Online Education And College Degree, part 9. Adult learning.

Intelligence, Memory, and Cognition
Central to the study of adult learning, especially in the realm of psychology and gerontology, has been the body of scholarship on the related areas of intelligence, memory, and cognition. Paul Baltes has described the aging mind as having both potentials and limits, resulting in age-related gains and losses. Whereas some areas of functioning show decline, other areas remain stable and, in some cases, show improvement with age.
To understand changes in intelligence, memory, and cognition over the adult life span, it is important to recognize that much of what has been reported is influenced by the types of research design that have been utilized. Cross-sectional studies measure different age cohorts at a single point in time. These studies make it possible to look at age differences on the vari-able(s) being studied; however, they do not accurately describe age changes. Longitudinal studies, on the other hand, measure the same cohort over time, making it possible to study changes that take place over time, but not cohort differences. Most of the early studies on intellectual functioning relied on a cross-sectional approach, and in such cases, researchers often incorrectly identified age-related declines when, actually, what they were observing were cohort differences. As is easy to picture, longitudinal research is difficult to carry out because it requires researchers who can envision and remain committed to a study over many years and even decades. Other problems with longitudinal studies are attrition of participants and instrument decay resulting from changes in the social context that can make earlier instruments irrelevant over time.
One way to minimize the limits of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs is to use an approach that combines both approaches in a single study. Here, longitudinal data are collected over time with a single cohort. During each measurement, however, a new cohort of younger participants is added. Eventually, this design will generate enough data to address age changes over time as well as cohort differences. Perhaps the most influential study of this type is the Seattle Longitudinal Study, developed by K. Warner Schaie. Begun in 1956, with additional cohorts added every 7 years, the Seattle Longitudinal Study has focused on five mental abilities:
(1) verbal meaning, which refers to the ability to understand ideas as expressed in words;
(2) spatial orientation, the ability to visualize, manipulate, and perceive connections among objects;
(3) inductive reasoning, the ability to recognize or make sense of new concepts and the ability to analyze and solve problems and situations;
(4) numeric ability, which refers to understanding
numbers and figures and the speed and accuracy with
which a person can solve numerical problems; and
(5) word fluency, involving ability to recall words in
writing and speech. Basically, this study has presented
evidence that in normal aging, there is little or no dis-
cernable decline in primary mental abilities until the
mid-to-late 60s and this decline is slow until the 80s.
An area of debate related to intelligence in adulthood centers on whether intelligence is a general factor, as is typically defined in IQ tests, or whether there are different kinds of intelligence that account for a wide range of abilities. The view that there is more than one type of intelligence was introduced by Raymond Cattell and John Horn, who distinguished between fluid and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is a biologically based form of intelligence that is innate and involves reasoning ability. Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, is largely depen-dent on education and experience. Thus, in this view, there is evidence that whereas fluid intelligence is characterized by age-related decline, crystallized intelligence, by building on past experience, typically increases over the life span.
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In recent years, two theories have proposed that intelligence comprises multiple factors. Robert Stern-berg has proposed a triarchic theory of successful intelligence, which holds that intelligence comprises a mix of analytical, creative, and practical abilities. The first of these is the more traditional view of academic intelli-gence. Creative intelligence centers on how well one addresses new and unfamiliar situations. Practical intelligence has to do with how effectively one is able to adapt to and solve everyday problems. A second approach to the multifactor view of intelligence is Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. According to Gardner, there are eight intelligences that address a wide range of abilities. These intelligences include linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and two forms of personal intelligences that involve understanding oneself and others.
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The eighth intelligence, naturalistic, has been added recently and is based on an understanding of the natural environment. The theories proposed by Sternberg and Gardner have relevance to adult learning because they recognize and value types of intelligence that extend beyond the more traditional IQ-based approach to intelligence. Because adult learning typically has a practical bent, emphasizing different kinds of abilities, the notion of multiple intelligence holds much potential for future research and practice with adult learners.
Memory is closely linked to intelligence. It involves the acquisition, retention, and recall of information. Although there are many schema for distinguishing among different kinds of memory, the distinction between short-term and long-term memory serves well to illustrate how information is retained and recalled in adulthood. Short-term memory, which typically covers a period of 10 to 30 seconds, can be further broken down into primary memory and working memory. Primary memory is more passive and involves holding information for immediate recall (e.g., remembering a phone number long enough to go to the phone and dial it or remembering information on a road sign when driving long enough to follow the desired direction). Working memory is more active and centers on the amount of information that can be held in memory long enough to perform some other operation on it. Research evidence suggests that whereas the changes in primary memory are small and gradual over time, there is a major decline in working memory with age. This decline has been attributed to a host of factors, including (a) a decline in mental energy that can result in overloading with increasingly complex tasks, (b) a weakened ability to use strategies related to working memory, and (c) a decline in speed of memory processing.
Long-term memory involves how facts are stored (semantic memory) and the ability to recall events from the past (episodic memory). Semantic memory is typically stable into the 70s and then declines gradually. On the other hand, episodic memory tends to decline with age although it is possible to compensate for some of this loss. Declines in long-term memory have variously been attributed to how material is acquired, how it is retrieved, and how fast it can be processed. At the same time, some researchers have suggested that memory training activities can help adults retain the ability to use knowledge, strategies, and skills.
Cognition involves all forms of knowing and awareness, including, but not limited to, information processing, problem solving, perceiving, abstract reasoning, and judging. Much of the work on cognition in adult learning acknowledges the work of Jean Piaget as a starting point; however, because Piaget focused primarily on early development, subsequent work on cognitive development in adulthood has attempted to move beyond Piaget's original ideas. One model of cognitive development that is often adapted to the adult learning context is William Perry's intellectual development scheme. Based on data from male Ivy League college students, Perry found that as learners develop, they move from dual-istic thinking, where "right and wrong" answers are presented by authorities, to relativistic thinking, where understanding the context is as important as the knowledge itself. An important response to Perry's scheme is the work of Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule, who looked at "women's ways of knowing." They identified five categories of knowing, ranging from "silence," where women lack voice and are subject to what is expected from authority figures, to "constructed knowledge," where women perceive themselves able to create knowledge and to recognize all knowledge as contextual. This important study offered evidence of ways in which the experiences of women can differ from those of men.
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A question that lies at the heart of cognition centers on whether knowledge is discovered or constructed. Whereas many views of cognition emphasize knowing as an internal process of uncovering knowledge that goes on within the individual learner, the literature on adult learning has increasingly focused on the social context in which learning takes place. This approach to understanding knowledge is often referred to as situated cognition. In situated cognition, knowledge cannot be separated from the context in which learning takes place. Thus, learning involves the construction of knowledge within the social milieu in which it occurs. Because it emphasizes learning in social context, situated cognition is characterized as having an inherently social or political element to knowledge and a connection to the importance of power in relation to cognition.

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