WITH A CAPITAL R
Preventing adult college students from dropping out

The Association pour la recherche au collégial (ARC), the Centre de documentation collégiale (CDC) and the Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale (AQPC) are holding the 26th online session of the Avec un grand R series, on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Montreal time). The event will focus on ways of taking positive action to support adult college students.

From 2020 to 2023, Éric Richard led a research project funded by the Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur under the Programme d'aide à la recherche sur l'enseignement et l'apprentissage (PAREA). His goal? Understand how different characteristics and experiences influence the educational pathways of students aged 24 and over. What barriers do they face? Which are the most significant? What about the success rate among this group of students compared to their younger peers? The entire project is presented in a report entitled Parcours scolaires, persévérance et abandon des étudiants adultes au collégial : enquête longitudinale [Academic path, perseverance and dropout rates among adult college students: a longitudinal study] available on EDUQ.info: https://eduq.info/xmlui/handle/11515/39040. The researcher cross-referenced the reasons why adult students drop out of higher education with the initiatives of the Plan d'action pour la réussite en enseignement supérieur [Action Plan for Success in Higher Education] (PARES) in order to identify several courses of action to adequately support this often marginalized group.

To prepare for the March 12 session, we highly recommend that participants read the article by Éric Richard, teacher and researcher at Cégep du Vieux Montréal, and Joëlle Veilleux, student at Université Laval, in the Winter 2023 issue of Pédagogie collégiale titled: "What if the PARES could help prevent adult college students from dropping out?" The discussion will be launched at the outset of the event, since all participants will be expected to have read the article beforehand. The audience will be an integral part of the "conversation" about how to leverage the research findings being examined. The session will be bilingual (French and English). Simultaneous interpretation will be available throughout the session, and participants are invited to participate in discussions in either English or French.

This next activity in the Avec un grand R series is offered online and will be available for viewing after the event. Anyone interested in signing up can fill out an online form. ARC and AQPC are uniting their efforts to offer unprecedented access to college research findings and, as such, have decided to waive registration fees for the Avec un grand R series for this year, so that as many people as possible can benefit.