This section analyzes the assumptions, criticisms, and applications of three prominent adult learning models: Andragogy adult learning models, Andragogy experiential learning, and self-directed learning.

Andragogy: The science of teaching adults

In 1968, Malcolm Knowles introduced the “concept and philosophy of Andragogy” [2, p. 231], which focused on adults as learners. Defining an adult as an individual who takes responsibility for self and fills the roles society typically associated with adults, Knowles [3] argued that adults are simply different from children and proposed that adult education should be differentiated from child education. Knowles defined Andragogy as “the art and science of helping adults learn” and proposed a set of assumptions to serve as a model for designing adult education programs. Andragogy was the antithesis of “pedagogy”, the science of teaching children, which is the model that dominates American education today.

Assumptions

Knowles proposed the following assumptions about adult learners [2, pp. 64-68]:

Learners need to know. Adults need to know why learning is important before engaging in learning activities. This suggests that adult educators should do the following:

• Help learners recognize gaps between where they are and where they want to be.
• Understand how the material and study are relevant to helping them achieve goals.

Self-directed learning. Adults perceive themselves as being responsible for their own decisions and lives. A strong need to be seen as autonomous and self-directed causes adults to be resentful when they perceive others imposing their will or disrespecting their autonomy. This implies that adult educators should create an environment where adults can move from dependent to self-directed learners.

Prior experience of the learner. Adults enter learning situations with a quantity and quality of experience children do not have. This results in a broader range of individual differences in groups and requires greater emphasis on individualized learning strategies. Proposing that “the richest resources for learning reside in the adult learners themselves” [2, p. 66], Knowles emphasized that adult educators should do the following:

• Avoid the pedagogical approach of transmitting knowledge to passive learners.
• Encourage collaborative, experiential techniques like group discussions, simulations, problem-based learning, and case studies.

Readiness to learn. Adults become ready to learn when faced with life situations. This implies that educators should

• Align learning experiences with the developmental needs of the learner
• “Induce readiness” by exposing the learner to models that motivate the learner to develop proactive coping skills for addressing life challenges.

For example, career counseling can motivate the learner to engage in learning to prepare for the future.

Orientation to learning and problem-solving. Adult learning is oriented around solving problems and completing tasks. Adults are motivated to learn when they confront life situations. They will learn when they understand how the material or activity is relevant. This implies that educators should design learning programs around helping adult learners acquire knowledge and skills necessary for coping with life situations at work, home, and school.

Motivation to learn. Internal motivators like self-esteem and satisfaction tend to be more potent than external motivators like money and promotions. While personal growth is inherent in adults, factors like a negative self-concept, lack of resources, and time constraints can block progress. This implies that adult learning programs should foster a supportive environment that reduces barriers to success.

Critical perspectives on Andragogy

Critics argue that Andragogy is not a fully developed theory. Knowles’ assumptions seem to be more situational than universal [6]. Also, andragogical practices can be applied to children as well as adults. Following are summaries of each of these criticisms:

Incompleteness. Preempting criticisms about the incompleteness of the theory, Knowles, [2] himself pointed out that Andragogy is a “conceptual framework that serves as a basis for an emergent theory.” Andragogy is not a complete theory. He also said that Andragogy needs further research [2, p. 231].

Knowles proposed that researchers should establish a clear theoretical definition and a measurement tool to empirically demonstrate the validity of Andragogy. However, given the challenges of measuring interactively dynamic processes like environment, learners, and learning, empirical validation will likely remain elusive.

Universality. Rather than being universal, each assumption of Andragogy seemingly depends on situational factors. None seems to serve as a universal state of adulthood. For example, considering self-direction as a characteristic of adult learners, even the most mature adults may need hands-on remedial training if they lack experience in a given area. Also, Piagetian practitioners may quickly point out that even children engage in self-directed learning tasks [12].

Need to know. While some adults may engage in needs-based learning, they are also likely to engage in learning activities because they want to fulfill their wants or others. For example, the adult may just like to learn for the sake of learning, or may learn something to satisfy a partner’s wishes or requirements at work.

Readiness. Regarding readiness to learn, relating learning only to immediate and relevant needs can lead to a myopic view that misses vital context. A myopic perspective can limit learning to symptoms that do not address the complexity of a situation.

