Multiple dimensions of adult learning and training across contexts

TRAINING & ADULT LEARNING

Training and learning when it comes to adults has a lot of layers, iterations and theories as it relates to its practice. Whether it be training men vs. women, the younger adults vs. The older adults, life and death skills such as police training, training in developed countries vs. training in developing continents or countries like Arifica, retention of such learning or training, the form in which the training manifests, the mind power and biology theories that underpin and so forth, there are a lot of considerations and calculations that must be taken into proper account.

Training & Adult Learning

As noted in the abstract, the subject of adult learning and/or training takes on many forms. Of course, the two most common associations that can probably be drawn are that of formal education like at college and such as well as training and learning at work. This capstone project will deign to cover the triumphs, travails and lessons that could and should be learned when it comes to the training and learning of adults. To be sure, there are many dimensions and realms of the subject that could be touched upon and this report will cover many of them. The questions and topics to be answered and explored will include the following:

Training and learning and how it is retained over time based on the timing of the training, how often it happens, and so forth.

The efficacy and overall outcomes of self-directed and self-started learning opportunities

Learning and training in terms of new economic contexts. A recent example would be the new "green economy."

Differences in adult learning based on gender. For example, women's attitudes towards computers and computer literacy is just one subject related to training and learning that has been explored

Barriers and policy matters that can encourage or hinder the practice of "e-learning."

The learning challenges and methods relating to old adults as compared to the millennials, Gen-Y or even Gen-X.

Training and learning in a corporate sector context up to and including the online training of new or current workforce members

Online teaching for adults of more basic and very involved subjects such as learning a new language or learning new words within a prior-known language

Adult training and learning related to knowledge sector and high-end fields such as ophthalmology, dentistry and so forth

Lifelong learning among adults in a modern (i.e. twenty-first century) context as compared to what was used in the 1990's and before

The subject of neuroscience when it comes to teaching adult learners and the implications that this has on educational policy-making at the federal, state and local levels

The subjects of cognitive absorption and group learning behavior and how they affect learning in an individual context

Training in the general public health sphere and the implications this has for healthcare and national outcomes in the years, decades and generations to come.

Adult learning in a diversity and multi-cultural context. This is important because culture and societal structure has a huge effect on learning and the aims of the people involved, especially among adults.

The general transformation process between professional development into professional learning

Training and learning when it comes to things like on-the-job training with the police and other emergency services personnel that behave and function in a field-based environment rather than a controlled and docile classroom.

Training and learning when it comes to preparing teachers and other educational personnel for the teaching and development of children students in a classroom or other environment

Learning and leadership in a rural teaching setting as compared to that of an urban or suburban setting

Continuous education for knowledge sector people other than the ones mentioned before and the social settings involved (e.g. engineers in China)

The development and bringing up of critical thinking skills and how it affects the creation of safety programs for children

The importance of proper training and learning facets in developing countries or areas like in Africa

Training of a holistic fashion with the example used being a voice training course. The participants of the study will be covered

The overall relationship between intelligence and training gains. Of course, there is much said about intelligence affecting training efficacy with that person and vice versa

Policy and other barriers that hinder e-learning in areas of the world other than the West. One country assessed is Taiwan.

Literature Review

The first source in this literature review covers the effects of training structure and the passage of time on trained and derived performance. One of the main conclusions from that study was that "results from both experiments indicate that the lack of stimulus equivalence performance is not commonly caused by a breakdown of trained relations at the time of the stimulus equivalence test" (Eilifsen & Arntzen, 2015). As part of their context, they note that several studies "have shown that the probability of equivalence class formation is lowing following conditional discrimination establishment with the LS training structured, compared to the other two training structures" (Eilifsen & Arntzen, 2015). The study also says that it is "reasonable" to presume that the differential effects of whatever training structure is being used should exert influence on both directly trained and derived performance metrics over time. This particular study used about twenty students that ranged in age from nineteen to thirty-three years old. All of the students were from Oslo and Akershus University College, which would be in Norway, just to give the national context of the conclusions and the study above (Eilifsen & Arntzen, 2015).

