Effective Training

Adult Learning

Train the Trainer Program

Eight Features of Adult Learning

An understanding of some of the ways in which adult learning differs from that of children will help you to prepare more effective training sessions for adult audiences and groups.

The following points summarize some of the recent findings of educational research in adult learning.

1. Adults resent being treated like a child.
   They want to be a self-responsible, self-respecting, self-directing individuals. They want to help determine their own learning needs, and evaluate the effectiveness of their learning experiences, as they sees them.
2. Adults must want to learn.
   Children will learn a certain amount under external compulsion, but adults strongly resist learning anything merely because someone say they should. They do learn effectively when they have a strong inner motivation to develop a new skill or to acquire a particular type of knowledge.
3. Adults will learn only what they feel a need to learn. Children can be induced to learn many things for which they see no immediate use; adults have a much more practical approach, and want to know "How is this going to help me right now?" They will respond best to instruction which recognizes the concreteness and immediacy of their goals.
   Furthermore, adults generally expect results very early in the experience: they have little patience with instructors who insist on giving a lot of preliminary background, theory, and historical review before getting to their point.
4. The adult learner is goal-oriented and opportunity rather than fact-centred.
   They want to acquire information and ideas that will help them reach their immediate goals and which can be put too use right away. The importance of realism cannot be overstressed: adults simply will not put their minds to work on problems which are clearly contrived.
   You can teach adults a general rule or principle, and then show them, by a series of hypothetical illustrations, how it applies to specific situations. But studies show that they will learn much faster if you reverse the process; let them begin with specific problems, drawn from experience, and work out practical solutions from which principles may be deduced.
5. Experience affects adults' learning.
   Unlike a child, an adult has a mental "slate" that is crowded with a lifetime of knowledge. New learning must therefore be relational; if the new knowledge doesn't fit in with what they already know, or think they know, they are powerfully disposed to reject it. In fact, their past experience can actually prevent them from perceiving accurately, much less absorbing the meaning of newly presented data.
   On the other hand, because of their extensive background and experience, adults are themselves a prime teaching resource; they can help each other to learn, and may find participative techniques most helpful.
6. Adults learn by doing
   So do children, but the importance of active participation in the learning process is greater among adults. They learn best when they are actively involved and interact with the instructor, boss, co-worker, fellow students and environment; learning is an active process.
7. Adults learn best in informal environments, and pleasant social atmospheres
   Good instruction recognizes the deterring influences of physical and mental fatigue of adult learning.
8. A variety of methods should be used in teaching adults. Learning proceeds most quickly when information reaches the learner through more than one sensory channel. Visual or audio aids can do much to heighten the impact of a lecture or other verbal exposition. Be sure the method you use is adapted to what you are trying to accomplish.