Educational Climate In Elective Adult Education: Shared Decision Making and Communication Patterns

Abstract

Abstract:Educational climate represents the social and contextual qualities of an organization as perceived by the participants. The theoretical construct of educational climate encompasses a range of variables which have been categorized as ecology, milieu, social system, and culture (Tigiuri, 1968). These categories are similar to the elements of the andragogical process described by Knowles (1984). In this research, the theoretical climate category of social system emerged as influential in an ethnographic study of an elective university program. Findings revealed that shared decision making and communication patterns were instrumental in the quality of the adult learning experience. Article:Researchers studying educational effectiveness in traditional school settings have long acknowledged certain characteristics which contribute to student achievement. Components related to curricular and instructional planning, teacher and student behavior, and student attitude have been addressed extensively in the educational literature (e.g., Gage, 1978;Rosenshine, 1979). Rosenshine (1979), for example, characterizes effective classrooms as those employing direct instructional techniques such as teacher control of content and space, immediate focused feedback, and frequent monitoring of student performance.Other researchers have looked beyond instructional components to identify social and cultural variables which contribute to the overall educational environment. These variables have been conceptualized into models of an affective construct termed educational climate (Getzel & Thelan, 1960;Moos, 1974;Tagiuri, 1968). Climate is a component of the total environmental quality within an organization. In an extensive review of literature, Anderson (1982) has described the current status of school climate research and the theoretical and methodological problems involved in the delineation of this construct, A similar review by Randhawa and Fu (1973) has focused primarily on classroom climate variables.Most climate research has been conducted within elementary and secondary programs. Only two studies were found which investigated social climate in adult education settings. Darkenwald and Gavin (1987) examined the influence of social climate on dropout behavior, while DeYoung (1977) investigated the effect of climate on class success at the university level. The extent of the omission of climate as a variable in adult education research is surprising when one considers the potential impact of the educational environment in the attainment of content proficiency (Knox, 1980), self-directed learning (Brookfield, 1986;Spear & Mocker, 1984), and andragogical theory (Knowles, 1970).While it is a simple matter in climate evaluation to calculate student-teacher ratios or to survey teachers to determine their years of experience, it is much more difficult to map social systems and belief structures which play a major role in student and teacher perceptions of climate (Tagiuri, 1968). In these latter instances, it is the nature of the c...

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Assessing the Comparability of Classroom Environments in Graduate Social Work Education Delivered via Interactive Instructional Television

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