The next study talks about "self-directed" training. Specifically, the study talks about the training of staff on technology matters in a library vocational setting. They note that the training has evolved into "Librarian 2.0" training because that is the new frontier of training. Further, millennial-age students expect that training to be in that form. As stated by the study, "undergraduates, as members of the Millennial Generation, are proficient in Web 2.0 technology and expect to apply these technologies to their coursework -- including scholarly research" (Quinney, Smith & Galbraith, 2010). Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University (HBLL and BYU, respectively) was not the first library/university to notice the gap that exists between the students and the librarians/administrators. For example, it is noted that nearly half (42%) of the students on the campus had a blog of some sort. At the same time, barely a fourth (26%) of the staff and faculty could say the same. Further, nearly three fourths of the students (74%) stated that they belonged to a social network (e.g. Facebook) while only three in ten (30%) of faculty said the same. This obvious chasm has led to a rather noticeable gap in what students are expecting from their educational organizations and frameworks and what they are actually getting from the same. Further, the students of today are masters of what is commonly referred to as "informal" learning whereas modern-day administrators and educational leaders are more focused on what is delivered and taught in more formal educational settings. Beyond that, many younger students are perfectly fine taking a self-directed approach to learning whereas the curriculums and lesson plans currently being used in actual classrooms are designed to be heavily structured and led by a facilitator (Quinney, Smith & Galbraith, 2010).

As an extension of what is happening at BYU and colleges like it, much the same thing is happening with certain parts of the United States economy and the economies of other countries. For example, there is the "green jobs" part of the United States and other countries. Just as with the BYU example, the learning constructs and frameworks that exist in the green economy sphere are behind the curve and there is the desire to update and upgrade those frameworks. Of course, the green economy is still very much in its infancy and finding sustainable jobs for the future in that economy is not always easy. It is deemed a huge part of battling that to focus on adult learning and catering the teaching scenarios to the new age in which we inhabit. Indeed, the study notes that "the primary goal of the training was to prepare workers for, and to place them into, sustainable wage jobs in the green economy (Wagner, 2013). In the eyes of many, this is a paradigm and a situation where the government is not keeping up with the needs and the frameworks that are needed for this new realm of the economy. For example, they note that there was the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007 that was passed but that it was never funded. They also make reference to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was the first main economic stimulus bill that was passed after the Great Recession started, that did a much better of job of funding green initiatives. In short, Wagner notes that the government has to provide assistance when it comes to new economic directions and frameworks. Of course, these initiatives need to be funded and managed in the right way by all people involved. As was started to be noted above, the training and development of people for the sector is a huge part of making any plan work. However, it takes funding from the government for an economic realm that is still in its infancy (Wagner, 2013).

Traditionally, women have not taken to computer and the associated learning or careers like men have over the years. This is a subject that was touched upon by Chang et al. (2012). The study makes a reference to a "digital divide" that exists in the research. They noted that "adult women have generally been found to be the weakest group when compared to others." They react to this by saying that there is a need to provided them with computer literacy training and otherwise give them opportunities to learn with computers. To prove this is not an aberration found in the United States alone, they did such an assessment on a total of fifty-five countries. With the exception of Cuba, men always surged ahead of women and the gap was quite often more than five percent in each country. The gap gets even wider when talking about women that are in the age range of fifty-five to seventy-four. In this demographic, the gap between men and women usually goes past ten percent, if not well past ten percent. To address this, there is a strategy cited that involves "expanding or sustaining a positive, anxiety-free attitude or value structure about computers." This is considered "pivotal for coputer literacy." A related but quite different finding in this study was that some people's assertions about educational level being positive correlated with computer literacy is actually quite wrong and the gap between men and women is one of the main reasons why. Of course, professional women are more likely than housewives to use computers in a concerted and consistent fashion but housewives can learn to embrace and use computers as well, according to this study (Chang, Shieh, Liu & Yu, 2012).

When it comes to barriers and policy issues relating to E-Learning, the bar that must be cleared is much higher in areas like Taiwan. This study starts off by stating that the work quality of public servants directly affects a country's administrative performance, and the Taiwan government has recently invested a considerable amount of funds in constructing e-government learning platforms and developing digital courses to provide all public servants with sufficient on-the-job training and enhance the quality of human resources" (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). However, getting everyone on board with that subject and paradigm can be difficult. The same study notes that "the results presented here show that Barrier Factors and Policy Factors strongly influence the willingness of public servants to use e-learning systems, and these factors explain more than 80% of the variance in users' behavioral intention (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). It is noted that the last ten years (relative to the study) were revolutionary and widely changing of the learning landscape but that the translation of these changes into real-world situations and work performance frameworks was terrible inconsistent in some instances. The study compares e-learning methods and efficacy at actual colleges and schools (for young adults and children, respectively) as compared to the workforce in both the public and private sectors (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). Another study focused on Taiwan as well and it was written by Hsiu-Ying, Gwo-Guang and Shih-Hwa (2014) and they also pointed to the barriers that existed in placing e-learning into effect in China. Their perspective was different in that they actually pointed to an American source to make their point. Specifically, they pointed to the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). That society notes that e-learning encompasses a wide range of applications and processes, such as web-based learning, comuter-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration as well as the transmission of curriculum content through the Internet, LAN/WAN, audio tapes and videotapes, satellite broadcasts, interactive TV, and CD-ROM (Hsiu-Ying, Gwo-Guang & Shih-Hwa, 2014)