Experience. More experience does not necessarily translate into a better experience. Too much experience or bad experience can serve as learning barriers. Adults may need to unlearn habits, behaviors, and attitudes before they can experience new learning. For example, someone who holds racial prejudices against people of a certain race might have difficulty learning from and with people of that race until they overcome their prejudice.

Motivation. While some adults are intrinsically motivated in some situations, research generally finds that adults can meet learning goals and achieve satisfaction whether they are motivated by intrinsic or extrinsic factors [13]. For example, few adults are likely to lack intrinsic motivation to participate in driving school, sexual harassment training, and prison reform. However, effective learning can still occur in these mandated environments.

Likewise, adults can be intrinsically motivated but still unable to learn if they lack the ability or resources to learn. Further, while educators generally hold that motivation is an essential ingredient of learning, researchers at Université Paris X Nanterre were surprised when their research into motivation in adult education seemed to point to a negative correlation between initial motivation and performance. “The very few links established were mostly negative as if the more motivated one was at the onset of training, the worse training results tended to be” [14]. This suggests that the motivations for starting an adult learning program are less important than the motivations an adult discovers in the pursuit of learning.

Finally, diminishing external motivators may be shortsighted. When asked their primary motivation for returning to school, adult management students in introductory courses that I have taught almost unanimously cite extrinsic factors. For example, money and career advancement. Concluding that extrinsic factors, like money, are not important motivators is a “misconception,” according to Jex [15]. “To the contrary, few people would work for no salary” or other extrinsic motivators. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors seem to dynamically interact to motivate the individual learner.

Applicability to children. In response to criticisms that andrological assumptions could also apply to children, Knowles [2] adjusted Andragogy from a model to differentiate adult learning from child learning to practice on a continuum between teacher-directed and self-directed learning depending on the situation. In other words, Andragogy became situation-specific, not unique to adults [6].

For example, a child who is naturally curious about bees may become entirely self-directed in exploring learning outside of school. The child may even be able to direct the learning of classmates when the subject arises in school. On the other end, experienced adults who enter a university-level statistics course after a 20-year absence from school may need careful guidance to learn math basics before diving into an advanced statistics course.

Radical perspectives. More recent criticisms of Andragogy come from the radical adult education perspective. Arguments from a radical perspective align with individualist versus collectivist debates. Looking through critical, feminist, and Africentric philosophical lenses, Sandlin [16] identified five criticisms of Andragogy:

• It is value-neutral and apolitical.
• As a value-neutral framework, it sees all people as equals and does not differentiate among race, class, and culture.
• Does not promote alternative ways of learning like those under the radical or progressive education perspectives.
• Puts individual development above societal development, supporting established “systems of privilege and oppression” [16, p. 28].
• Supports the status quo by centering learning activities on the needs of the individual learners rather than on the collective needs.

Extrapolating the positions from the criticisms seems to be asserting that adult education programs should do the following:

• Impose values and politics of the institution or educator on the learner.
• Evaluate and judge learners and situations by the race, class, and culture of the participants.
• Suppress the interests of the individual for the interests of the group.
• Work to tear down existing societal structures that are not aligned with the objectives of the educators, institutions, or special interest groups.

A helpful rubric

Criticisms aside, Merriam et al [6] asserted that the assumptions of Andragogy provide adult educators with “a helpful rubric for better understanding adults as learners.” Also, Andragogy offers best practices for effectively developing learners of all ages.

Andragogy offers a set of assumptions that differentiate adult learners from child learners. This laid a foundation for emerging adult education programs in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century. However, under the scrutiny of critical perspectives and the challenges of validating interactively dynamic processes, the assumptions of Andragogy seem to be more situational than prescriptive.

Like all other developmental philosophies, Andragogy is by no means the definitive framework for adult education. Still, it does seem to provide a set of tools for facilitating adult learners toward autonomy in perpetual learning. Also, it offers best practices for actively engaging capable learners of all ages in self-directed learning.

