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The purpose of this paper is to analyze six learning theories, beyond those presented in an earlier article by the authors, and discuss their relevance and application in online instruction.

The following databases were used to review the literature on adult learning theories: Academic Search Premier, ERIC and ProQuest. The following key search terms were used in the search process: online instruction, cognitivism, connectivism, heutagogy, social learning theory, transformative learning theory and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. The titles of the identified articles were first reviewed for relevance, followed by the abstract, before any further review for suitability for inclusion in this article.

The theory comparison revealed that it is critical to ascertain which learning theory best matches an instructional situation and the background of the learners. The selected learning theories differ in several parameters. The theories were critiqued for their contributions to identified elements in promoting learning. The discussed theories suggest ways to improve online learning environments.

Many adult perspectives about learning, while called theories, are largely lacking in evidence leading to them becoming theories. Thus, there remains a need for empirical evidence of these theories and their roles in online instruction. Comparisons of the application of these theories for adult learners in online instruction would also be useful in establishing the effectiveness of the various learning theories in different adult learning situations.

This paper provides a theoretical lens for adult instructors and instructional designers in incorporating these adult learning theories appropriately in improving online instruction.

This literature review uniquely critiques and compares common adult theories as they apply to adult online instruction.

The purpose of this paper is to study employee engagement in higher education by examining full-time non-tenure track faculty members’ perceptions at a North East US state public university.

The authors used semi-structured face-to-face personal interviews with 11 non-tenure track full-time university faculty. Using a phenomenological approach, thematic analysis was conducted for employee interview data. The data was further refined through first and second cycle coding. The primary eight coded clusters were further reduced to three data clusters, each representing an evolving unit of meaning.

The analysis revealed three themes relating to how full-time non-tenure track faculty experience and understand engagement: required institutional engagement, perceived necessary engagement and relational collegial engagement.

The study adds to the limited research available on non-tenure track faculty members within higher education organization and their perceptions of engagement.

This paper aims to review the literature to discuss engaging online instructional design and instructors’ role in enhancing learner engagement in educational and corporate settings.

This paper carries out a narrative literature review.

Instructor presence in online learner engagement is a multidimensional effort, and learner engagement can be established in online instruction through communication, consistent feedback on learner performance and critical discourse. Building connection with the learners is essential in an online learning environment. Engaging online instructors challenge and encourage learners to spare more academic effort, use techniques to improve engagement and involve and care about learners.

Instructors’ roles in shaping online learning and instruction deserve more attention. More research is needed to understand which technologies work best for specific academic areas or learner demographics and why online learners find it difficult to learn with peers unless supplemented with appropriate online instruction.

This review offers strategies for improved online instructional design to achieve learning engagement.

This review highlights an underexplored concept of instructors’ role in creating engaging online instructional design by understanding learner needs and receptiveness.

This paper analyzes critically four selected learning theories and their role in online instruction for adults.

A literature review was conducted to analyze the theories.

The theory comparison revealed that no single theory encompasses the entirety of online instruction for adult learning; each theory explains some portion of adult online learning; theories are contextual; and components of all theories can be utilized to improve online learning.

Adult learning theories and their roles in shaping online learning and instruction deserve more attention. The study of adult learning theories, combined with in-depth analysis of psychological and human resource literature, will enable researchers to delve deeper into the subject. More qualitative studies are needed to explore further how instructors’ ability to utilize theoretical principles can improve online learning.

This manuscript offers practical advice to instructors and other practitioners for utilizing adult learning theories for instructional enhancement.

This literature review uniquely contributes to filling the gap in human resource development literature by examining selected adult learning theories, comparing them and extending the theories’ applicability and value in online instruction.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how emotional intelligence (EI) influences intercultural competence (IC), which in turn may influence online instruction. The authors further explored the varying attributes of EI and the extent to which it intersects with IC in the workplace.

Literature on EI and IC from the fields of education, business and leadership was reviewed. The search entailed articles related to EI and IC using the following databases: Business Search Premier, ERIC, JSTOR and ProQuest. The authors used the following key search terms in researching the articles: EI, IC, learning and online instruction. Title and abstract analyses judged each article’s suitability for the study.

