- Title
- Mid-career adult learners in an online doctoral program and the drivers of their academic self-regulation: the importance of social support and parent education level
- Creator
- Williams, Peter E.; Wall, Natalie; Fish, Wade W.
- Relation
- International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Vol. 20, Issue 1, p. 63-78
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i1.3789
- Publisher
- Athabasca University Press
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Adult professionals enroll in online graduate programs and rely on social support and on their ability to self-regulate to be successful. The literature on academic self-regulation among emerging adults (traditional college age) is ample, but we do not know how social support interacts with academic self-regulation among adult graduate students at mid-career, particularly among those students who are first generation college goers. This study addressed the following questions: (1) To what degree do parental education level and cohort progression predict academic self-regulation? and (2) What sources of social support – family, friends, loved one (significant other), and classmates – are predictive of academic self-regulation for adult students in an online doctoral program? Findings include evidence that the influence of parental educational level on academic self-regulation persists through midlife. Also, that perceived social support from family, friends, and peers predicts academic self-regulation. We conclude with implications for the design of online programs.
- Subject
- academic self-regulation; adults; doctoral; online; first-generation; social support
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1445111
- Identifier
- uon:42502
- Identifier
- ISSN:1492-3831
- Language
- eng
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