Experiential learning

While classroom environments transfer explicit knowledge, experiential learning theory proposes that people acquire tacit knowledge and skills through experience and observation. A key assumption of experiential learning theory is found in Lindeman’s adage that “experience is the adult learners living textbook” [5] and that the purpose of adult education is to provide “a continuing process of evaluating experiences” [17, p. 85]. Observing that learning results from experience is hardly a groundbreaking concept. But, adult learning programs from the classroom to the boardroom have recently “discovered” that experiential learning is an effective means to engage individuals, groups, and organizations in acquiring, using, disseminating, and evaluating information to more effectively adapt in dynamic environments. Experience being a critical component of learning in adulthood seems intuitive; but, different theoretical perspectives differ on the focus and application of experiential learning.

Constructivist applications

Building on Dewey, Piaget, and Lewin, Kolb [18, 19] suggested that learning is the process of constructing knowledge through transforming experience. Attempting to link theory to practice, Kolb proposed that experiential learning is a cyclical four-stage process that includes concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, as follows:

• In the concrete experience stage, a learner becomes open and willing to engage in a new experience.
• In the reflexive observation stage, the individual observes by listening, watching, recording, and elaborating on the experience from different perspectives.
• In the abstract observational stage, the individual integrates ideas and concepts with observations and current knowledge to generate logically sound theories. (4) Finally, in the active experimentation stage, the individual applies problem-solving skills to test the new concepts in the context of the situation.

Kolb presented the stages in, what Harvard Business Review Senior Editor Gardiner Morse [20] might call, a “crap circle”, a perpetually self-fueling closed loop that always returns the learner to the first step--regardless of what happens in the final step [6]. While the cycle may sound intuitive, using a metaphor that always returns the user to the beginning seems like a no-growth process. Lewis [21] suggested a more relevant metaphor by stepping outside the circle to suggest a series of progressive cycles. Each cycle represents a “new round of learning” that is more sophisticated than the last. The cycles generate “an ever-increasing spiral of complexity” [insert Lewis]. The ultimate is “a fully integrated personality” [6, p. 164].

Additional criticisms of Kolb’s model are that it considers neither context nor power structure as factors that affect learning. Criticisms aside, Lewis [21] asserts that Kolb’s model demonstrates how experiential learning teaches learners to process information, arouse motivation, engage in learning, develop social skills, and build sensitivity

Humanist applications

Carl Rogers [22] recognized that two fundamental types of learning exist:

• Cognitive learning, which is “meaningless” knowledge like memorized vocabulary, formulas, and multiplication tables, and;
• Experiential learning, which is significant applied knowledge that results from doing, such as dissecting a frog to learn biology.

While cognitive and experiential learning are both meaningful, the humanist perspective sees that experiential learning puts learner desires and needs at the center of the learning process, driving self-initiation, active engagement, and self-evaluation. Rogers asserts that humans have an innate drive for growth and learning, making the role of the teacher to facilitate learning by doing the following:

• create a positive learning environment;
• clarify the learner’s purpose;
• provide learning resources;
• balance the emotional and intellectual components of learning, and;
• share feelings and thoughts, but do not dominate.

In the experiential learning environment, successful facilitation means that the learner does the following:

• fully engages in planning, directing, and controlling learning;
• confronts practical, social, personal, and research problems, and;
• evaluates personal progress.

Rogers’ experiential learning theory influenced adult learning theorists like Knowles and Cross by proposing that:

• learning increases when the material is relevant to the needs and interests of the learner;
• information that threatens existing attitudes and perspectives is more easily assimilated by learners in a secure environment;
• learning accelerates when the learner feels secure;
• learning is more lasting and pervasive when it is initiated by the learner.

To apply experiential learning principles in the classroom, educators should find ways to make the material relevant to the learner in a supportive environment that actively engages learners in designing and implementing the learning process.

Organizational applications

Considering experiential learning from an organizational perspective can help clarify its value in a social setting. Like the people within them, organizations acquire knowledge through experience. This learning can be through intentional efforts. However, for businesses that are slow to adapt in a dynamic environment, learning is too often unintentional. High-performance organizations are finding that experiential learning provides a method to intentionally learn by controlling the acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge. This helps the organization and its members continuously adapt to a dynamic environment [23] and build a competitive advantage [24].