To better perceive, understand and appreciate others and their cultures, we need to understand our own emotions and the way we interact with others. EI is thus the foundation on which IC can be built. It takes a higher level of EI to develop higher IC quotient. An online instructor should be cognizant about the emotional issues involved in the online learning and suitably modify the instruction to improve learner engagement to ensure better and improved student learning.

Findings of this study should provide useful information for theory building and practice. Further, it is hoped the findings of this study will stimulate more scholarly interest in this relatively untapped research area exploring how EI can influence IC and ultimately influence online instruction and improve student learning.

The findings will serve as useful pointers for instructors and scholars who strive to improve ICs and appreciate the nuances that enable an emotionally intelligent instructor to perform better and connect with learners from a different culture.

Based on empirical literature reviewed, EI is the ability to perceive, understand and control our own emotions to better connect and relate with other individuals. It is the ability to recognize the emotional cues and change our behavior accordingly. IC is the ability to understand and appreciate the cultural differences to better function in a culture different from our own. The two constructs are therefore interrelated and have a significant overlap. However, while EI has been studied exclusively in different contexts, surprisingly, the researchers have not given adequate attention to the important theme of using EI in improving IC or even the role EI can play in improving instructors’ IC. Moreover, the interrelationship between EI, IC and online learning has not been explored previously. This paper seeks to address this gap.

The purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between adaptive performance and work-related indicators of psychological well-being among ‘The Episcopal Church bishops.’

Hierarchical regression models were used in this research study to explore the relationship between adaptive performance and work-related psychological health.

There was a positive correlation between adaptive performance and work-related psychological health. Demographic factors did not correlate to adaptive performance. However, a negative correlation was observed between the years ordained as a bishop and the interpersonal adaptability dimension of adaptive performance.

Managing work stress has been revealed as an integral part of adaptive performance and satisfaction in ministry. Interpersonal adaptability and reactivity could be understood, then, as useful vehicles for increasing the capacity of bishops to manage work stress. In this research, the authors applied the Scale for Individual Adaptive Performance and the two scales Scale of Satisfaction in Ministry and Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry .

The results provided insights into the behaviors necessary for adequate development of bishops in their role. The religious landscape was becoming more challenging from a revenue generation perspective. The resultant complexity and the financial strain would necessitate the need for development of different models of ministry for long-term sustainability. This could further necessitate a different set of knowledge creation related to a set of behavioral capacities like those of adaptive performance. Such insights would assist in the promotion and development of greater work-related psychological health in bishops while deepening their ability to deal with complex and uncertain environments. Furthermore, this would increase satisfaction in ministry through improved workplace management skills.

Presently, very few studies empirically established the developmental needs of bishops as they entered, learned and grew into their leadership roles. Such insights would allow the formation programs for new bishops to be grounded in empirical data. Furthermore, this research study examined a largely unexplored population. This would provide a basis for a larger research agenda related to adaptive performance in judicatory leaders and their work-related psychological health. Consequently, it is posited that improved psychological health would result in better workplace learning.

This study aims to explore the relationship between principals’ performance on the Pennsylvania Framework for Leadership evaluation tool and the corresponding self-reported degree of self-efficacy and growth mindset.

The data analysis involved linear regression of principal performance on principals’ mindset, moral leadership self-efficacy and instructional self-efficacy scores. Additionally, correlation matrices identified the presence and direction of relationships between self-efficacy levels and the degree of growth mindset reported by principals.

The results demonstrated a positive association between principals’ instructional self-efficacy reports and their overall performance evaluation. Alternatively, both growth mindset and moral leadership self-efficacy evidenced a negative association. There was no association reflected between growth mindset and either the overall self-efficacy measure or the sub-scale self-efficacy measures. A secondary relationship revealed a negative association between school performance profile and growth mindset. This relationship held true in subsequent regression analyses.

The study adds to the limited research available on examining the relationship between principals’ self-efficacy levels and their performance ratings on a common tool.

This paper aims to conceptualize and discuss empathic organizational culture and leadership along with organizational implications.

