KJC Korea
Journal Central

It is a crucial topic for the discussion of legalization of homeschooling that how appropriately homeschooling contributes to the goals of public education system. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the effects of homeschooling, a social movement emerged as a form of resistance to public schools, in terms of the goals of public education system, i.e., social equality, social integration, manpower production, and educational experiences. In order to accomplish the research purposes, a kind of meta-analysis was used. Previous literature including journals, newspapers, magazines, and books was re-analyzed according to the frame of reference for the study. Results showed that all the functions of the public education except social equality were properly played by homeschooling, comparable to public schools. This implies that homeschooling might be legalized in the near future. However, it should be noted that homeschooling has some limitations with regards to social equality, which requires policy measures to provide financial assistance to homeschooling families from low socio-economic status. Finally, it is recommended that more reliable research methods need to be employed including a quasi-experimental design, a large sample, a longitudinal study, and a regression model controlling for family background variables to influence academic achievement or socialization in order to say the genuine effects of homeschooling.

The objective of this study were to analyze the related research trends of the articles applied cluster analysis on learner and lifelong learner, and to identify and discuss the possibility of subdividing lifelong learners into new groups. The study results were as follows. First, the target of cluster analysis was mostly accounted for by adults from the aspect of life cycle and social groups, and college students, graduate school students and other workers from the aspect of social groups. Second, the classification criteria used for cluster analysis of lifelong learners included academic motivation, learning properties, personal disposition, etc. Third, in order to identify inherent attributes of the groups revealed through the cluster analysis and to analyze the correlation with characteristic factors of lifelong learners, major statistical techniques were employed. Fourth, the number of clusters applying the properties and attributes of lifelong learners was relatively high in 3 and 4; by giving a new name for each cluster, it tried to highlight the new meaning of the lifelong learner groups. The results implicates that there have been widespread efforts to re-recognize subdivided groups by using the properties and attributes of lifelong learners from the viewpoints of lifelong education rather than traditional viewpoints such as life cycle and social groups. Moreover, the results can be utilized as meaningful criteria and conditions for understanding and supporting lifelong learners in the field of studying and practicing lifelong education.

This study analyzed learning behavior and the factors affecting learning achievement to identify employed learners’ characteristics of learning participation in an online higher education using learning analytics approach. The results first showed that employed learners mostly study at night and in their spare time at work. Second, among various learning behavior variables, the best predictor of achievement was learning frequency. Third, due to time limits for studying, employed learners were less affected by effective management of learning time such as regularity of learning interval. Finally, achievement was significantly affected by the interactions with instructor, tutor and peer students during online learning process. This study suggested that online higher education program for employed learners should consider (1) learning support system expansion taking into account employed learners’ online learning behaviors, (2) operation of real-time information system of learning activity, (3) periodic guidance and encouragement for learning participation on the basis of learning activity analysis, (4) information service of time management and learning strategies, and (5) improvement of interaction during online learning courses.

The purpose of the study was to investigate adulthood life after high school for students with developmental disabilities using qualitative study. 14 participants participated in focus group interview for this study including 4 youth with developmental disabilities who graduated from high school within 5 years and 10 mothers of youth with developmental disabilities. They were asked to describe youth’s everyday life and adulthood after high school. Qualitative data were analysed with QSR Nvivo 10 software according to the procedures of Thematic Analysis. As a result of analysis, 4 major themes were identified including (1) too much extra time and nowhere to go, (2) unstable job, (3) limited interpersonal relationship: I have only my family, (4) urgent lifelong education needed. Discussions and implications on these findings will be addressed.

This study aimed at providing a strategy to vitalize happiness learning centers by analyzing the perceptions and demands of the administrators, happiness learning managers and students of the centers in Busan, the key stakeholders of the operation of the centers. The content was reorganized into three forms―for administrators, for happiness learning managers, and for students―and then a survey was carried out. The key results of the study are as follows. First, the three groups all expected that operating happiness learning centers would contribute to the development of Busan and shared the thought that the programs of happiness learning centers should reflect local residents’ demands. Second, the administrators and happiness learning managers had difficulty in sharing a vision(aim) for the operation of a happiness learning center and had different views of the function of the center and the manager’s role, tasks and capability. Third, for the vitalization of happiness learning centers in Busan, differentiation from other lifelong learning projects, job training for the enhancement of the skills of persons in charge, budget support, and the development of customized programs were suggested.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of activity in SNS-based teacher learning communities on development of teachers’ professionalism by analyzing the activities and characteristics of participating teachers. An SNS-based teacher learning community was selected, and thereafter, online participant observation, document analysis, and video interviews with 4 participating teachers were conducted from December 2013 to October 2014. The study results obtained by analyzing the collected data are as follows: First, among the activities intended for teachers’ professionalism development, those focused on class performance improvement included activities such as voluntary training activities and syllabus sharing activities; those related to the affective domain included activities such as emotional communication activities. Second, the interviews with the research participants revealed that participation in G-meetings developed teachers’ professionalism by “consolidating the way of thinking about a class,” “acquiring living knowledge and putting it into practice,” “forming rapport,” “overcoming the limits of existing communities.” For SNS-based teacher learning communities to continue developing, the following requirements are pointed out: they should consider associating with web-based online teacher learning communities; participating teachers should also understand professionalism as a concept of continuous learning.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between career-planning behavior and ecological-system variables of college students. And this study tried to examine the change-patterns of career-planning behavior of college students. The survey data for 4 years(2008 year~2011 year) were used from the time when the third grade students of middle school would become college students by using longitudinal data of Korean Education & Employment Panel (KEEP) in Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education Training. The major findings of the study were as follows; First, learning attitude, academic achievement, and career-planning behavior of college students tended to have increased for 4 years. Second, the gender factor had a positive effect on the intercept of career- planning behavior. The intercept of gender and academic achievement had an effect on the slope of career-planning behavior. Third, the function of learning attitude was identified to have a mediation effect between individual gender, health, and career-planning behavior.