A critical review of adult education in human resource development

¶ … Adult Education

Within Human Resources Development

The literature which describes and analyzes the important aspects of adult education - within the Human Resources Development genre - is vitally important in relating to today's employees who seek - and deserve - learning opportunities within their workplace environment. It provides a point of reference, it offers stimulating ideas for digestion and analysis, and it zeros in on the issue at hand, which is that learning should be encouraged and facilitated by employers, and it should be done in such a way that gains in individual learning and knowledge will transfer to competency on the job, and ultimately, profitability for the employer.

An exceptionally useful article by Theodore J. Marchese, entitled, "Insights from Neuroscience and Anthropology, Cognitive Science and Work-Place Studies": e.g., the brain is "remarkably plastic across the lifespan..."

Early experiences and genetic inheritance are very important," Marchese writes in his piece, 'The New Conversations About Learning'. "[And yet] all kinds of people are capable of incredible feats of learning through decades of their life." And the "best news" Marchese sees, is, "the evidence coming forth of the brain's plasticity across the lifespan, of human abilities ever to learn, to 'effloresce' in creativity in the right conditions of challenge and safety."

Marchese goes on to explain that employers who have the vision to fully utilize and develop the rich experiences of adults helps erase the "academic folk wisdom that wants to categorize people early and keep them there."

In developing his argument that learning is evolutionary - one "natural" way of learning is "apprenticeship," he asserts - and that the study of how people learn is not without controversy. Meantime, he shares Dee Dickenson's bullet points - useful for an HR professional to print out in 36-point type and thumbtack to a bulletin board or a wall - about how a person actually goes through the process of learning: a) The brain is remarkably plastic across the lifespan; b) powerful learning is prompted when all five sense are engaged; c) adequate time is needed for each phase of information processing (input/assimilation/output); and d) emotional well-being is essential to intellectual functioning, indeed to survival.

A second set of "how the brain works in the context of learning" bullet points that Marchese feels worthy of sharing originated from Australian Geoffrey Caine: a) body, mind, and brain exist in dynamic unity; b) our brain is a social brain; c) the search for meaning is innate; d) the brain establishes meaning through patterning; e) emotions are crucial to patterning; f) learning involves conscious and unconscious processes; g) complex learning is enhanced by challenge, inhibited by threat; and h) every brain is uniquely organized, with resulting differences of talent and preference.

If our brain "is a social brain" and the search for meaning in our lives "is innate," then it is incumbent on employers (and HR managers) to not only get the most out of employees in terms of profitability, but to get the most out of the brains of their workers in order to build a workplace culture that carries the company through the highs and lows as they seek long-term success (and yes, profits).

Malcolm S Knowles - Andragogy broken down into digestible bites

Andragogy: a set of guidelines, a philosophy, a set of assumptions, and a theory which essentially is "an honest attempt to focus on the learner..." (Introduction, The Adult Learner, Malcolm S Knowles)

Meanwhile, what is learning? How does it work? When an adult is seeking and finding knowledge in association with that person's workplace - either in a company classroom or in a facility outside the workplace provided by the company - that person is, according to Knowles (page 11), doing three things: 1) mastering or acquiring what is already known about something; 2) extending and clarifying the meaning of one's experience; and 3) engaging in an organized, intentional process of testing ideas relevant to problems.

What is known about adult learning? Why is there a lack of research, according to Knowles, into this field? One reason Knowles gives is that perhaps because schools were originally designed to teach children. The seventh century school was set up to teach boys the priesthood, and the label attached to schools in that genre was "pedagogy," which means "the art and science of teaching children" (36).

Knowles points out that it wasn't until the post-WWI era that "a growing body of notions about the unique characteristics of adult learners began emerging." Two "streams of inquiry" were at work - scientific stream and artistic or intuitive / reflective stream - in the initial launching of adult education programs, in the late 1920s. Knowles sets the scene for adult learning through the artistic stream on page 37, when he quotes from Eduard C. Lindeman's book, The Meaning of Adult Education (1926). Lindeman writes that adult learning should be structured with "small groups of aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh and vigorous."

