How to Use the PAEI Online

PHILOSOPHY OF ADULT EDUCATION INVENTORY

Lorraine M. Zinn, Ph.D.
The Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory© is designed to assist the adult educator to
identify his/her personal philosophy of education and to compare it with prevailing philosophies in the field of adult education.

This online adaptation of the PAEI © is self-administered, computer-scored and self-interpreted.

It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

If you have not done so, create a profile and fill in every field. This guarantees that Lin will have a record of your scores. You may also check your scores or take the PAEI again at any time.
Login with the login and password you chose.
Press the Take PAEI button.
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You may review scores or retake inventory at your leisure.

Technical Requirements:

You must be running a browser that supports VBScript and JavaScript, Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer 4 or higher should be fine.

PAEI Instructions (adapted from the original PAEI ©):

Each of the fifteen (15) items on the Inventory begins with an incomplete sentence, followed by five different options that might complete the sentence. To the right of each option is a scale from 1 to 7.

To complete the Inventory, read each sentence stem and each optional phrase that completes it. On the 1-7 scale, CHOOSE the number that most closely indicated how you feel about each option. The scale goes from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with a neutral point (4) if you don't have any opinion or aren't sure about a particular option.

Continue through all the items, reading the sentence stem and indicating how strongly you agree or disagree with each of the options. Please respond to every option, even if you feel neutral about it. THERE ARE NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS.

As you go through the Inventory, respond according to what you generally believe, rather than thinking about a specific class you may be teaching. HAVE FUN!

Please answer every question, there is no form validation (yet) to check if you left anything blank!
The button for each choice is to the right, be sure you are checking the correct number:

e.g. 1 2

the 1 is initially selected, not the 2.

Press submit when you are finished, to see your results and have them stored in the database.

Interpretation:

WHAT YOUR SCORE MEANS

Each of your scores reflects a particular philosophy of adult education:

Liberal, Humanistic, Behaviorist, Radical, or Progressive Adult Education.

Your highest score reflects the philosophy that is closest to your own beliefs; your lowest score reflects a philosophy that is least like yours. For example, a score of 95-105 indicates a strong agreement with a given philosophy; a score of 15-25 indicates a strong disagreement with a given philosophy. If your score is between 55 and 65, it probably means that you neither agree nor disagree with a particular philosophy.

Note that there is no "right" or "wrong" philosophy. The Inventory is designed only to give you information about your own beliefs; not to make judgments about those beliefs. You may want to give some thought to how your beliefs influence your actions as an adult educator.

The original inventory in PDF format

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