Thesaurus - Treasury for Adult Education

Grundtvig: 2013-1-RO1-GRU06-29551 5

Subject: Learning Theories in Adult Education

Author: Zina Paidonomou, Educator, Psychologist

Date: 16-09-2015

 

The term “Education “many times is used in an abstract way. We often hear people claiming that activities such as watching a television show, or attending sports events, etc., is considered to be education. In fact, what they really mean is that they gain a lot out of this experience.  Even though education focuses mainly on the process of learning, it is actually far more expanded. Learning is an activity lasting for a life time. 

Despite the different concepts prevailing about education, it’s been proved that the basic training itself can never satisfy all the required demands of contemporary life.  According to Rogers, 1980, parents who adopt this concept, seem as if they are trying to feed their children with great amounts of food at once, something which is unacceptable and ends up to bad digestion and health problems.

During our school age we can never predict that a day will come to make us realize that all the knowledge and qualifications acquired are not adequate to help us deal with and survive in the current situations. New conditions in our everyday life, in our family, social environment, work place and the society in general, will make us reconsider our views and try to adjust ourselves by obtaining new skills and knowledge in different fields.  Life is always in the process of evolution thus lifelong learning is inevitable.

It is an unquestionable fact that learning aims at the acquisition of knowledge and skills.  But how do we learn? As it is a crucial issue psychologists came up with many theories in an attempt of explaining learning. 

In Adult Education, according to Henriques, 1984, adults are learning using the following strategies.

• Acquisition of information

• Memorizing data and processes

• Making structural changes as they observe others

• Coming up with spontaneous ideas insight that we all experience from time to time

• Learning that comes from the successful completion of a task, or, a project

• Experimentation and exploration

 

In addition, the choices made by adults among the above strategies are determined by their learning preference.  In fact, trainees have their own preference style with which they learn.  Kolb (1984) and Mumford (1986) analyse the learning styles of the trainees and come up with 4 learning styles:  The Active trainees, the Contemplating trainees, the Theoretical trainees and the Experimenting trainees.

Active trainees prefer to learn by doing something immediately. They don’t like to listen to instructions, or to read a manual, but they prefer to start the work right away. This type of people are losing their patience when someone tries to explain to them the task details.

 Contemplating trainees are waiting to observe before they start the task. They prefer to distance themselves and to observe the others doing the job, until they are comfortable to undertake the tasks. This is the type of people who cannot answer right away when they make them a question. They take time to think, they are hesitant to answer and they want more information before they give an answer.

Theoretical trainees want to understand first the general principles and the whole concept. (They want to know what something means and how it applies, etc.)  These people speak with general terms and not with specific terms. They form rules for every case.  They want the world to sound reasonable and they are not pleased with many different opinions.

The Experimenting trainees enjoy experiments. They are willing and enthusiastic about new ideas. They attend the training meetings with great happiness and they experiment on everything they learn.  This type of people have high self-confidence, and are quite active, they like to solve problems and they tend to see new situations as a challenge to learn from.

Regardless of their learning style, adult trainees carry a whole package with their personal experiences, their expectations, their needs, their concerns and their goals for learning. Respectively the Adult Trainers bring with them their own personal package with knowledge and experiences, expectations and concerns as well as goals for their trainees.  In addition, Adult Trainers have to take into consideration all the above characteristics, they have to be prepared to accept and to meet the needs of their trainees, as well as they have to encourage them to achieve their goals.

In order to explain Adult Learning, psychologists have divided the learning theories in Adult Education into three categories. The Βehavioural Τheories which are based on the perception of stimulus – response, the Cognitive Theories supporting specific standpoint about learning and the Humanistic Theories which are based on the needs of different personalities and societies.

The Behavioural Theories are focused on the trainer, they enhance the Desire Learning Reactions and lead to Exploration of all reactions of the trainee.

The Cognitive Theories are focused on particular learning subjects, they are based on disciplined and structural learning and learning comes through discovery.

The Humanistic Theories   are focused on the trainees, they are based on role models and they lead to team learning.

According to the Behavioral Approach trainees are learning by having stimuli from the educational environment. The adult trainer is guiding this process by strengthening the appropriate responses and discouraging false responses.  So, in behavioural theories the trainers have active roles and trainees have passive roles. Trainers have the responsibility to present to the trainees a clear distinction of what is right and what is wrong in this learning process.  It is also of importance to say that the stimulus – response theories apply not only to low- level learning but also to more advanced levels.

The Cognitive Approach is emphasizing on the process which causes the organization of the perception and the development of the insight. In order to learn trainees have to have a good level of understanding.  The material must be gathered and classified gradually and then will become tage of the trainees. Besides learning cognitive theories are targeting on acquisition of new skills and attitudes.

According to Bloom, (1965) the steps to acquire the knowledge is the same for all the trainees. The hierarchy of learning has two levels. The cognitive level and the emotional level.

Based on the Cognitive Level the learning process requires:  knowledge → perception → application → analysis → evaluation.

Based on the Emotional Level the learning process requires:  taking info → reaction → valuing → conceptualizing → knowledge organization.

