Adult Learning Theory

By Gabriel Rise
It goes without saying that nowadays we are all confronted with an environment of continuous change and speedy shifts. Technology has altered the very nature of business and this had greatly influenced the employment market. Jobs requiring expertise and technical skills are growing in nearly every sector of the economy. The continuous change in what employees need to know and be able to handle suggests that learning, training and education will occur over the length of a career and, in fact, a lifetime. In light of this, adults have had to become life-long learners by consistently challenging themselves to pursue learning opportunities.

Thus, a large and growing segment of the education industry more so for the post graduate courses are made of "non-traditional" students. These are working adults who are interested in enhancing their job skills, retooling for new positions and careers, and pursuing other customized learning experiences. With the changing trend in the employment market, higher learning institutions are experiencing increased demand for a larger variety of rapid paced educational resource options for the adult learning community.
However, one of the greatest challenges faced by higher learning institutions is identifying instructional or delivery methods that enhance adult learning process. Thus the objective of any higher learning institutions should be to provide and establish learning objectives which are attainable by students and to use the appropriate instructional method in order that these objectives be met. This paper will explore the opportunities available for working adults to further their studies and also identify the instructional methods in delivering lessons.
Education helps in the development of the human mind, and it increases the powers of observations, analysis, integration, understanding, decision making, and adjustment to new situations. In other words, education is concerned with increasing one's knowledge and understanding the total environment. Among the major research areas of learning are the self-directed learning, critical reflection, experiential learning and learning to learn.
The first, self-directed learning is one that uses past experience as a resource base for learning, fitting new knowledge into current work and personal life situations. This brings with it real-life problem- solving and time-management advantages for the time-conscious student. The second, known as critical reflection, Brookfield observes it as the psychological development of an adult. This would relate to a host of constructs such as embedded logic, dialectical thinking, working intelligence, reflective judgment, post-formal reasoning and epistemic cognition which explain how adults come to think contextually and critically. As for experiential learning introduced by Liademan, the emphasis is on the experience of the working adult. Adult education is therefore a continuing process of evaluating experience, which is central to the concept of andragogy that has evolved to describe adult education. The fourth; learning to learn, is about the ability of adults seen in a range of different situations and through a range of different styles. Both the concepts of epistemic cognition and reflective judgment were introduced in this process of learning to learn.
The pedagogical model of instruction is the foremost instructional method used in delivering lessons. This mode of teaching is also known as the traditional or teacher-directed approach. Knowles, mentions that pedagogy is derived from the Greek word "paid" meaning child plus "agogos", meaning leading. Thus, pedagogy has been defined as the art and science of teaching children. The traditional teaching in this context is teacher centered instruction in which teachers do most of the talking and instructing while students do a lot of passive listening and memorizing. This type of teaching is best characterized by the phrase; the teacher is the sage on the stage. Teachers define terms, give directions, explain problems, answer questions, and otherwise present information to students.
In contrast, non-traditional teaching is student centered instruction in which teachers have a very different role, one best characterized by the phrase; the teacher is the guide on the side. Knowles, carried out extensive research into adult education and highlighted the problems of inappropriate learning for mature age students. He revived the use of the term "andragogy" and defined it as the "art and science of helping adult learn". The emphasis in andragogy is that the teacher takes the role of facilitator rather than teacher, and allows student to realize his or her own potential. In such an environment, students do lots of investigating, exploring, solving, discussing and explaining to their peers and teacher. As a result of researches by Brookfield and Knowles, adult learning is now strongly identified with personal growth and social change. This point is particularly relevant for adult students who return to tertiary education at postgraduate level to prepare themselves for senior positions within their professional communities. However the andragogy model asserts that five issues be considered and addressed in formal learning. They include: (1) letting learners know why something is important to learn, (2) showing learners how to direct themselves through information, and (3) relating the topic to the learners' experiences. In addition, (4) people will not learn until they are ready and motivated to learn. Often this (5) requires helping them overcome inhibitions, behaviors, and beliefs about learning.
Adult Learning Pursuits The traditional educational model was well suited to the industrial age society where individuals had rigidly defined roles in which carrying out certain actions under certain circumstances would generally yield the desired results. However, the information age has replaced the relative predictability of the industrial age with an increase of uncertainty that will require greater levels of flexibility and adaptability in order to survive and thrive. Education would need to change from being a process of conditioning to one of empowerment. Learning would need to change from being a homogenous commodity to a customized experience tailored to the needs and characteristics of the individual. In this aspect, the executive MBA (EMBA) which is also known as the non-traditional MBA would appeal to the working adults who wish to continue their studies. The EMBA programs are delivered via the non-traditional educational model, which is related to the andragogy learning concepts. These programs are also designed specifically for the middle or upper level managers with some working experience. However, this perception no longer holds true as more working adults from different executive levels are enrolling for these MBA programs. The wide acceptance for this is because of its customer-suited packaged which offers greater flexibility to better serve the needs of students, particularly the working adults.
Non-traditional Format Prospects The education industry has been profoundly affected by the emergence of communication and information technologies which provide opportunities for learning programs to deliver in ways that better serve the needs of students, particularly working adults and non-traditional students. Conventional service patterns are becoming obsolete as a growing number of education providers use interactive video, Internet and other distance-learning technologies to reach students. However, a point to note is that technology does not determine learning outcomes as it is merely a tool used to support new ways of delivery; non-traditional systems. It is therefore clearly seen that the traditional lecture format used in higher learning institutions has greatly changed with the integration of technology. In light of modern research and technology, the traditional format use is limited. The educational literatures do suggest a number of new educational delivery systems that could be used to improve teaching methods both in terms of learning outcomes and the efficiency with which these outcomes are achieved. With the integration of new educational delivery, the teaching format is transformed to meet the new competitive trends that are found to be more prevalent in post-graduate courses.