Example of an Annotated Bibliography with MLA Documentation
Roberson, Donald N. and Sharan Merriam. “The Self-Directed Learning Process of Older, Rural Adults.”
Adult Education Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 2005, pp. 269-287.
In this article, both Roberson and Merriam are trying to understand how self-directed learning is perceived through a random selection of older, rural participants. The participants ranged from the ages of 75-87 with a minimum age requirement of 70, and the sample of people was drawn from a rural population of South Georgia. The result of the study emphasized the notion that older adults do not learn to do something just to keep their minds off things, but that they choose to learn about something based on how that particular “something” has affected their lives. One example discussed in the study was the scenario of one of the participants having been given the news that his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. This life-change caused him to learn as much as he could about the disease. The study also proves that there is a desire for a person to learn when given the motivation or influence of something to cause them to want to learn.
The article presented a thorough overview of the history of Self-Directed Learning (SDL), and it provided a good and thorough description of the different types of models that are applied with SDL. The topic was a positive strength for the study of SDL because this study has the opportunity to develop into a greater project by evaluating urban versus rural populations and evaluating the nuances that exist within both populations. The only weakness that I am able to critique is that the article did not choose a larger sample number. The study had ten participants, which could have been increased to fifteen or twenty considering that it is a qualitative study and the increased number of participants could have added some more valuable information and even benefited the study even more. With the given strengths and weakness, the article was useful in three ways: 1) It gave a critical view of the background of SDL, 2) It focused on an older, rural population that is an interesting component to the study, and 3) It articulates the significance of SDL in older adult learners. This article contributes to our knowledge of SDL and an explanation of how qualitative research helps us understand the multidimensional levels of learning. Furthermore, this article gives us an opportunity to evaluate how resources play an integral part in the process of learning and how people in their elder years respond to learning through various life changes.