2 Characteristics of Adults Learners

Dr. Manisha Vasta

epgp books

 

Content Outline

  • Introduction
  • Objectives of the module
  • Adult learner
  • Characteristics of Learners
  • Autonomous and self-directed -Life Experience and knowledge -Goal Oriente
  • Relevance Oriented -Practical
  • Self Respect
  • Principles of Adult Learning -Leadership -Experience
  • Appeal
  • Respect
  • Novel Styles
  • Characteristics of Adult Learners -Self- directed and Autonomous
  • Reservoir of knowledge and life experiences -Goal-Oriented and more motivated
  • More Practical in Learning
  • Multiplicity of adults role cause hindrance
  •  Adults have to fit their learning in their life by carving out some margin -Adults sometimes lack confidence in learning -Resistance to change
  • Adults have more diversity
  • Compensation to adult’s learners for their aging
  • Summary

 

Introduction

 

Adult education in India normally deals with the persons in the age group of 15 years and above. They are mostly from urban slums, rural and tribal areas of the country. Adults have their personal, family and community role and responsibilities. The majority of adult illiterate population includes women, SC/ST/OBC, minority and deprived sections of the society. They possess experience and knowledge and have established values and beliefs. They are in productive age-group both-economic and reproduction. They are busy/preoccupied with their livelihood. All of them are respected persons.

 

Learning Objectives

 

Thus we can have the following objectives to deal with the topic of characteristics of Adult Learners-

 

1.  Define adult learners

2.  Define adult learning

3.  Define the principles affecting adult learning

4.  Describe the characteristics of adult learners

 

Rabindra Nath Tagore, the great educationist, writer and deep thinker has said-

 

“Once when India possessed its richest culture, it was never apprehended with the shortage of money, then it never felt ashamed of that. The main reason was that the direction of its main goal was internal. The determination of that goal, its practice and the acceptance of its super speciality are the real and main elements of education. Subjective education should be placed within its orbit because the governance of human depends on behavior and welfare of others. The education that strengthens the life-power of living feet, is worthy of thanks but the education which makes humans dependable on means in my opinion, is the vehicle of foolishness”.

 

He further, has mentioned three centers of education “The first is one’s own home, separate from others, the second is society or community where one co-exists with others and the third is nature, universal nature where sometimes quite alone, other times with others and with other living-beings and also with all physical and micro elements of nature one establishes a relation and lives. The duty of education is to develop body, mind and the soul of a human being in balanced and comprehensive/integrated manners”.

 

India, among other problems, had to face the main and critical problem of illiteracy which adversely affected the quality of life of a big population including health, nutrition and economic growth. Illiteracy is the main cause for high infant and maternal mortality rates among the rural Indian population which also affected the development in our society. In the beginning of this century the percentage of non-literate population was 35.16%. Thus an urgent need was felt to educate the people and to reduce the literacy gap between male and female population. As an effective measure, a volunteer-based teaching campaign was driven under National Programs through which the volunteers acted as mobilisers, trainers and teachers for imparting literacy on an average to 8-10 learners. Keeping in view the importance of the voluntarism for the success of program, the quality learning tasks and other suitable techniques were adopted for facilitating learning. Even before India became independent efforts had been on way to make the rural population literate which were accelerated even after independence. But unfortunately till date 100% literacy goal could not be achieved. However, a great progress in this direction has been made.

 

Adult Learner

 

Adult learners are non-traditional learners who are either defined on the basis of age or cognitive maturity. Although both the basis have their own strengths but the factor of age seems to be more practical for defining an adult learner. In India, in adult education programmes, the adult in the age group of 15 to 35 are covered and sometimes even above this age group. Other various organizations of the world like Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UNESCO have referred to the adult learners in their papers within the age group of 24 to 65. If the factor of age is taken as a basis for being an adult learner; the selection, evaluation and classification may become simpler. Since the retired persons have been engaging in adult learning it may be more practical to change the age grouping to 24 years and above. In that case consideration of adult learners may be extended to that of the employed, the unemployed and the superannuated adult learners.

