Abstract
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.
Highlights
Increasing numbers of mid-career adults enroll in online or hybrid doctoral programs while remaining in their communities yet they often do not complete those programs in spite of the ease of access afforded by distributed programs
It is well established that social support is important for college students in early adulthood, but we suggest that the sources of social support that contribute to academic selfregulation are sufficiently different for the adult working professional studying online and so are worthy of investigation
Multiple regression analysis was used to measure to what degree the predictor variables of parental education levels (PEL), cohort progression and perceived social support predicted the criterion variable of perceived self-regulation
Summary
Increasing numbers of mid-career adults enroll in online or hybrid doctoral programs while remaining in their communities yet they often do not complete those programs in spite of the ease of access afforded by distributed (usually online) programs. Their family and work contexts can lend social support for their graduate studies and simultaneously be a source of competing demands and distractions. The purpose of this study was to explore the interactions of perceived social support, parent education level, and academic self-regulation among mid-career adult students in an online doctoral program
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