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Hear and Forget
See and
Remember…
Do and
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Adult Learning
The central question of how adults learn has
occupied the attention of scholars and practitioners since the founding of adult
education as a professional field of practice in the 1920s.
Some eighty years later, we have no single
answer, no one theory or model of adult
learning that explains all that we know about adult learners, the various contexts where
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Adult Learning
What we do have is a mosaic of theories,
models, sets of principles, and explanations that, combined, compose the knowledge base of adult learning.
Two important pieces of that mosaic are
Adult Learning
The first book to report the results of research
on this topic, Thorndike, Bregman, Tilton, and Woodyard’s Adult Learning (1928), was
published just two years after the founding of adult education as a professional field of
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Adult Learning
Lorge focused on adults’ ability to learn rather
than on the speed or rate of learning (that is,
when time pressure was removed), adults up to age seventy did as well as younger adults.
Today it is recognized that adults score better
on some aspects of intelligence as they age and worse on others, resulting in a fairly stable
Andragogy
In 1968, Malcolm Knowles proposed “a new
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Andragogy
(Malcolm Knowles) Andragogy is the art and science of helping adults
learn:
Adults desire and enact a tendency toward
self-directedness as they mature
Adults’ experiences are a rich resource for learning.
They learn more effectively through experimental activities such as problem solving
Adults are aware of specific learning needs generated
by real life
Adults are competency-based learners who wish to
apply knowledge to immediate circumstances
A climate of mutual respect is most important for
Principles of adult learning
Autonomous and self- directed
Life experiences and knowledge
Goal- oriented
Relevancy- oriented
Practical
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Adult Education is more effective
when it is experience centered,
related to learner’s real needs
and directed by learners
The Learner
The learner is dependent
upon the instructor for all learning
The teacher/instructor
assumes full responsibility for what is taught and how it is learned.
The teacher/instructor
evaluates learning
The learner is self-directed The learner is responsible
for his/her own learning
Self-evaluation is
characteristic of this approach
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Role of the Learner’s Experience
The learner comes to the
activity with little
experience that could be tapped as a resource for learning
The experience of the
instructor is most influential
Learner brings a greater
volume and quality of experience
Adults are a rich resource
for one another
Different experiences assure
diversity in groups of adults
Experience becomes the
source of self-identify
Readiness to Learn
Students are told what they
have to learn in order to
advance to the next level of mastery
Any change is likely to
trigger a readiness to learn
The need to know in order
to perform more effectively in some aspect of one’s life
Ability to assess gaps
between where one is now and where one wants and needs to be
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Orientation to Learning
Learning is a process of
acquiring prescribed subject matter
Content units are sequenced
according to the logic of the subject matter
Learners want to perform a
task, solve a problem, live in a more satisfying way
Learning must have
relevance to real-life tasks
Learning is organized
around life/work situations rather than subject matter units
Motivation for Learning
Primarily motivated by
external pressures,
competition for grades, and the consequences of failure
Internal motivators:
selfesteem, recognition, better quality of life, confidence,
self-actualization
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Andragogy vs. Adult Learning
Knowles revise his thinking as to whether
andragogy was just for adults and pedagogy just for children.
Between 1970 and 1980 he moved from an
andragogy versus pedagogy position to
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It is thirty years since Knowles introduced us
to the concept of andragogy as a new way of approaching adult education.
Much in the world has changed since that time,
Heutagogy
Heutagogy, the study of self-determined
learning, may be viewed as a natural progression from earlier educational
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Heutagogy
The concept of truly self-determined learning,
called heutagogy, builds on humanistic theory and approaches to learning described in the 1950s.
It is suggested that heutagogy is appropriate to
the needs of learners in the workplace in the twenty-first century, particularly in the
The need for Heutagogy
This revolution recognizes the changed world in
which we live. A world in which:
information is readily and easily accessible;
change is so rapid that traditional methods of training
and education are totally inadequate;
discipline-based knowledge is inappropriate to
prepare for living in modern communities and workplaces;
learning is increasingly aligned with what we do; modern organizational structures require flexible
learning practices
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A heutagogical approach recognizes the need to be
flexible in the learning,
where the teacher provides resources but the learner
designs the actual course he or she might take by negotiating the learning.
Thus learners might read around critical issues or
questions and determine what is of interest and
relevance to them and then negotiate further reading and assessment tasks.
With respect to the latter, assessment becomes more
As teachers we should concern ourselves with
developing the learner’s capability, not just embedding discipline-based skills and
knowledge.
We should relinquish any power we deem
