Nontraditional Students and Academic Success
Continuing Education Requires Learning How to Learn Effectively
Sep 28, 2009
Nontraditional students are adults who return to school full- or part-time for continuing education opportunities to begin a new career or improve their career outlook. These students maintain full time responsibilities such as employment, family, and other responsibilities of an adult life. Their need differs from traditional students because of their developmental requirements, issues, and stressors. Traditional students enter college straight from high school.
For these nontraditional students or adult learners, beginning or returning to the college environment is a challenging and sometimes daunting task. Their life’s responsibilities often carry a myriad of complications that make learning difficult at times. Financial and family concerns are two of the biggest considerations that impact their adult learning experience. However these adults tend to be achievement oriented, highly motivated, and relatively independent.
Non Traditional Students: Characteristics of Adult Students
A number of factors characteristically reflect the needs, learning, views, and beliefs of nontraditional students. Adult learners need flexible schedules, along with instruction that is appropriate for their developmental level. Adults generally prefer more active approaches to learning and value opportunities to integrate academic learning with their life and work experiences. Additional factors which distinguish their needs include:
- a strong view and belief that education as an investment in their future
- multiple non-school-related commitments and responsibilities
- not having a cohesive age group with which to bond socially
- having limited support and social acceptability for their student status in more traditional adult roles
- having difficulties juggling their roles of student, worker, and family member
- needing help in building self-confidence when acquiring or refreshing study skills
- managing their time and other resources while in school
These factors impact the way adult students learn how to learn.
Learning to Learn: Adult Education Requirements
Non-traditional students express concern about their academic preparedness and ability to learn. This concern stems from issues such as being a first generation college student, little experience with the new technologies, and from having a General Education Development (GED) degree. This concern is typically is linked with the length of time since being in a classroom, which plays a major role in their anxiety about their ability to learn.
Often first generation college students come from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds. Poor communities, regardless of location, often do not provide foundational learning experiences adult students need to be successful.
Adult students, who obtained a GED, are often concerned with having the math and writing skills necessary to successfully complete courses. These students often turn to or are required to complete remedial courses.
Many adult learners, especially those without prior college experience, are surprised by differences in the way college courses are taught compared to their prior high school experiences. Undergraduate courses a typically comprised of midterms and final exams, which require knowledge about concepts rather than simple memorization of facts. While graduate courses rely more on reading research, writing research papers, and making connections with real world experiences.
Learning to learn is connected to an adult learner’s personal life, alignment with work, and knowledge of social responsibility. These sorts of connections are not automatically developed when one becomes an adult. Learning takes deliberate effort and continual reflection. There is a lot more to learning than memorizing, recalling, or even understanding facts. Tips for nontraditional students include developing an education plan, along with knowing how to:
- apply knowledge to new areas
- integrate knowledge with other aspects of life
- understand the implications of knowledge for self and others
- care about learning
This is why spending just a few hours on homework or even one semester reading a textbook often fails to provide the level of understanding needed for long term success. Clearly, learning requires a major investment in time and development of successful habits. Unfortunately, time is a premium for nontraditional students and they must use their time wisely for effective learning.
Making Connections: Comparing Nontraditional Student Needs and Learning to Learn
Adult learners must take the proactive values of learning and apply these values with their beliefs that education is a long term investment in their career success. Nontraditional students must learn to take advantage of all resources available to them as they learn. These resources include technology, seeking extra help from instructors, visiting the library, forming study groups, and taking advantage of free tutoring services provided by most colleges.
For nontraditional students to improve their learning effectiveness and efficiency when completing continuing education courses, they must learn how they learn. Experimenting with what works best when going back to school and sticking with this builds self-confidence, which leads to success in their adult education endeavors.
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