Huber [25] identified the following ways experiential learning can occur in organizations:

• organizational experiments that enhance the availability and analysis of feedback, like decision-making processes;
• organizational self-appraisal, which involves activities like action research and organizational development contributing to the organization’s ability to adapt to a niche;
• experimenting to develop long-term survivability strategies by fostering adaptability to new opportunities;
• unintentional or unsystematic learning, or learning that is not planned;
• experience-based learning curves that investigate possible explanations of organizational learning, and;
• evaluation of the literature on learning from experience.

Miner, Bassoff, and Moorman [26] identified impromptu actions as another form of experiential learning in organizations. Impromptu actions are intentional acts that deviate from the established plan but are created from elements of the plan. Miner et al. found that workers with well-defined processes ad-libbed the process when confronted with unexpected challenges. They concluded that impromptu actions are a special type of learning that creates new knowledge and experience-based behavior. However, since impromptu actions happen in the moment, they will not lead to lasting organizational change unless the members formalize the actions into the established process.

Schermerhorn et al. [23] pointed out that learning by experience can generate incremental changes that lead to significant improvements in quality and efficiency. However, learning by experience can also cause unintended consequences, like competency traps. A competency trap arises when an organization has established competencies and procedures that prevent it from considering superior methods. For example, while its competitors adopted digital technology and automated offshore manufacturing, Westinghouse Security Electronics continued to manufacture analog access control systems by hand in Silicon Valley into the 1990s. This was because those were competencies that had once made them the pioneering industry leader in the 1970s. When management finally accepted that its competencies were leading to the failure of the company, they stopped accepting “that’s the way we do things around here”. They started saying, “if you drag your feet with the old ways, you will be left behind” (B. Prevost, CEO, personal meeting, July 1998).

To learn more effectively from experience, Schermerhorn et al. [23] counseled organizational leaders “to believe that improvements can be made, listen to suggestions, and actually implement the changes. It is much more difficult to do than say” [23, p. 424].

Critical perspectives

Brookfield [5] argued that relying on experience as a defining characteristic of adult learning is dangerous on two fronts: First, experience is an individual construct. Second, the length of experience does not necessarily translate to a depth of experience.

Experience as an individual construct

With experience is an individual construct, personal interpretations are framed and shaped by dynamically interacting variables like culture, context, and time. This means that the experience an adult brings to the table may not be relevant to the topic or situation and maybe disconnected entirely from objective reality.

For example, the teller at a credit union who receives a marketing manager position through her connections with key executives but lacks experience with or objective understanding of marketing may lack the capacity and skills to perform in her new job. Regardless of the personal reality she constructs about marketing. Her fundamental perception of the marketing function is that “marketing is fun” and that the position would allow her to “create.” Her perceptions are influenced by the visible aspects of marketing--like trade shows, events, advertisements--and by media depictions of marketing. As her perceptions of marketing as a fun and creative process confront the reality of marketing--market research, product development and pricing, distribution, operations, promotion, finance and budgets, networking, politics, and communications--the teller as marketing manager becomes increasingly overwhelmed, leading to an ineffective marketing function for the organization and contributing to her hospitalization for stress. The combination of experience as a teller and a personally constructed reality about marketing do not translate into success as a marketing professional. Her experience and personally constructed reality are so disconnected from the needs and reality of the job that they contribute to individual and department failure.

Length of experience

The length of experience does not necessarily translate to a depth of experience. For example, the educator who works for 15 years in the same classroom teaching the same subject to students in the same demographic may develop habits that allow successful and efficient practice in that specific environment. However, the experiences gained in those 15 years may have limited application outside of the narrow setting. They may even hinder that teacher from successfully operating in more dynamic environments requiring critical thinking, cross-cultural skills, and adaptation.

Fenwick [27] presented criticisms of experiential learning theory from a feminist perspective, saying that emphasizing critical reflection depersonalizes the learner. Reflection

ignores the possibility that all knowledge is constructed within power-laden social processes, that experience and knowledge are mutually determined, and that experience itself is knowledge-driven and cannot be known outside socially available meanings.

Additional criticism from this perspective is that constructivism emphasizes rational thought may not allow for inquisition.