When it comes to older adults and their general learning opportunities and methods as they age, the work of du Plessis, Anstey and Schlumpp sheds some light on what could or should be done to help those older learners. Indeed, they note "demographic trends indicate that older adults live longer and maintain active lifestyles." Quite often, those people are educated and they are more than willing to engage in lifelong learning of one form or another as their life wears on. Sure, there are those that suffer from what is known as age-related decline and diseases/disorders that render the same overall result. In particular, this study focus on the learning of older adults in the country of Australia. The study notes that teaching older adults actually has to be done differently because their cognitive makeup and reactions are different from those of younger learners and people. For example, they state that "older adults show different patterns of functional activation during cognitive tests" (du Plessis, Anstey & Schlumpp, 2011). Different just means that…different. It does not mean slower. For example, when undergoing fMRI and PET scans, there is clear evidence that young adults have neural activation in the left prefrontal area when conducting verbal working memory tasks. On those same tests, older adults show activation in the left and right prefrontal area…not just the left. It is also noted that there are sensory changes in older adults as they age as compared to what younger people typically use and are used to (du Plessis, Anstey & Schlumpp, 2011).

Another study covered in this literature review also covered the memory and mind function of older adults. This new study found that the use of mnemonics when teaching older adults was fairly effective in helping them learn and retain information. Of course, the goals that are to be achieved with teaching older people as it relates to memory are difference and of a different scope than training that occurs with younger adults or children. As stated by Bottiroli, "the broader goals of memory training for older adults is to foster age-related maintenance of function and to improve their memory functioning in everyday life" (Bottiroli et al., 2013). Of course, younger adults have lesser need for such training as their faculties are much stronger, whether or not they actually use them (Bottiroli et al., 2013).

There are obviously and wide-ranging implications for training and learning in the corporate sector. One study and article on the subject dives quite deep as it includes material about human computer interaction (HCI) and information and communication technologies (ICT). Even with the general pattern away from ground-based learning and towards online learning, there are real and present negative attitudes towards online learning from the general public, at least in Australia. The article takes a step back and notes that online learning in some form has actually been around for half a century. Indeed, the University of Illinois had a program in the 1960's that was known as PLATO. This was short for Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations. Fast forward to the present day and this study is like one of the prior studies mentioned (the one about Taiwan). This study focuses on the adoption of online training in Australia in a modern context. Rather than focus on the public sector like the Taiwan study did, the Australia study focused on the private sector. Similar research and initiatives have been or are going on in areas like the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. Western countries are a big area of focus as many of them are aging in terms of overall demographics and their overall age structures (McKay & Vilela, 2011). There has also been a focus on Australians in a rural setting because they have learning and leadership implications to deal with as well (Madsen, O'Mullan & Keen-Dyer, 2014).

Another article focused on word teaching as it relates to both dense and non-dense words. They study states at the top that "people typically learn new words through exposure." This has led many to think and believe that words are leaned from the input that is heard by the person who is listening. However, others have countered that input is not necessarily needed as there can be learning even with the absence of additional input. Regardless, training typically leads to new retention and new learning while with withdrawal training has a nasty side effect…forgetting of the learning. The study looked at this subject through a study but they used a lot more women than men so the applicability across a population that is almost half and half men and women might be limited for obvious reasons. The women in question were an average of twenty-two years old, so that would make them rather young on the average. Even so, there was promise found with online learning as well as offline learning with absence of additional input (Storkel, Bontempo & Pak, 2014).

