Date

7-22-2025

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Laura Jones

Keywords

PME, technology, leadership, transformative learning, NCOA, professional development courses, military, leadership skills

Disciplines

Adult and Continuing Education

Abstract

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the perceptions of Air National Guard students stationed in the United States about technology integration during their professional military education (PME) courses and its role in encouraging leadership perspective transformative learning in the United States. The theory guiding this study was the transformative learning theory. This study explored how technology could help students expand their views while completing their PME courses and enabled them to use their own experiences to add value to the course. The central research question was: What are the perceptions of Air National Guard students on the integration of technology during professional military education (PME) courses to encourage transformative learning? Participants included members from Air National Guard wings who had completed their PME course within the last five years, and they were recruited through email and snowball sampling. The data was collected through interviews, letter-writing, and document analysis. Once the data was collected, it was analyzed by Moustakas’s phenomenological analysis. The findings included students’ familiarization with technology, the importance of understanding different perspectives, and how leaders continue to grow. These findings stressed the importance of technology in the professional development courses and how it can enhance transformative learning. This dissertation explored the background of technology in education, provided a literature review, explained the methods of the study, the findings of the study and then concluded with recommendations for future studies.

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