Self-directed learning

Self-directed learning is a process by which individuals plan and implement their own learning [6, 5]. While generally applied in adult learning environments, adults are hardly unique in being self-directed [12]. Anyone who has seen a child devour books on dinosaurs, explore the biology of a backyard or scour the Internet for cheat codes on the latest video game has seen the powerful potential of self-directed learning in a child’s life.

Goals through philosophical perspectives

Merriam et al. [6] identified three classifications of goals based on the philosophy of the practitioner: growth facilitation, transformation, and emancipation.

Growth facilitation goal. The growth facilitation goal is to assist learners toward self-direction. This goal is rooted in humanistic psychology, which assumes that the goal of adult learning is personal growth toward autonomy. The progressive and radical perspective tends to reject a strict focus on individual development when it does not consider the collective interests of the institution or educator.

Transformation goal. The transformation goal is to transform the individual to collective interests through critical self-reflection. This goal has its roots in progressive education philosophy that sees the purpose of learning to be driving social change. Transformation serves as a foundation for the third goal category, which is emancipatory learning.

Emancipatory learning goal. The emancipatory learning goal is social action for change. The roots of the emancipatory learning goal are deep in radical education philosophies that reject humanist-oriented strategies for individual improvement. Emanciaptory learning argues that the purpose of learning is to essentially convert the learner to act as a change agent for the political or social interests of the practitioner or institution [28].

In short, growth facilitation enables individual autonomy, transformation assimilates the individual into a collective. In comparison, emancipation converts the individual to actively advocate for the collective. A potential problem with the transformation and emancipation goals is that they seem to consider individual interests irrelevant to those of the institution or collective. Using tactics similar to those used by cults, the purpose of critical thinking and individual education under these goals is to enlist the individual for a greater good envisioned by the organizational leaders. This may not be in the individual’s best interests, regardless of how just the cause is envisioned by the true believers.

Application: Grow’s Staged Self Directed Learning Model

Grow’s [29] Staged Self Directed Learning Model provides a framework that adapts situational leadership models from business to help teachers align classroom leadership with the abilities and motivations of the learner. The objective is to facilitate the learner toward self-direction. Scaffolding is a technique educators can use to facilitate self-direction. Scaffolding is a tactic originally suggested by Vygotsky [30, 31]. The teacher carefully guides the student through the initial stages of learning. Then, the teacher gradually removes support as the student progresses toward independence.

While SDL prepares individual students to be lifelong learners by developing capacity for self-direction, awareness of metacognitive processes, and a disposition for learning, SDL environments tend to be highly collaborative. A growing trend toward building communities of learning in traditional education and the University of Phoenix collaborative learning model serve as examples for the collaborative nature of SDL.

Criticisms

While it focuses on how adults control their own learning, self-directed learning seems to be neither unique to adults nor universal among adults. A Piagetian may argue that children can be lone scientists who will learn best when left alone. Likewise, self-direction may be determined by contextual factors besides adulthood. Brookfield [5] argued that the self-directed learning ideal reflects patriarchal values of individual autonomy and competition. At the same time, it ignores culture, gender, social networks, time, and the relevance of the individual’s experience.

In addition, a purely self-directed learning environment might provide learning that is relevant to the individual; however, this learning may have limited value outside the individual realm. Emphasizing this point, Brookfield [5] argues that self-direction can equate to “separateness and selfishness, with a narcissistic pursuit of private ends in disregard to the consequences of this for others and for wider cultural interests.” Brookfield proposed that adult education should not consider adults as “self-contained… beings” working to engage in “an obsessive focus on the self.” Instead, adult education should engage individuals in “cooperative and collective” pursuits that emphasize interactivity and shared interests.

For example, an individual may be fully capable of engaging in self-directed study in business management. However, regardless of how much he learns, failing to actively engage with others. At the same time, learning can severely limit his ability to plan, organize, lead, or control people and processes in a business environment.

Likewise, an individual can devour books, tapes, and movies about the Japanese language and culture. However, that individual will likely never speak Japanese or adapt to Japanese culture without actually integrating social activities that involve speaking Japanese and experiencing Japanese culture. Book learning, no matter how deep, does not translate into practical experience.

Also, not all adults have the capacity to be self-directed. Even adults who can be self-directed may still need support, encouragement, and feedback to engage in and complete credible learning programs.