 

Malcolm S. Knowles (1973) has given a resurgence to the word ‘andragogy’ which was used for creation of a unified theory of adult learning and his contentions were based on the following assumptions –

  1. As the learners get maturity, they prefer self- direction. Their self concept moves from that of a dependent personality towards one of a self directing human being. The role of the instructor is only to engage in a process of inquiry, analysis and decision making with adult learners, rather than to transmit knowledge.
  2. An adult accumulates a growing reservoir of experience which is a rich resource for learning. Active participation in planned experiences – such as discussions or problem solving exercises – an analysis of those experiences and their application to work or life situations – should be the core methodology for training adults. Adults learn and retain information more easily if they can relate it to their reservoir of past experiences.
  3. An adult learner remains ready to learn if learning is closely related to the developmental tasks of his/her social role. Adult learners are aware of specific learning needs generated by real-life events like marriage, divorce, parenting, taking a new job, losing a job and so on. Their needs and interests are the starting points and serve as guide posts for training activities.
  4. As the people get matured, there is a chance in time perspective from future application of knowledge to immediacy of application. The adults are competency-based learners which mean that they want to learn a skill or acquire knowledge that they can apply practically to their immediate circumstances. Life or work-related situations present a more appropriate frame work for adult learning than academic or theoretical approaches.
  5. The most potent motivations are internal rather than external.
  6. Adult need to know why they need to learn something.

 

Thus, based on above assumptions and to use age as a key determination of the term adult, an adult learner can be defined as a self directed person, 24 years of age and above, whose engagement and readiness to learn is based on the immediate applicability to the development tasks of his/her social role incorporating his/her reservoir of experience.

 

Although above assumptions have been criticized that they do not hold true for all and that they are Eurocentric. However it serves as a good starting point towards understanding as adult learner beside from the fact that-these assumptions are still being used in the field of adult education today.

 

There are some complexities of understanding an adult learner. Knowles assumptions of an adult who are self-directed, experienced, readiness to learn and immediacy of application cannot fully explain such complexities. Somehow he had forgotten to take into account the multi- faceted life of an adult involving not only the professional life but also the family, personal, social and cultural aspects of their life. Furthermore, his assumptions that the most potent motivations are internal rather than external could be challenged, taking into consideration that internal motivation is formed by external and internal forces. It is almost impossible to determine the real distinction between internal and external motivation.

 

The life stage/needs of an adult learner also determines his/her value system be it existence, relatedness or growth needs. It has also a significant influence on the adult learners’ decision to participate in adult learning as it affects one or even all of the three dimensions of learning (Cognition, emotions or environment).

 

Learning

 

Learning is a process of attaining knowledge by visual, auditory and kinesthetic styles.

 

This process starts from infancy and continues till the death of human being.

 

The visual includes learning which takes place through seeing, hearing and watching.

 

Thus the illustration/visuals and colors should catch the interest of the adult learner.

 

The auditory learners tend to learn by listening hearing and speaking. It includes the stories which can be read out, practical situations and incidents that are related to their habitats.

 

The Kinesthetic style tends to make learning possible by experiencing, moving and doing which includes role play, exercises, simulations, practice, demonstrations and such activities to generate interest of the learners.

 

There are three major learning domains-

  1. Cognitive Domain – It refers to knowledge or mental development. Adult learners are mentally developed and knowledgeable.
  2. Affective Domain – It refers to attitudes and beliefs. The adult learner has already a set of attitudes, values and benefits.
  3. Behavioral Domain – It refers to practical applications. Application of literacy should link to the culture, environment, livelihood of the target group.

 

The Characteristics of Learning by an adult learner can be categorized as under –

  1. Autonomous and self-directed: Adults are autonomous and will direct their own learning based on their learning goals.
  2. Life Experience and knowledge: the Learners life experiences, such as work experience dealing with family affairs and societal roles will influence the learners learning process.
  3. Goal Oriented – Adults participate in literacy class for specific reason or goals which they want to achieve.
  4. Relevance Oriented: The adult learners always assess how learning is relevant to their life.
  5. Practical: Learners want to apply their newly acquired skills immediately in their day to day life.
  6. Self Respect: Learner’s existing skills and life experience have to be recognized and respected.