Those small groups begin to learn by "confronting pertinent situations" and "dig down into the reservoirs of their experience before resorting to texts and secondary facts." These worthy and interested adults are "led in the discussion by teachers who are also searchers after wisdom and not oracles: this constitutes the setting for adult education, the modern quest for life's meaning."

When he says "searchers and not oracles" he alludes to the fact that "none but the humble become good teachers of adults. Why is that true? Because, the fact is that in an adult learning environment, "the student's experience counts for as much as the teacher's knowledge. Both are exchangeable at par...in some of the best adult classes it is sometimes difficult to discover who is learning most, the teacher or the students."

Every HR professional should be aware of the benefits that accrue to the adult employee engaged in learning programs (those above and beyond the physical tasks performed in the workplace) - and by logical extension, such worthy benefits are harvested by the company in fruitful ways - and should encourage learning wherever reasonable and practical.

Knowles captures the Lindeman "Assumptions about Adult Learners," as though he had a room-full of HR managers in a huge banquet room, and was giving a helpful lesson: 1) Adults are motivated to learn as they experience needs and interests that learning will satisfy; 2) Adults' orientation to learning is life-centered; 3) Experience is the richest source for adults' learning; 4) Adults have a deep need to be self-directing; 5) Individual differences among people increase with age.

The Profession and Practice of Adult Education - Merriam, Sharan B., and Brocket, Ralph, G.

The authors of this book critique public educators rather sharply (17), when they contend that "Most practitioners in adult education are so caught up in the everyday concerns of getting the job done that they rarely consider what they ultimately hope to accomplish." If this is true, then certainly practitioners of public education directed at workplace learning for adults should be chosen with great care by HR personnel. Merriam et al. say that too often in adult education, the aerobics instructor "probably thinks of physical fitness as the goal," rather than adding to the knowledge and potential of the adult learners on a pragmatic life-centered basis. And the "nurse educator" probably thinks the goal is "increased medical knowledge," rather than helping adults fulfill goals of self-improvement and stronger career achievements.

The authors of this book quote Knowles as saying the "mission" of adult education is "satisfying the needs of individuals, institutions, and society." They quote Knowles again as saying the ultimate goal for the individual is "human fulfillment" and as for the institution that is providing opportunities for workers to learn, the purpose is to "develop its constituency, improve its operational effectiveness, and establish 'public understanding and involvement'."

Article in Adult Education Quarterly - Does the ongoing Globalization of the market and of workplace dynamics set up the more vital need for continuing education of workers, as pivotal to their individualization and productivity?

The second assumption that Lindeman expressed, recorded by Knowles, alludes to the "life-centered" orientation to learning, and it certainly can be seen as reasonably sensible; adults have lived longer than entry-level employees, younger employees, so their work experience has for them a point from which perspective is deeper and meaningful. (Or, if they don't have that point for perspective, work is simply tedium, and managers are losing out on the potential richness of an older person's efforts.)

The world is changing rapidly, and along with it workplace dynamics are being transformed; also, attitudes about productivity and profit and retirement are being re-shaped and re-defined. It is no longer just a picture of a one-dimensional worker toiling through the years until retirement by driving to the shop on a crowded freeway, nine to five, and coming home to watch Walter Cronkite discuss the post-Cold War realities in Europe and America. Things have moved very quickly into a new global "village" - and so discussions about learning and workplace dynamics must adapt and relate to those emerging issues.

Meanwhile, a scholarly and well-thought-out piece in Adult Education Quarterly (Glastra, et al., 2004), speaks to many issues within the context of "Lifelong Learning" (LLL), and sees the big picture of today's workplace and learning dynamics. Indeed, the article, which was published in August, is entitled, "Lifelong Learning as Transitional Learning," and emphasizes from the outset that "Globalization and individualization have radically changed both the economic system and the personal life world in industrial or postindustrial nation-states."

