Introduction
Researchers and educationists would appreciate more knowledge concerning factors that may enhance or otherwise hinder deep involvement by students in contemporary learning processes (Jonassen & Land, 2012). The present society structure is leading to situations where adults and even older adults may continue to be expected to be productive within national labor forces. Such situational forecasts underscore the need to comprehensively understand the effects of learning environments on adult learning.
In educational ideology, a theory that illustrates the existent interactions between the environment and the learner is the practice theory. Given that 21st Century educational needs are unique in comparison with those common in the past, the social as well as physical aspects of learning environment are critical to appraising learning outcomes (Jonassen & Land, 2012). Therefore, constructivist ideals employed in the 20th Century, which considered the student as active and referred to the education setting as passive ought be considered obsolete. The practice theory fully appreciates the learning setting and the learner as active (McCann, Graves & Dillon, 2012). This theory provides that learners are essentially transformed and subsequently molded by transactions, which also incorporate those of others and the physical environment. As such, this research paper seeks to identify those factors that promote desired or otherwise create barriers towards adult learning processes.
Literature Review
Soon after the 1970’s decade began, the renowned psychology scholar, Malcolm Knowles coined a new phrase, andragogy. Andragogy describes the prevalent differences manifested by the child learner and the adult learner (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014); (Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger & Smith-Jentsch, 2012). It focuses on the especially unique needs of the adult learner. As such, Malcolm Knowles postulated a total of six assumptions concerning adult learning. These include the need to become more knowledgeable, the concept of self, willingness to study, previous experiences, learning orientation, and the motivation to commit to learning (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014).
As for the first assumption, one can point out that the adult learner already has the innate understanding as to why a need to learn a particular aspect is vital prior to engaging in an identified education processes (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). As such, educationists are expected to enable parents to progressively become cognizant of their inclination towards the need to know to comprehensively assist them value the learning process. The second assumption revolves around the issue of the adult learner’s concept of self. It is important to point out that adults are fully aware that they are responsible to no other individual concerning their life (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). As such, the adult learner requires educational environments where the facilitator works towards assisting them to develop hidden self-directing learning skills. Readiness to learn is the third assumption postulated by Knowles. It supports the fact that the adult learner is always ready and willing to learn new issues necessary towards effectively coping with contemporary real life conditions (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). The adult learner is well aware that what he or she seeks to learn can be applied to present situations. The implication is that training chiefly focused on the projected future tends to be irrelevant to the adult learner and as such, ineffective.
The fourth assumption is concerned with the role previous experiences witnessed by the adult learner (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). It is a well-accepted fact that the adult learner enters into educational activity bearing experiences that are profoundly different compared to those manifested by the youth. Individual differences, motivation, learning style, goals, and interests require that learning facilitators create individualized learning and teaching strategies. Therefore, the learning facilitator should critically understand that the adult learner is his or her own best teacher. The learning environment should therefore be one that allows the adult learner to incorporate earlier experiences via experiential techniques that can prove to be highly beneficial towards attaining desired learning outcomes (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). Such experiential techniques may include using discussions, problem solving activities, simulations, or case studies.
The fifth assumption as provided by Knowles appertains to orientations concerned with learning (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). Given that the adult learner is life centered regarding his or her innate orientation to learning, the primary goal is to acquire learning outcomes that allow getting solutions for day-to-day challenges. Facilitators should thus endeavor to create learning environments that relate learning instruction to contemporary life situations. The final assumption is centered on motivation (Knowles, Holton III & Swanson, 2014). The adult learner has been found to be positively responsive to internal motivators like self-esteem as opposed to external motivators like a higher salary. As such, these motivations can be compromised or even blocked during the learning process especially if facilitators disregard adult learning principles.
As such, andragogy seeks to influence educationists and more so, teachers to develop curricula founded on the adult learner’s interests and life experiences (Ota, DiCarlo, Burts, Laird & Gioe, 2006). Another important aspect to bear in mind is that different adult learners exhibits varying configurations of past experiences, idiosyncratic personas, present orientations, degrees of readiness to learn as well as individually distinct learning styles. It is thus imperative that trainers should ensure that the learning approach adopted is not rigid and standardized in an effort to generate more successful learning outcomes (Ota et al., 2006).
