When do adults entering higher education begin to identify themselves as students? the threshold-of-induction model

In a previous study it has been suggested that there are six stages that adults move through before they feel ready to participate in higher education, and proposed a chain-of-response (COR) model to describe the process. In this study we examine the reported experiences of nine adult entrants during the second year of a work-related degree course. The analysis of the previous studies accounts of the process indicated that a sequential model of the type introduced did not adequately describe the process of induction experienced. Here ‘induction’ is taken to mean something more than the short institutional induction process organised by the university. What participants in this study described was a gradual transformation that occurs in each individual until they are ready to accept the identity of ‘student’ – a transformation that not all achieved, even those who appeared to be meeting all course requirements. On the basis of this analysis we propose a threshold-of-induction (TOI) model, based on the COR model. We argue that, while our data confirm the importance of the elements captured in the COR model, a threshold model represents the journey through induction experienced by these adult learners more authentically.