| Nearly half of all graduate students are adult learners (U.S. Department of Education, 2009) and these learners generally hold important roles in their workplaces, families, and communities (Mannins, 2003). When these students enter transformative degree programs that ultimately shift their self-concepts and their relationships, the impacts during and after the program can be tremendous and destabilizing (Fetherston & Kelly, 2007; Mezirow and Associates, 2000). Given the significant impacts these transformative degree programs have on adult learners (and those in their lives), it is critical to better understand these learners' experiences and how adult learners may be supported through their challenging journeys. This study examined the personal growth adult learners experience as part of completing a transformative degree program. The research questions examined the challenges they experience, the changes they undergo, and the support they need to achieve a higher degree of functioning or wholeness.;This study utilized a qualitative autoethnographic design. Data were collected from (a) a brief autobiographical account of my experience in two transformative master's degree programs, (b) projective artwork created for this study, (c) a review of my journals created during my transformative experience, and (d) interviews with five adult learners who had completed a transformative master's degree program.;Results suggested that adult learners face seven key challenges during transformative degree programs: choosing transformation, facing despair and doubt, encountering the authentic self, enduring dissonance between one's current and desired states, enduring difficult emotions, negotiating relationships, and dealing with specific stressors. Adult learners were found to experience three key changes during these programs: enhancing their capacity for change, increasing their self-understanding and self-acceptance, and deepening their relationships. Three primary forms of support were found to be important: others' support and companionship, models and supportive context for transformation, and self-agency and self-confidence.;The key limitation of this study centers on the limits of the autoethnographic design and its small sample size. To build upon this study, future research is advised to determine adult learner profiles and what challenges, changes, and support needs each type of adult learner may need during transformative degree programs. |