When it comes to teaching people in knowledge sector industries, the level of mastery and completion is obviously much higher and this is by necessity. One study that focused on this subject looked at ophthalmology in particular. The study looked at four overarching questions that should be answered when it comes to the management of trainees and those questions were:

1) What are the learning needs of the trainees involved

2) What educational methods or practices best address the needs identified

3) What assessment methods are best at testing the acquisition of the desired learning outcomes

4) What are the needs of the supervisors and/or teachers that will be delivering the training

The questions above were posed in the overall paradigm of ophthalmology in the area of New Zealand. The training program of those adult learners is robust as it takes roughly five years. The program is offered by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists, or RANZCO for short. That school and program focused on three major domains of knowledge and skills, those being clinical/surgical skills and knowledge, social/professional roles and what they refer to as OBS. Further, they use an extremely regimented structure for what a "novice" is and that then ranges all the way up to expert. That structure was adapted from the work of Dreyfus and Dreyfus in 1986. Novices are expected to rigidly adhere to taught rules and plans, they are not expected to have any situational perceptions and they should be making no use of discretionary judgment. This is as compared to experts which no longer rely on rules, guidelines or maxims, they have an intuitive grasp of situations based on deep tacit understandings, they use analytic approaches only in novel situations and they have a great overall vision of what is possible and probable in their career and in career situations (Roberts, Gustavs & Mack, 2012). A similar article to the one above pertains to the training of public health students in the United States. They took a similar but very different approach at the same time. Facets and precepts of their program include the fact that all of the students are cultural beings, all people in the program hold multiple identities and there is power and privilege in working in the field (Cushman et al., 2015). Engineers in China and their social frameworks could also be discussed in the above context (Hongxia, 2014).

When it comes to "high stakes," very little reaches the level that medical care does. Educational care is not usually "life and death" but it is very important as well. However, the general safety of children in today's society is something that is very focused on and prominent when it comes to learning and teaching. As such, a study about that, as written by Hatton-Bowers et al. (2015) was selected for this report. One common manifestation of this in practice is the improvement and development of procedures and practices in child welfare agencies. Indeed, when those people make a determination based on the evidence as to whether a child is safe, the implications of them being wrong are quite obvious (Hatton-Bowers et al., 2015).

One concept that has come up and that relates to adult learning in the modern age is lifelong learning. This is something very much specific to the still fairly young twenty-first century. Indeed, the concept of lifelong learning has become a pervasive movement and direction that many governmental and non-governmental agencies have taken. As stated by the Milic (2013), "major universities and governmental and non-governmental organizations around the world have been engaged in discussions about implementing the principles of lifelong learning as fundamental principles of individual education" (Milic, 2013). They dig deeper in the next section by stating that "in pedagogical theory, lifelong theory is define as an imperative and a pre-requisite for individual development -- that is, for an individual's social emancipation -- as well as for the cultural and economic development of society as a whole" (Milic, 2013). Milic discussed an action plan that has been touted as being a major vehicle to implementing and creating proper lifelong learning frameworks:

Remove the barriers that exist to the participation in higher education

Increase the quality and/or efficiency of higher education institutions

Accelerate the process of accreditation and/or recognition of prior learning events for students

Provide a satisfactory level of funding for the programs and people involved

Establish a system that allows for the proper monitoring of higher education (Milic, 2013).

One part of science that has been extremely informative as it relates to education adults is neuroscience. Specifically, Knowland and Thomas (2014) sought to talk about how neuroscience can inform educational policy at the government levels through the countries in which educational frameworks and systems exist and function. Indeed, they note that "the acquisition of new skills in adulthood can positively affect an individual's quality of life, including their earning potential" (Knowland & Thomas, 2014). As part of the study, they sought to ask five major questions

1) Are sensitive periods in brain development relevant to learning of comlext educational skills like, for example, literacy

2) Can adult learners become proficient in a new skill or not?

3) Can everyone learn equally effectively in adulthood given the right circumstances and methods?

4) What role does the learning environment play?

Study Design

Most studies follow one of three general patterns when it comes to overall study design. Those three types are quantitative, qualitative and a blend of the two. The author of this report has done a literature review using the last of the three methods and the results and recommendations shall come from the same. The author of this report culled the twenty-five sources used and has drawn conclusions from the same. If there are correlations and links between different sources and what they are trying to say, that will have been identified.

Validity & Reliability

The two hallmarks of any reputable study are validity and reliability. The latter of those two is the idea that someone following the same methodology and using much of the same data will come to the same general conclusion as anyone else that does the same study. Validity is the general premise that the conclusions garnered are based on the evidence, that the evidence is complete and that the evidence was used and collected completely and ethically. Things that can affect validity would include improper sampling, bias on the part of the researcher(s) and so forth. The author of this report made it a point to get a wide swath of sources about many different subtopics within the adult learning and training sphere. The author of this report also made it a point to get sources that covered not only the West but also the East as there are sources relating to China and Taiwan, just to name two. Many demographic dimensions were analyzed including age, gender, cultural delineations, societal delineations, geographical delineations and so forth.

