| This replicated study (A. Tucho, 2000, "Factors Influencing the General Educational Development [GED] Program at Community College of Philadelphia as Perceived by the GED Students") determined which of the 3 types of educational barriers (institutional, situational, and dispositional) represented the major difficulty preventing adult learners from various races from completing their GED studies at a community college in Michigan. A Likert-scale survey was utilized from Tucho's study to collect data for the survey, which was disseminated to 251 adult learners who dropped out of the college's GED Preparation Program either Semester A/Semester B, Semester C, or Semester D. Seventy-two surveys were returned, for a response rate of 29%, and these were checked for completeness and usability. The study discovered that adult learners at this institution appear to be most affected by situational barriers. The study identified job responsibility, home responsibility, transportation problems, insufficient time to study, trouble with the law, no babysitter, illness, and pregnancy as the highest rated situational barriers deterring adult learners from completing their GED studies. Also, data suggest that factors such as gender, job status, marital status, and race/ethnicity were not deterrents to program completion. |