 

Principles of Adult Learning

 

For more than twenty years, adult learning theory has served as the frame work for training adults. In order to derive maximum benefit from our training programmes, following principles need to be observed so as to enable adults to learn effectively.

 

1. Leadership

 

Adults enter the learning environment with a deep need to be self directing and take a leadership role in his or her learning.

 

For this problem, the adult educators defined the process through which learning takes place in the development of a learning environment which may be illustrated as under:-

  • The Learners are guided by their instructors in determining the relevance of the learning for their own lives and work.
  • whereas the instructors encourage the learners to use their own leadership, judgment and decision making capabilities.

 

The Instructor has to gather information from the participants about their skill, prior training, education and professional experience and interest in need for and their expectations for the sessions. This information can be utilized for instructional objectives the instructors may also ask participants to list their skills, experience and positive characteristics which they bring to the learning environment. This process honors participants, identifies his resources for the group and provide additional assessment data.

 

2. Experience

 

For adult Learning experience is a rich source by which adults very activity feel involved in the learning process. An effective instructor involves the adult learners with various levels of experience in the instructional process. There is a tendency among humans that they can only think consciously about one thing at a time. Therefore concentration is essentially required for learner’s tasks for which contents, formats and sequences must be interesting.

 

On the Job training, small group discussion, case study work or even computer based training like activities help increase involvement of learners in Learning process and retention of their knowledge.

 

3. Appeal

 

An appeal has to be developed in the adult learners for a “Need to know” which is the power for arousing their interest. They want to know how the instruction will help them. What is in it for them? Why do they need their information? How will they benefit from it? How can they make use of it in a practical, real way? How will it help them to be better persons or professionals?

 

The appropriate frameworks for organizing adult learning should be life or work related situations. The instructor should explore ways by which the needs of each learner can be incorporated into the training sessions which may include the use of exciting learning experiences and learning activities which are self-paced and tailored to individual rates of learning. He should also provide real experience through which the learners experience the benefit of knowing and the costs of not knowing.

 

4. Respect

 

For the sake of learning to take place proper honor to adult learners’ individuality and experience should be given so that a safe, respectful and participant-centered environment can be created.

 

The instructor can help foster a comfortable and productive learning climate through the attitude by showing respect for learners’ individuality and experience, it may be open to different perspectives and treating the adult learners as individuals rather than as a group of people who are all alike. They should establish a learning climate of mutual respect, collaboration rather than competition, support rather than judgment of mutual trust and fun.

 

5. Novel Styles

 

The instructed should deliver instructions in a stimulating, rich and diverse environment through a variety of instructional methods so that it may appeal to adult participants learning style and preferences.

 

It has been experienced that adult learners do respond in a better way when new material for learning is presented to them through a variety of instruction methods which in fact, appeals to their different learning preferences. Whereas the flexibility in the programmers needs to lie incorporated the instructor should also take into consideration the novel style of learning which is brought to the learning session by each adult learner.

 

It is, therefore, necessary that adult learning theories should be made integral parts for adult education, and they should first be trained into andragogy.

 

Characteristics of Adult Learners

 

In the capacity of learners the characteristics of adults can be numerated as under in comparison to the young learners.

 

1.   Self- directed and Autonomous

 

Adult learners prefer to be self- directed in their life. They want to be autonomous but due to their responsibilities towards their families, jobs, professions and other social engagements their freedom is restricted to act. Although as an adult the learner feels a deep sense of responsibility and does not like others to take away their right to choose. If adult learners are not given some control over their learning they will resist learning and even attempt to harm the efforts being made for education.

 

Therefore, it is necessary to involve the activity in the learning process and the educators should serve as a facilitator to them. Adults may be included in the planning of educational efforts, their perspectives may be got about what topics are to be covered and they may be given some projects which reflect their interest. They may be given some responsibilities for presentations and group leadership. They may be allowed for their own knowledge rather than feed them with facts. The learners may be shown as to how the class will help them reach their goals.

