Adult learners represent a population of students in community colleges who may be underserved or marginalized by digital technology. Because community colleges have implemented significant digital technologies to improve efficiency, communication, and overall operations, interacting with platforms (such as course management systems, student information systems, email clients, touch screen kiosks, and virtual/videoconferencing) is unavoidable for the adult learner currently enrolled. The purpose of the study was to examine and understand how technology made adult learners feel in their overall educational experiences at community colleges. I used qualitative research methods to interview 24 adult learners at 2 community colleges in the Midwestern region of the United States. I also interviewed individuals involved with the decision and implementation process of technology at both institutions. In the study, I used ethnographic approaches to examine the digital and technological culture at each institution, beginning with the prospective student phase and leading up to the matriculation process of a success student.My study showed that adult learners are willing and able to learn technology, but they are less likely to teach themselves than younger users how to use all the required technology without experiencing frustration, anxiety, and fear. Frustration often arose from changes in educational technology since previous enrollments, and how technology had changed participation expectations. Also, as course content was often held in digital platforms, adult learners shared frustrations of having to learn first the technology medium before course content, evidence of technology being an implied prerequisite for educational success. Anxiety arose from significant assumptions having been made about adult learners, including computer ownership, internet access, available time for remote participation, and ability to navigate the dozens of systems implemented in higher education. Study participants often reported fear of breaking technology in a way that would be irreparable, expensive, and damaging to their academic progress, describing that fear as deeply rooted in previous experiences when they were first exposed to computers. In my study I identify the ways in which forced technological interactions marginalize adult learners through a framework of marginality and mattering. In addition, I argue for support mechanisms to benefit adult learners, and all students, through reconsidering the role of technology in the overall experience, curriculum, institutional research agenda, as a necessary literacy for success at community college. The study does not set out to argue against using technology in education, only to filter expectations through nuanced understanding of the students who will be using and interacting with such technology in their lives as community college students.
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