The authors reviewed literature to conceptualize empathic organizational culture and leadership. They referred to Hofstede’s organizational culture concept and studies on empathy to explore how leader–follower relationships are influenced by a leader’s empathic disposition.

Organizational leadership is instrumental in shaping employee performance. While work design, culture, peer support and resource accessibility are discernible, leadership style, control and others are covert. Leaders’ empathic attitudes and dispositions can positively influence organizational functions for improved performance. This review suggests that organizational culture should support growth, proper functioning and effective coordination between employees for improved organizational effectiveness.

The authors conducted searches in leadership and management journals to help conceptualize leaders’ empathic disposition. Future researchers may explore other bodies of literature and the cultural demographic differences in exhibiting empathic leadership and its effectiveness. Researchers can explore how empathic culture relates to job motivation, satisfaction and commitment. The authors suggest that future research may explore how employees’ and supervisors’ behaviors and interactions can create an empathic organizational culture.

The authors identify the characteristics in an empathic leader to articulate the role of empathy in leadership. Alignment between person, group norms and organizational values is more important than the existence of culture.

Empathy is studied by researchers from various disciplines. Similarly, employee well-being has received attention from organizational researchers from many fields. However, researchers have given inadequate attention to conceptualizing an empathic organizational culture and its interrelationship with leadership. The authors offer a more positive perspective to the leader-member exchange (LMX) research by describing how leaders can sustain positive relationships with employees rather than the purely transactional exchanges that characterize LMX.

This study aims to explore how career self-efficacy shapes an individual’s career decisions and how learning and development interventions, including participation in education abroad, might play a role in career choice.

The authors used the following databases to review the literature on career self-efficacy: Academic Search Premier, Education Resources Information Center and ProQuest. The following key search terms were used in the search: career self-efficacy, career choice and education abroad. The titles of the identified articles were first reviewed for relevance, followed by the abstract, before further review for inclusion suitability.

Findings suggest career self-efficacy plays a vital role in career decision-making, generating interests and deciding career goals. By improving career self-efficacy among college students, career interests can be reshaped. Findings evidence a relationship between education abroad and career competencies and career development.

The review offers an invaluable pathway to breed ideas and thoughts about research in the career self-efficacy domain. While education abroad itself may be a useful intervention in the development of a student’s career self-efficacy, among other characteristics and skills, a further empirical study is necessary to determine the extent to which this is true. Using or creating an accurate scale for the measurement of career self-efficacy among undergraduate students is critical to determine a reliable and valid measure, as is controlling for potential differences in self-efficacy between students who self-select for high impact endeavors such as education abroad and those who do not.

Noting that practices in international education support collaboration between career services offices and study abroad offices, the authors point to the importance of interventions that intentionally and explicitly incorporate the career self-efficacy construct.

Findings evidence a relationship between education abroad and career competencies and career development, through research examining connections to career self-efficacy and education abroad is noticeably scarce. The paper explores the above relationship.

This paper aims to review organizational studies literature and related fields to explore the parallel between organizations and organisms in dealing with change.

The authors reviewed the literature to explore organizational change theories. Additionally, they referred to biological studies to explore the connection between organizations and organisms.

To cope successfully with change, organizations need to be aware of the critical, vulnerable points that may endanger their survival. These vulnerabilities can arise from external or internal factors or both. Organizational leaders, being aware of these criticalities, can act swiftly to deal with threats while keeping an eye on available opportunities.

Future research could be conducted on understanding the elements of biological transformations through an in-depth study focused on species that have undergone frequent mutations and adaptations. It is hoped that HRD researchers, especially organization development (OD) theorists and practitioners, can build upon the ideas presented in this article.

The review and analysis can open doors for HRD practitioners to seek a better understanding of biological transformations, while enabling them to borrow ideas to be used in leading organizational change and design successful organizational change.

In this paper, the authors selected organizational theories to outline parallels between organizations and organisms to emphasize what organizations can learn from the success of organisms changing over billions of years. Thus, this paper uniquely contributes to HRD literature by encouraging OD researchers to conduct more interdisciplinary research. Most importantly, this paper contributes to understanding the underlying theories in HRD/OD.