Abstract
A cardinal principle of adult education is that adults should participate in planning their own learning activities. The benefits of such participation have not, however, been documented through controlled experimental inquiry. The present study tested the hypotheses that participation in course planning would result in higher achievement and satisfaction. A post-test only control group design was employed with replication. The subjects of the initial experiment were 28 nursing supervisors randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. The experimental group participated in planning their course in supervision. The control group completed the course as planned by the experimental group. The experiment was then replicated with 26 support service supervisors. The results were nearly identical for both experiments. No differences were found between the experimental and control groups in either achievement or satisfaction. One explanation for the findings is that control group subjects reaped the benefits of a “good course” planned by co-workers with similar needs. Nonetheless, direct participation in itself was found to have no effects, thereby raising important questions for future research.
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