Limitations

As with all studies, there are limitations to this one. First of all, there is no direct analysis being undertaken by the author of this report. Instead, the research is a wide swath of research that other people have done. The fact that so many studies (twenty-five) were used serves to mitigate some of this. However, there is still the third-party nature of the research. Also, making broad-based assumptions on such a complex and broad topic is always hard to do. Any deep-diving theories and assertions have to be at least fairly focused and precise as getting too broad waters down the applicability, validity and so forth of what is being said and theorized.

Analysis & Results

Based on the totality of the research culled and analyzed, the following findings can be described. As was done in the introduction, a touching upon all of the sources used will be done:

Training and learning is either retained well or it is not based on when the training happens, how often it happens and how long it has been since the last training session that occurred. Repetition at good intervals is helpful but not always possible.

There are good outcomes and good practices for people that are self-directed learners. However, these people tend to be on the younger-side and the frameworks that exist at formal education institutions are often behind the curve and/or the desires of the younger generations of adults (e.g. millennials).

Learning and training frameworks are often created and fostered due to the creation of new paradigms or the expansion of prior ones. The aforementioned "green" industry is but one example.

There is an obvious digital divide between men and women just as there is one based on age. Though differences and thought pattern aberrations exist, many people are trying to close those divides.

Governmental and school-based barriers can get in the way of learning efficacy and continuity

There are challenges with older learners as compared to younger learners and a lot of it relates to the brain functionality and preferences for each generation

Training in the corporate sector has more and more started to resemble and reflect that of more traditional education institutions but with a more modern flair

Training for knowledge sector careers is (and should be) more complex and involved due to the amount of knowledge to be learned and the stakes involved in getting the job done right.

Lifelong learning is here to stay and is coming to be used for all generations both younger and older, but the younger are embracing and using it more

Neuroscience is becoming very prominent and it will affect policy-making at all levels of government as it becomes more developed

Cognitive absorption does not always happen but it is a sight to see when it occurs and it truly is an "immersive" experience for those that can find it.

Diversity and culture matters greatly when it comes to adult learning and this becomes even more true when there are multiple cultures in a single learning group.

Professional development and professional learning are becoming more and more the same thing when it comes to adult learning contexts.

Field-based learning can be chaotic and crazy but it is necessary for certain careers (e.g. nursing, police, etc.)

Field-based learning can also be useful for other fields where learning on the job truly exceeds and replaces other methods (e.g. educators)

Learning in rural settings is harder but must happen.

The development of critical thinking skills in a child welfare context, just as one example, is important because whether a child is yanked from a home, for example, is very important.

Robust but different online technologies are necessary and already widely used in developing countries and continents like Africa

Holistic training has made its way into the adult learning sphere more and more

Conclusion & Recommendations

Given the sources and findings above, the author of this report would offer the following recommendations:

Men and women need to be made the same in terms of their desire to learn and thrive as adult learners. Of course, they will be different in some ways no matter what. However, there should not be the gaps that exist right now

There should be an attempt to bring older learners into the digital age but there should be an understanding that many of them will resist to the end and are not interested in social networks and so forth. As such, there should be customization for those learners

Colleges and learning institutions (for both children and young adults) should be focused on Web 2.0 and modern technology. Even if the educators and leaders of these institutions do not themselves use social media and so forth, the frameworks they use should be of the modern flair so that they match up to what students are expecting. Even if they do not use them, though, the educators need to know what happens and how they work.

Understand that methods necessary to teach people will vary by person. That being said, what works for the most people most of the time and/or what is otherwise most efficient (without being dated) should be used. Mixing up methods for the same material can be useful.

There are other recommendations that could be offered but those are the main ones. As noted already, there is so much complexity and flavor to adult learning that there is no way to address the concerns and issues of all people all of the time. Even so, there are ways to increase and improve overall efficacy and those are covered at length in this and other research. It remains to be seen what directions will be taken and forged in the coming years and decades. However, it is clear that big changes will happen…it is just a matter of what and when. It would seem that neuroscience and the general concept of lifelong learning are going to be a huge part of it and the general trend of the young being technologically immersed will eventually lead to a country and world that is technology-immersed across all generations.