In Adult Education the Ηumanistic Theories are centered on the goals of the trainees. The activities and the motivation for learning of the trainees are creating the learning situation. The personal wishes and the personality instincts of the trainees, the movements of the trainees towards autonomy and abilities, the needs of the trainees to set goals for growth and development, the constant search of the trainees for meaning and  the fulfilment of objectives of the trainees who have set for themselves lead to adult education.

The Humanistic Psychologists Carl Rogers (1974) and Abraham Maslow (1968) strongly support that education comes through the key process to fulfil personal desires and drives. Abraham Maslow the well-known psychologist as the initiator of the theory of needs came up with a hierarchy based on the human needs and placed on the top the self-actualization.  Human beings are intrinsically good and self-perfecting. It is in human nature to move consistently in the direction of personal growth, creativity and self- sufficiency unless there are extremely strong environmental conditions to the contrary. In general, humanistic psychologists view people as active shapers of their own lives, with freedom to choose and develop a life style limited only by physical constrains.

A.Maslow, Carl Rogers, Kelly, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, and other psychologists strongly support that Humanistic Psychology is the “third force” of psychology. They stress that each person is the chief architect of his or her behaviour and experience. Everybody is consciously experiencing, deciding and freely choosing their actions. Humanistic Psychologists also support that human beings are freely making choices among the possibilities that are open. As Sartre said “I am my choices “.  Maslow support that people are motivated to seek personal goals that make their lives rewarding and meaningful. Human being is the “wanting organism” who wants to feel complete and total satisfaction. Maslow also proposed that all humans have innate need-hierarchy based on their priority needs. First the Physiological needs, the most basic, powerful and urgent of all human needs essential to physical survival. (Food, drink, oxygen, sleep, protection of extreme temperatures, etc).Once the physiological needs are satisfied, people are getting concern with another set of needs the Safety and Security needs.  Needs for structure, stability, law and order, freedom from threatening forces, etc.  The third tier in Maslow’s hierarchy is the Belongingness and Love needs. These needs become prominent when they physiological and safety needs have been met. Human beings are looking for affectionate relationships, for a place in their family,etc. When the needs for being loved and for loving others have been reasonably gratified, humans are moving on the next stage of the hierarchy which is the Self Esteem needs. Maslow divided these needs into two basic types. The self -respect and respect from others. People feel the need to know that they are capable of mastering tasks, and they need to feel recognition, reputation, appreciation, acceptance, etc. Respectively self-esteem needs feelings and attitudes of self -confidence, self-worth, capability, and the sense of being useful and necessary in the world. Maslow emphasized that healthy self-esteem is based on earned respect from others rather than on fame, social status, or adulation.

Finally, if all the foregoing needs are satisfied, the need of Self-Actualization it appears. Maslow characterized self-actualization as the people’s desire to become everything they are capable of becoming. “What humans can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature” (1987).

The special interest of Maslow for the Self -Actualization stage, contributes to the creation of Adult Educational programs which focus to develop a good self-understanding of the trainees. Today there are a lot of programs in Adult Education based on Maslow’s theory.  Maslow also supports that people will feel the need to reach the self-actualization stage even if the lower stages are partially completed.

Maslow’s theory is providing a good analysis to the Adult Trainers as to how to approach and help their trainees.  Once they analyse the personal and social needs of their trainees, they will then recognize the trainees’ feelings for social relationships, self-esteem and self-achievement feelings, as well as, their need of autonomy as adult trainees.  Based on this concept adult trainers have to grab this opportunity in order to work more effectively with their trainees.

 

 

The theory of Maslow strongly agrees with, explains and proves what we have dealt with during the two years of the Thesaurus Grundtvig Partnership Program.  We have visited the countries of our partners and we have seen adults working in all kinds of manual work.  No matter how difficult their job was, they were all truly happy and satisfied performing their tasks.  It was obvious that they feel useful members of the society. In this way they fulfil all their basic needs, as well as, the needs of belongingness and self- esteem needs. The Self-Actualization needs for some of these people was a goal, but for some others was partially or fully completed.

Maslow’s theory explains and agrees fully with behaviours, thoughts and feelings we have seen in all working people, during these two years, the adult trainers and adult trainees they all experience the same thoughts, feelings and behaviours regardless of what they were producing.

Life learning is absolutely connected with the personal needs of every person in order to have a position within the society of knowledge. Learning is an endless process since people are constantly in need to understand the world around them and themselves within the world.

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Maslow, A. (1968) Towards a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand.

Rogers, A. (1992) Adults Learning for Development. London: Cassell.

Gagne, R.M. (1975) The Conditions of Learning. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Bloom, B.S. (1965) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.  London: Longman.

Rogers, A. (1996) Teaching Adults. London: Open University Press.

Hjelle, L. and Ziegler, D. (1992) Personality Theories. New York: McGraw – Hill, Inc.

Jarvis, P. (1983) Adult and Continuing Education: Theory and Practise. Beckenham: Croom Helm.

Smith, R.M. (1984) Learning How to Learn: Applied Theory For Adults. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Rogers, J. (1984) Adults in Education. London: BBC Publications