Building a good life, Glastra explains, "has become an individual responsibility demanding reflexivity and skills." How do the present approaches with reference to LLL "relate to the requirements of a competitive economy, on one hand, and the good life on the other hand," Glastra asks. And moreover, how does the emerging globalization of workplace effect the willingness and/or ability of employers to encourage workplace learning?

Glastra writes (291) that "Creating the learning company and developing lifelong learning with a view to economic competitiveness have become the gospel of the 'knowledge economy'." But what this new global competitiveness does, the article explains, is put "individuals...more than ever, on their own in facing the speed and scope of changes in a globalizing information society." The "traditional" social structure - social class and gender relations - together with cultural aspects of life - religion, scientific truth, civic interactivity - in terms of "leading one's life," Glastra asserts, "are eroding. In the place of those traditional values and issues, the new "postmodern imperative" is "individual distinction." If this is true, it seems all the more relevant to the new workplace values that individual growth (i.e., in particular, adult learning) be put high on the agenda for the visionary, alert HR person, when it comes to workplace learning. Adults, as noted earlier in the literature, are life directed.

Just what is globalization - and how does today's adult worker - who seeks growth through knowledge - fit in?

The authors put forward the notion that globalization is "...a multifaceted, historical development... [which] builds on a history of international relations between nation-states... [and] is new in the sense of the growing extensiveness of social networks involved, the intensity and speed of flows and interconnections..."

Globalization is wrapped up on the "increase in mobility as witnessed, for example, in the international financial markets, on the Internet, and in migration processes." A key in understanding this shift in the interaction between world markets is in becoming aware of "the radically increased mobility of capital," and the capacity of capital to "bypass devalued peoples and territories, its general disengagement with regard to labor, and the growth of social inequality."

The article explains that since today information and knowledge is so readily available, and moves with the speed of light on the Internet, this dynamic "gives rise to learning as a permanent feature of social life." Globalization confronts nations, companies and people with "learning challenges as they struggle to cope within rapidly changing and unstable global and local environments."

Learning may be a permanent feature of social life, but the authors also say that individuals "must resolve systemic and institutional frictions essentially on their own," which doesn't portend a smooth transition from being out of the learning loop into a very productive workplace learning situation.

Challenges to the adult who wishes to become a LLL as part of one's job.

The proof in the "pudding" of Glastra's presentation - in terms of individuals being more and more isolated in this global economy - is presented by the following generalizations (widely held though as truths): a) the "decline of political participation of citizens in parliamentary democracy"; b) "the erosion of the nuclear family"; c) "the withering away of the standard biography"; d) the incorporation of women in the labor process"; e) and the "individual labor contracts."

When people come to a point where they have lost their faith in "traditional cultural guidelines" (work, home, church, play), they face "the tyranny of choice," which means they can no longer be certain of the consequences "of their choices in life." This condition leads naturally to insecurity, and a loss of personal identity, the article continues. Since work organizations and the "unpredictability of life" take away a person's flexibility, people then must become individuals again by "constructing or reconstructing their own biographies and life courses."

And so, with that background, the authors begin getting specific about HR, LLL, and work-based learning (296): "The development, storage, distribution, and deployment of professional knowledge and cultural intelligence emerge as the core strategic element in the survival or work organizations." Employees who are educated to a higher level than the average worker "need to be employable for a broad range of non-routine and developmental tasks." In other words, along with more learning, more education, the worker who wants to fully become part of the new global marketplace must also be flexible. They may become "flex-time" employees, moving from full time to part time as corporate interests dictate; and moreover, they will be "more frequently off the job... [either] for refreshing their knowledge and skills..." Or resulting from unemployment.

And for the boss, executives and company stockholders, they must learn how to handle the employee when hiring not just hands but "the head, the heart, and the spirit" of an employee because "what is hard to copy is also hard to manage..."

