Abstract:

Knowles’ archetype of the adult learning retains prominence in higher education literature. Knowles has argued for the concept of andragogy (teaching adults in contrast to pedagogy (teaching children): he has emphasized that those teaching adults—regardless of context—need to bring adult learners’ experiences & interests to the heart of any learning endeavour, including higher education.

According to Knowles, there are 6 assumptions that make adult learners distinct. First, adults “need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it” (2015, p. 64). Second, adults have a deep need to be “capable of self-direction” (p. 65) & will “resent & resist situations in which they feel others are imposing their wills on them” (p. 65). Third, adults bring a range of experiences into learning & respond well to experiential techniques (p. 66). Fourth, adult learner readiness to learn is linked to a need to “cope effectively with their real-life situations” (p, 67). Fifth, adults are life, task, & problem-centred & motivated to learn what will help them “in their life situations.” (p. 67). Finally, adults are much more intrinsically motivated to learn than children (p. 68).

Andragogy seems, at first a good fit for teaching in higher education. Some of Knowles’ assumptions—like needing to know why learning something is important—are merely good practice. Often, however, the normative requirements of university curricula constrain how learner-centric our programmes are. While self-direction is a core competency for successful higher education study, there are stakeholders that impose other, conflicting competencies. Further, creating opportunities for students to bring their lived experience into the classroom is not always possible in subjects (like STEM) with technical requirements. Ultimately, much of what we teach at university is extrinsic to our students: this is not inherently problematic.

Knowles’ idealized adult learners might be in our classes, but we might not be able to re-orient our practice to wholly align with their adult learning orientation. In fact, part of what we do in higher education is shift these orientations—often beyond students constrained self-beliefs.

With respect to digital learning, Knowles’ framework is rather adaptable. Digital learning spaces that integrate rich online content can articulate the why to learn & enable learners to bring their lived experience into class. Many learning technologies empower learners to find more flexible educational pathways via blended or online, which requires them to be more self-directed adult learners. Online & blended modalities are fertile spaces for experiential learning: problem, case, & inquiry-based learning all work well online. But the dilemmas around intrinsic motivation & direct relevance to lived experiences persist in digital learning too.

Knowles, however, lauded digital learning’s capacity to enable andragogy (p. 236). He describes online as a “self-directed learning media that enables adults to access learning in a just-in-time, just-enough format under conditions of full learner control” (p. 237). But he cautions that online learning requires “very well-developed self-directed learning skills” (p. 237). It is common for those developing & delivering online learning “to discover that the intended learners do not have the metacognitive skills, motivation, or confidence to engage in the required level of self-directed learning” (p. 237).

Keywords:

Andragogy, digital learning, higher education, e-learning.