 

2. Reservoir of knowledge and life experiences

 

Adult have their life experience which can be used as a resource in their learning. They tend to link any new learning to their previous one. They evaluate the validity of new ideas and concepts in light of how the concept, ‘fits’ in their experience and day to day life.

 

Adult learners are required to connect learning to their knowledge and life experiences base (family relationship, professional life and previous academic experience). Their knowledge and experience may be drawn out relevant to the topic of learning. Learning theories and concept may be related to learners’ lives and the value of knowledge and experience both may be recognized and acknowledged.

 

3.  Goal-Oriented and more motivated:

 

Whenever adult learners are enrolled in a course they usually know what goal they want to attain. Adults make their personal choice to attend schooling even when such schooling in tied to professional development or job skills. They may be shown as to how the class will help them attain their goals. For their guidance clear goals and course objectives should be presented early in the course syllabus.

 

The educators should facilitate the adult learning by motivating the learners who are already motivated to pursue their learning.

 

4.  More Practical in Learning

 

Adult learners are more pragmatic as they are motivated to learn new ideas/information which are immediately applicable to their situation and needs. Therefore it is essential to tie up the contents of programs to the application needs of the learners. The needs assessment strategies should be used for learning. The contents of education may be weighed towards the ability rather than theory.

 

5.  Multiplicity of adults role cause hindrance

 

Since adults learners play multiple roles in their life relating to their families, professional jobs, social responsibilities etc they have less time and energy to devote to their study and learning. Thus their role as a learner becomes secondary. It is, therefore, advisable that such adults are to be given assignment far ahead of time so that they may plan timely and execute them despite their being preoccupied with other roles and responsibilities. In such cases normally families and their jobs may create obstacles for the learners.

 

6.  Adults have to fit their learning in their life by carving out some margin

 

In the capacity of a learner an adult has to spend some time and energy for his learning job. Due to adults preoccupation in multiple activities he will require to carve out some margin in his life so that learning can be fitted and setting of process of priority could be allowed therein. It is therefore, advisable that adult learners may take proper advice, guidance and help to be realistic about their demands of learning and manage their time accordingly otherwise they will be compelled to compromise will their learning.

 

7. Adults sometimes lack confidence in learning

 

Some adults in their life might have experienced some negativity in their learning in their schooling time and there might have been many reasons for them. Some other adult learners might have done well at their schooling yet they feel shaky to continue learning due to lack of their self confidence.

 

It may, therefore, be necessary that in order to build up higher confidence in adult learners suitable strategies of learning may be employed and better study skills be taught for improving learning. The class room environment may be turned from competitive to collaborative one.

 

8. Resistance to change

 

Learning brings certain changes in the attitudes and action of the adults which is not welcome by them as a result of which they resist to such change as they feel that change may not be better and the results may not also be favorable. Therefore, it is felt necessary that adult learners are given appropriate reasons and explanation as to why the change has occurred. New ideas may be linked to the old concepts and accepted ones.

 

9. Adults have more diversity

 

Due to their age and experience adults always vary from each other in the area of learning. This difference and variety may be used as a good resource for learning. Necessary interaction in groups may be allowed so that adult learners may share their perspectives and experiences and learn to apply, solve problems with new ideas. Different types of material may be used for variety of learning ways.

 

10.  Compensation to adults learners for their aging

 

The age factor also has an impact on adult learning due to learners’ physical complications. With the advancement of age many barriers are developed in the speed of learning. As the age grows an adult tends to learn less rapidly but whatever is learnt by him may be deeper. The vision and hearing may create obstacle in learning. It is, thus, advisable to arrange proper sound lighting systems for such adult learners. For the sake of compensating aging issues an appropriate physical environment may be made available to adult learners.

 

First of all let us know as to who are the adult learners?

  • Adult learners are those persons who are in the age group of 15 years and above.
  • They have personal, family and community role and responsibilities.
  • They are mostly from rural areas.
  • Majority of them are women. S.C/S.T, O.B.C, minority and deprived sections of the society.
  • They possess experience and knowledge.
  • They have established values and beliefs etc.
  • They are in productive age-group.
  • They are busy/Pre-occupied with their Livelihood.
  • They are respectable persons.

