| The primary purposes of this study were to identify the perceptions of Taiwan adult educators regarding the current levels of competence and future levels of importance of adult educator competencies as well as to investigate the differences between levels of selected demographic variables (gender, age, highest degree, current position, and years of involvement in the field of adult education) in terms of current competence and future importance perceptions. To fulfill the purposes of this study, six research questions were developed. The methodology used to conduct this study was a quantitative method using a questionnaire. The target population for this study was the faculty and graduate students from adult education programs in five universities in Taiwan for the Spring semester of 2003. The instrument used in this study was a self-report questionnaire consisting of two parts: (1) Part 1: Personal Profile and (2) Part 2: Competencies. The second part of the questionnaire was based on the competency list from the Models for HRD Practice (McLagan, 1989). Besides the 35 competencies from McLagan (1989), two additional competency items were added based on a literature review. A total of 347 respondents participated in this study.; In order to answer Research Questions 1 and 3, descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and mean ranking were calculated for individual competencies in each competency category. In order to answer Research Questions 2 and 4, mean, standard deviation, stem and leaf plots and box plots were used to present the descriptive differences among the competency categories. Separate one way ANOVAs were used to answer Research Questions 5 and 6. An additional effort was made to investigate via factor analysis the number of factors regarding the 37 competencies used in this study in terms of the empirical data obtained from this Taiwan sample. The methods of principal component analysis and Varimax rotation were employed to extract and interpret the factors.; Based on the findings of this study, 11 conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made regarding (1) academic and related institutions of adult education, (2) adult educators, and (3) future research. |