Role of Aging on Learning
Psychologists embrace the fact that learning starts soon after birth and is in essence an incessant process that culminates with death (McCann, Graves & Dillon, 2012). It is also universally accepted that mow much can be learnt and the value for such knowledge tends to vary widely from one person to the next. From a historical viewpoint, the perceptions on adult learning and value attached are also different among different groups as well as individuals (McCann, Graves & Dillon, 2012). For instance, formal education and learning initiatives beyond fifty years was simply valued as inconsequential and valueless to the society. This was founded on the belief that the knowledge acquired through adult learning possessed a limited lifespan. One of the issues towards such a viewpoint relates to the learning environment.
Changes in contemporary demographic trends have shown that adults can realize greater longevity. On the same note, the current retirement age was based on population census statistics based on demographic trends from the 19th Century (Ota et al., 2006). As such, evidence indicated that most elder citizens did live long after the 65th birthday. Present demographics indicate that people who are able to live longer lives do not necessarily seek to spend life in leisure but also seek to continue in their working careers (Yensegenova et al., 2015). As such, adult learning can now be looked at from an economic perspective (Ota et al., 2006). When addressing issues relative to adult learning, it is of great significance to point out that tertiary institutions in the contemporary post-industrial society are considered as the central institutions of learning.
Psychological Traits of Aging on Learning
As an individual continues to age, physical changes like reduced heating capabilities and vision are easily manifested (Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger & Smith-Jentsch, 2012). However, other age associated factors such as less neurotransmitters, diminishing blood circulation, stress, depression and even chronic illnesses can influence cognitive functions thus impacting on the adult learner’s attainment of desired learning outcomes (Taylor & Laros, 2014). It is imperative to point out that previous research studies have proven that as much as learning decline at a rate of approximately 0.01% per annum after age 25, adult learning can be productive even after retirement (Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger & Smith-Jentsch, 2012). Researchers in this particular field point out that it is the learning speed that changes as opposed to intellectual abilities. More so, this can be controlled through the continued use of one’s intellect. As such, the psychological traits of aging are represented differently concerning the intricate procedure of learning.
Psychology theorists provide that intelligence is dependent on a number of factors which can be limited to primary and secondary mental attributes (Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger & Smith-Jentsch, 2012). The basic subsets for primary mental attributes include word fluency, inductive reasoning, numeric facility, verbal meaning as well as spatial orientation. These attributes or abilities have been found to improve steadily up until the age of forty after which they tend to stabilize till age 60 (Taylor & Laros, 2014); (Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger & Smith-Jentsch, 2012). Small decreases have been noted until an individual reaches his or her mid 70’s after which test scores indicate measurable differences in comparison to learning abilities at the age of 20.
Concerning secondary mental attributes, intelligence measures observe are crystallized and fluid intelligence (Ota et al., 2006). Young learners manifest higher competencies in rote memorization which is associated with fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, is common in adult learners who manifest enhanced judgment and verbal skills. This implies that adult learning can benefit individuals who are in their 70’s too as much as the speed of learning may be slower (Ota et al., 2006).
The Learning Environment
For every educator, constituting learning environments which optimize engagement should be regarded as a top priority (Lippman, 2010). As such, some scholars in the branch of educational psychology provide that the most critical aspects that greatly impacts on the outcomes of the adult learner are learning experiences is the learning environment. However, constituting a learning environment has to incorporate physical as well as psychological aspects (Lippman, 2010). This is primarily due to the fact that cognitive and emotive learning are inseparable entities and as such, works jointly with each other.
Researchers and educationists have been debating on whether it is up to the learner to conform to the learning environment or vice versa (Lippman, 2010). A better approach to the debate should be aligning this question into whether the learning environment should mold the learner and by extension, how a learner impacts upon a learning environment (Taylor & Laros, 2014); (Lippman, 2010). Such a query can only be comprehensive addressed after a critical understanding of learner motivations relative to space and time whereby he or she gains knowledge.
Hypothesis
The adult learner is unique in that he or she can personally discern as to whether a learning environment can positively allow for such processes to develop sustainably. As such, the above literature review leads to the generation of the hypotheses that:
Duration of time used when engaging a study participant changes if the learning environment changes,
What success based strategies can be employed.
Materials and Methods
Study Participants
This unique research endeavor will seek to incorporate 115 participants for the experiments. The participants will be individual aged from 35 to 65 years enrolled from a carefully selected tertiary institution within the county community. It is envisaged that that other than promising the participants course subject credits, there will be some form of monetary payment with set a 10 US dollars ceiling. It is estimated that each participant will require between 40 minutes and an hour before duly completing the experimentation.
