Online Education And College Degree, part 8.

ADULT LEARNING
Adult learning is a complex phenomenon. Although there are many commonalities between how adults and children learn, development and change that take place across the life span play a definite role in understanding why adults learn, as well as how they learn. In educational psychology, an understanding of adult learning and the adult learner is crucial to a commitment to lifelong learning. Major challenges facing those who work with and study adult learners include questions about the extent to which knowledge is discovered or constructed and where one locates oneself in terms of focusing on individual and social aspects of online education.
History
In the early 1900s, the psychology of adulthood and aging received scant attention, largely due to the strong influence of psychologists such as John Watson, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, whose work emphasized the view that adulthood could be understood as simply an extension of development or learning in the early years of life. However, as psychologists such as Erik Erikson, G. Stanley Hall, Charlotte Biihler, and Sidney Pressey began to extend their theories and research to address the adult years, a greater understanding of the psychology of adulthood began to emerge.
Probably the first major study of adult learning was published by E. L. Thorndike and his colleagues in the 1928 book Adult Learning. As a seminal effort to provide empirical evidence related to learning in adulthood, these authors concluded that learning ability peaks at about age 45, rather than age 20 as previously believed. This study set in motion an effort to understand adult learning ability; this effort has continued to grow over nearly eight decades. Today, most of the research and writing on adult learning come from three fields: psychology, adult education, and gerontology. The field of psychology has offered a necessary, though not sufficient, foundation for understanding adult learning. Adult education and gerontology, through their professional literature, have also made important contributions to learning in adulthood. Although there is some overlap across these areas, each field brings a different framework and importance to the understanding of earning online degree.
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Participation in Adult Learning
One of the most extensively studied areas of online education relates to the nature of participation in adult learning. This involves three questions: Who participates in online education? Why do adults engage in learning? What are some of the factors that deter or limit adults from participating in learning? Online course and college degree. In 1965, William Johnstone and Ramon Rivera reported on a major national study of adult learning participation and found that 22% of all adults in the United States participated in some form of learning activity during the previous year.
Beginning in 1969, the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics began to collect data about participation in adult education. These studies have been conducted every several years and have offered insight into some major trends. Unfortunately, because different data collection procedures and definitions were used at different times, direct comparison across studies is not feasible. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify certain trends in participation. Earn college degree online.
Data from 2000-2001 indicate that 46% of all adults participated in some form of adult education activity during the previous 12 months. This compares with participation rates of 40.2% in 1995 and 33% in 1991. In terms of demographic breakdown, those in the 41-to-50 age group had the highest participation rate (55%), followed by the 16-to-30 and 31-to-40 age groups (53% each). Female participants outnumbered males (49%-43%), and in terms of race/ethnicity, Whites had the highest participation rate (47%), followed rather closely by African Americans (43%) and Hispanics (42%). As might be expected, those with higher educational attainment and income levels also had the highest participation rates. Finally, people who were employed during the previous 12 months had over twice as high a participation rate as those unemployed during the same period (54% compared with 25%).
The way in which participation is defined has an impact on the actual rates of participation. In the data cited in the previous paragraph, participation was defined as some form of online education bachelor degree online class. However, in the early 1970s, Allen Tough used a structured interview process to assess involvement of adults across the entire range of learning activities. In doing so, Tough found that as many as 90% of the participants in his study engaged in some form of learning activity over the previous year. Even more important is that he found the vast majority of learning projects (68%) were planned by the learners themselves, as opposed to a teacher/instructor, tutor, or nonhuman resource such as technology. Tough used the metaphor of an iceberg to illustrate what he found: Most adult learning lies beneath the surface and is not easily visible to those who only study participation in organized courses or other activities. This finding played a key role in stimulating research on self-directed learning, which became one of the most widely studied topics in the adult education literature of the last decades of the 20th century.
To a large degree, participation in adult learning is linked to life transitions. These transitions often serve as "triggers" for adults to recognize that learning can help them negotiate such transitions. In today's world, job-related transitions (e.g., job loss, promotion, new responsibilities, retirement) are the most frequently identified reasons for participation. Other examples of transitions that can trigger the need for learning include family issues like marriage, divorce, and parenthood; health issues such as wellness, coping with a life-threatening illness, or being diagnosed with a chronic condition; enrichment opportunities such as leisure, art, or religion/spirituality.
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One particularly influential study is Cyril Houle's The Inquiring Mind, which was originally published in 1961. Houle interviewed 22 adults deemed to be active learners and from these interviews, he identified a typology of orientations toward learning. Goal-oriented learners viewed learning as instrumental to achieving some other purpose; in other words, learning was seen as a means to another end. Activity-oriented learners sought out learning activities for their social value, as a way to meet new people and socialize. Learning-oriented adults were identified as those who engaged in learning for its own sake.
Many factors can serve as barriers or deterrents to participation in getting degree online. These have been conceptualized according to several different categories. In essence, the major factors that limit participation are (a) reasons linked to the life circumstances of adults, which are often outside the control of the person, such as lack of time, money, transportation, and family responsibilities; (b) reasons related to institutional policies and practices that limit participation, such as scheduling of classes, information about offerings, limited offerings, and policies that discriminate directly or indirectly against adult learners; and (c) reasons related to attitudes and values of learners, such as low self-concept, fear of failure, negative past experiences, and lack of interest. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Gordon Darkenwald and his colleagues, Craig Scanlon, Thomas Valentine, and Elisabeth Hayes, reported on the development of several forms of the Deterrents to Participation Scale. This instrument has made it possible to isolate and identify many of the factors that contribute to nonparticipation in adult learning.

EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.