Tailoring College - Advising to Adult Learners - A Qualitative Study of the Next Steps Coaching Model at Tennessee Community Colleges

Oct 15, 2026

Tailoring College: Advising to Adult Learners presents a qualitative study of the Next Steps coaching model implemented at Tennessee community colleges to support adult learners’ persistence and success. The report examines adult learners’ needs for outreach and engagement, their reflections on advisory conversations, and how relationship perceptions form. Using over 3,000 minutes of qualitative data, including longitudinal interviews, stop-out interviews, and ethnographic observations, the findings emphasize efficiency, accurate guidance, clear points of contact, proactive outreach, and expanded holistic advising expectations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Why Focus on Adult Learners and Advising?

Research Questions

Understanding Adult Learners’ Needs

Data Used in This Report

Key Takeaways

Key Finding 1

Tailoring College Advising to Adult Learners A Qualitative Study of the Next Steps Coaching Model at Tennessee Community Colleges TBR | The College System of Tennessee Why Focus on Adult Learners and Advising? Over 745,000 adults in Tennessee hold some college credits but no college degree. Engaging adult learners at Tennessee community colleges is vital for creating pathways to living wage jobs for residents and ensuring a healthy and robust workforce across the state. Over the past decade, Tennessee has made major investmentsin supporting adult learners in the state through the establishment of the Tennessee Reconnect grant, which makes attending a community or technical college in the state tuition-free for adult learners. However, adult learners still struggle to persist. Among adult learners who returned to a Tennessee community college after earning college credit in the past, only 58% persisted to the next semester, and just 20% graduated within three years (TBR, 2021) . One strategy for improving adult learner success is providing robust advising services. The Tennessee Coaching Project launched the Next Steps coaching model at two partner community colleges (Jackson State and Northeast State Community Colleges) to provide more hightouch, holistic, and relational advising for adult learners. TBR—The College System of Tennessee, in partnership with Jackson and Northeast State, has rigorously evaluated the effectiveness of coaching for adult learners through a randomized control trial. Preliminary quantitative results show modest, but generally positive, impacts of coaching on adult learners’ success, and we are continuing to track outcomes through the end of the experiment in the summer of 2026 (TBR, 2025) . However, questions lingered about how adult learners prefer to engage with college advisors or coaches, and what specific functions of advisors are most helpful for this student population. RESEARCH QUESTIONS Understanding Adult Learners’ Needs To address these questions, this study identified the following research questions: 1. What do adult learners need or want in relation to outreach and engagement from professional advising staff? What factors shape these needs and wants? 2. How do adult learners reflect on the conversations they have experienced with professional advising staff? What support did they seek? What support do they need? 3. How do adult learners reflect on their relationship with professional advising staff? What factors contribute to these perceptions? We leveraged data from several qualitative sources (longitudinal interviews and observational data) to better understand adult learners’ interactions with professional advising offices, professional advising and coaching staff, and faculty. DATA USED IN THIS REPORT Findings highlighted in this report come from a rigorous qualitative research study that leverages multiple sources of data. In total, over 3,000 minutes of data were collected. This includes: • 72 45-minute longitudinal student interviews • Six 45-minute interviews with students who stopped out from college • Eight ethnographic observations paired with two 30-minute interviews with individual adult learners. To learn more about the data used in this report, please see page 12. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Adult learners highly value efficiency and accuracy in their advising interactions, place emphasis on immediate and shorter-term needs, and need easily accessible communication channels to engage with advisors and coaches. • Adult learners often had limited expectations about which services their advisors could provide, nearly always associating advising or coaching solely with course registration and degree planning. The adults interviewed often struggled with coursework and scheduling and could have benefited from holistic support around college resources and basic needs. • Expanding the expectations of adult learners around college advising, improvin

FAQs

What is the main message of Key Finding 1?

Adult learners value efficiency and accuracy, prefer a clear point of contact, and benefit from early, proactive, responsive communication and—often—holistic support tailored to their needs.

Oct 15, 2026

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