Design
The participants will be involved in three predetermined hunting seasons where each season will include a maximum of 30 hunts. During the three seasons, the participants will be engaged to look at the prestige information relative to a set of models to be used in evaluating hypotheses 1. The learning environment will be such that it is altered between the three seasons. Season 1 will present an unvarying environment, seasons two and three however, will manifest altered environments to adequately test hypothesis 2. It is envisaged that season 3 will present success information in tandem with prestige information towards evaluating the second hypothesis. For the three seasons, the model adopted will represent the dependent variable.
Social learning will be presented as two independent components and these are copying and observation. This particular research study will employ a design whereby the participants have the option of viewing arrowhead designed by some other individual but not allowed to imitate it. It will be assumed that copying cannot be effected without observation. As such, participants who will view the provided arrowhead will be regarded as having manifested copying as well as observation.
Procedure
The participants will be expected to imagine a situation in the prehistoric American Great Basin where they are hunters and thus, the arrowhead will be designed towards enabling them achieve the most calories. For the three consecutive seasons, each participant will be expected to carry out 30 hunts and after the culmination of each season, the participant will be allowed to incorporate changes deemed fit concerning their arrowhead models. The participants may opt to do so or proceed with the original arrowhead design. The participants are expected to either modify arrowheads as a result of individual or social learning otherwise, the participants will be deemed as continuing with the hunts using the original model.
The experiment will consider individual learning as costing about 170 calories from the possible 1000 calories. Hunting again or social learning using the original arrowhead will not result in caloric reduction. The participants will be reminded after every season that the hunting environment will change prior to the hunt and in an effort to motivate them, rewards will be offered for the calories ranging over 10,000 as averaged in the three seasons. The minimum payment will be 4 dollars while the maximum motivational payment will be capped at 10 dollars.
Analytical Methods
Results and Discussion
The results section will look to address a number of research question. These research queries are:
Did the shortlisted participants embrace in social learning?
Was prestige information utilized in the first and second seasons?
Did environmental changes affect the application of prestige information?
When offered the option in season 3, what did the participants prefer using success information or prestige information?
At what point was social learning utilized?
Was social learning employed after any of the environmental shifts?
Challenges
In varying levels of description, the research will incorporate analytic interpretive vignettes, empirical assertions, fieldwork quotes, interview quotes as well as associated interpretive commentary. This implies that for the presentation, a selected representative adult learner voice will be utilized. This is in an effort to shorten the entire presentation given that the sample size is comparatively large with 115 participants. The teacher or facilitator will also be considered as projecting queries in continuous first person such that the quotations will not partake a verbatim form. This is to evade the possibility of making the differences expected in adult learner quotation to be taken out of context. On the same note, to ensure the integrity of the research process is appraised; all participants will be enrolled on a condition of anonymity in an effort to adhere to research study ethics.
Conclusion
As provided in this proposal’s extensive literature review, there is the need for a comprehensive understanding of the manner with which learning environments influence adult learner outcomes. Given that people between the 40 and above 60 years can continue to be productive as societal demographic change put more emphasis for on the positive outcome of this research. It is the hope of this particular research study endeavor that the results realized, discussion and conclusions arrived at will allow for a more sustainable and innovative learning environment especially concerning tertiary institutions.
References
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Knowles, M. S., Holton III, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2014). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. London, UK: Routledge.
Lippman, P. C. (2010).Can the physical environment have an impact on the learning environment? CELE Exchange 2010/13. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/innovation-education/centreforeffectivelearningenvironmentscele/46413458.pdf
McCann, J. T., Graves, D. B., & Dillon, M. E. (2012). The Adult Student Priorities Survey (TM): An Analysis at a Private Central Appalachian University. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 4(2), 29.
Ota, C., DiCarlo, C. F., Burts, D. C., Laird, R., & Gioe, C. (2006). Training and the needs of adult learners. Journal of Extension, 44(6).
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Taylor, E. W., & Laros, A. (2014). Researching the Practice of Fostering Transformative Learning Lessons Learned From the Study of Andragogy.Journal of Transformative Education, 12(2), 134-147.
Yensegenova, G. Z., Batyrbaeva, N. K., Zhamantayeva, K. K., Kabdenova, A. K., Kalieva, T. K., & Alzhanova, G. K. (2015). Training and the Needs of Adult Learners. Science Time, (6 (18).