The boss must also discover newer and better ways to "accommodate the unruly life world that develops inside their work organizations" simply because the new, educated employee has become a "storehouse of authenticity," a "consumer of tasks and jobs," and has also become an individual "seeing personal meaning" in his work.

An Article in Studies in the Education of Adults - "The significance of individual biography in workplacelearning."

The research on learning in the workplace over the past fifteen or so years has focused upon a viewpoint that is organization or social, say the authors of this scholarly piece (Hodkinson, et al., 2004). And to begin with, the authors establish the fact that learning "is not the primary activity" in workplaces, so, the learning needs of workers is "not a high priority" for employers.

That said the article points to a pair of approaches that have been used in studying workplace learning dynamics. One is studying how learning through the workplace is "belonging to communities of practice," and hence the learning entails becoming "a full member" in the process. The second method of studying learning in the workplace involves "stressing the learning within and between activity systems," as the employee faces "internal and external contradictions and tensions." The authors indicate that they will focus in this article on similarities between the two approaches.

The authors say learning is viewed (too often) as "a ubiquitous process, often subconsciously undertaken" during normal working situations. And further, there is today in the workplace a need for an approach that can "dialectically link" the worker and the social structure. That link will provide the possibility of avoiding the "dangers of over-emphasizing individual agency in relation to the person, and social structures in relation to the contexts where they work and learn."

What is also needed, the authors' research indicates, that when studies highlight how major shifts in perspective and work attitudes are achieved with certain types of intervention in the workplace, those studies "seldom consider...the context of the prior learning [of the worker] and the characteristics of the actors." More attention should be paid to the knowledge an adult worker has picked up along the way, because it "comes into play at significant points" in the workplace environment.

The authors present four "sets of learning processes" to point out the complexity and difficult nature of the "place of the individual in the workplace learning" dynamic: 1) Workers/learners bring prior knowledge, understanding and skills with them, which can contribute to their future work and learning; 2) The habitus of workers, including their dispositions towards work, career and learning, influence the ways in which they construct and take advantage of opportunities for learning at work; 3) The values and dispositions of individual workers contribute to the co-production and reproduction of the communities of practice and/or organizational cultures and/or activity systems where they work; 4) Working and belonging to a workplace community contributes to the developing habitus and sense of identity of the workers themselves.

As to the conclusions of the authors, they make no bones about the fact that the worker/learners are "simultaneously part of the workplaces they inhabit, and separate from them." And it is "dangerously distorting to simplify workers/learners are representing agency," while the workplace setting "provides the structure." The significance of both "structure and agency within individual lives and dispositions," and within the workplaces they inhabit, shows the complexity of the overlapping types of interaction between the workplace and individual context.

The four overlapping types of interaction are: bringing prior abilities and experiences to the workplace; the ways in which individual dispositions influence the nature and use of workplace learning affordances; the ways in which individuals contribute to the re-construction of workplace cultures and practices which influence learning; and the ways in which learning and participation in work contributes to the construction and development of learner/worker identity.

There is a tendency, the authors conclude, an understandable one, to view workplace learning as the "controlled acquisition of predetermined skills, knowledge and working practices." Perhaps, to illustrate what happens in this dynamic, a supervisor decides what learning should actually be attempted, and also decides how the "success of such learning can be measured, and how it will be developed" as a course of action for the workers. The risk in doing workplace learning through this approach, authors continue, is "the assumption of predictability about the impact of pedagogical interventions, across all relevant workers, in any targeted context." ("Pedagogical" refers to young students being taught mostly by older teacher.")

At best, the approach described above can only "be partial" in its positive impact, "and at worst, unintended side-effects will result in significant impacts that actually undermine the original intentions."

What is the approach to workplace learning that the authors suggest, instead of the approach discussed in the two paragraphs above? "Enhancing opportunities to learn in the workplace" may involved "constructing more expansive learning environments for workers," based not upon what an eager supervisor thinks will be best for them, but based on "a detailed assessment of what workers would want," would respond to "positively," or would "need, in a particular setting."