderstudents (Richardson and King, 1998, pp. 65-88. J. As early as (1984), Woodley proposed that older students have adecreased capacity for learning both in terms of memory and in the mentalflexibility needed to adapt to new perspectives. M., Strand, B. The students inthe middle group may have been at a stage in their career where they weremore motivated to achieve than the younger and older groups. Elias pointsout that this study confirms earlier education research that found olderstudents are better equipped for the college experience than youngerstudents. References Baltes, P. Richardson and King (1998) acknowledge that adult students taken togetherdo embrace a disproportionate number of women and minorities, whotraditionally have a harder time in college, but do not believe that as awhole they lack the skills to succeed (p. 5 1-5 3. 33-776). Langer (Eds.), Higherstages of human development: Perspectives on adult growth (pp. CPA firms have noted that new accountants must possess goodcommunication skills, be able to identify and solve unstructured problemsin unfamiliar settings, and comprehend an unfocused set of facts.Communication apprehension, which differs from communication skills, isdetrimental to accounting students. 54-78). 68). In, C. (Eds.), Life-span development andbehavior (Vol. E., & King, E. Baltes & o. Gen.Psych., 157, pp. Caplan and Greene (1999) looked atmessage-production skill acquisition in younger and older adults inlearning a sequence for describing geometric arrays. Since no one hasyet been able to define a consistently successful set of study skills,there may not be one: each person may develop what works for them. Many adult students completed high school at a time beforeuniversities instituted admission requirements. 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