A System for Discerning and Analyaing the Present State of Adult Education Dissertation Research

Abstract

The field of adult education represented in the dissertations of its seventy‐seven graduate programs has expanded in the last 70 years to include a wide range of practices and professional interests. The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of a classification schema capable of indexing this growth. Utilizing historical inquiry and cataloging techniques, the author has created a system for adult education researchers to investigate the knowledge base of adult education dissertations. This schema, The Roger DeCrow/William Rainey Harper Memorial International Classification System of Adult Continuing Education, represents an extensive reformulation of an existing 1960s‐era proto system. The schema was used to code the combined dissertation databases of the Research and Evaluation in Adult Continuing Education (RE/ACE) Office of Northern Illinois University and University Microfilms International (UMI). RE/ACE's data are based on the yearly compilation of dissertations submitted by members of the Commission of Professors of Adult Education (CPAE), while UMI's data encompass all dissertations under their code 0516 (education, adult and continuing). The resulting blended databases will eventually be place on a World Wide Web (W3) listserve through the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. (NIU).

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