 

The adult learners bear the mentality which has –

  1. Lesser curiosity than children.
  2. Lesser flexibility.
  3. Lesser optimistic.
  4. More responsibilities.
  5. Nature of imitation is less but the nature of forgetfulness is more.
  6. Due to folk-shyness/public shyness they don’t like to learn in groups.
  7. More capacity for discussions.
  8. Feeling of expectation for respect is more.
  9. Reservoirs of Experience.
  10. Being slowly inspired.
  11. More mental fatigue.
  12. Less need of exercise.
  13. Lack of time.

 

Summary

 

In fact in the adult learning the experience of an adult learner is taken as a starting point. Experience includes his/her value system, cultural heritage, personal and social maturity including the skills and competences of the individual learner. The learners’ experience also determines one’s life stage\needs. Various motivational factors and barriers to participation to adult learning (opposing forces) interacts with the different dimensions of a person (cognitive ,emotive and environment )adding power and load Motivation and Barriers (being power and load) are two opposing forces which is greatly involved adult learning participation. Motivation gives the energy towards participation in adult learning while the barriers drain the energy. A margin of reserve is necessary to ensure continuous participation in adult learning .The accumulation of power and load within the different dimensions are funneled based on the learners value placed on different aspects of his/her life namely personal, professional and social. This would result to a margin (or a negative margin) which gives the learner the energy to pursue and participate in adult learning. Also whereas the style of learning may be visual, auditory and kinesthetic the ways of 1.trial and error 2. Being told 3.imitations and 4.thinking be adopted to ensure good results.

 

Adult tend to be self-directed in their lives, although responsibilities with jobs, families and other organization can remove a degree freedom to act. Adulthood brings an increasing sense of the need to take the responsibility for our lives and adults resent it when others take away their rights to choose. This fact is clearly seen in educational efforts among adults. When not given some controls over their learning, most adults will resist learning and some will attempt to sabotage education. They do not like being relegated to a passive position.

 

Adults vary from each other as learners in terms of age and experiences much more than traditional age learners. Such differences can be used as a powerful resource for adult learning. Through collaboration in small groups adults can benefit from their variety of experiences.

 

However, there is much to be done / researched in the various aspects . Experience and how an adult learner actually values education in relation to their life stages need to be further studied. How motivational factors and barriers to adult learning affect the different dimensions of learning and how they actually interact together and form the decision to participate in adult learning especially in an adult learners multi – faceted life.

you can view video on Characteristics of Adults Learners

 

References

  •  A Hand book on effective teaching-learning technologies in Sakshar Bharat (2010).Directorate of Adult Education National Literacy Mission Authority Department of School Education and Literacy Government of India, New Delhi.
  • Alexandria Marshall. (2015) Motivation of adult learners
  • Chao Jr Roger, Yap. (2009). Understanding the Adult learners   motivation and barrier to learning, ESREA (European Society for Research on the Education of Adult, University of Macedonia Thesaloniki/Greece)
  • Characteristics of Adult learning , Rit on line learning https://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/tls/course-design/instructional…/adult-learners
  • Gary Kuhne – ” Introduction to Adult Education” a course offered through Penn State’s World Campus hccs.edu/FacultyPortal/pdf/Ten_Characteristics_Adults-Learners.pdf
  • Moetaz S oulijak- 8 important characteristics of Adult learner https://www.linkedin.com/…/8-important-characteristics-adult-learners-msc-ph-d-cand…
  • Malcolm Knowles- Characteristics of adult learner txprofdev.org/apps/onlineteaching/time/Adult_Learners.pdf
  • Nishat Fatima (2010). Guide Book for teacher of adult learner (Shiksha Margdarshika). SRC, Deepayatan, Patna (Bihar)
  • Six characteristics of adult learner/blog.intradiem.com/six-characteristics-of-adult-learners/
  •  Shamin Ujjainwala. (2009). Indian Journal of Adult education, vol. 70[3]; July- September, pp. 77-85.