Do Adults Learn in a Different Way from Children?
by Lorraine D. Ledger, M.S.
The belief that adults learn through a different process than children undergirds the assumptions of popular adult learning theories, but some experts don’t agree with this view. When you look at all the scholarly literature on the subject, there’s a lot of disagreement, and a single unified theory to explain how all adults learn—or for guiding the teaching of adults—does not really exist. Instead, there are many theories that instructional designers should draw from when designing learning experiences or training specifically for adults.
Some share commonalities, or overlap, but others completely contradict each other. Some frameworks identified as theories emphasize application and are more accurately characterized as models. For example, Malcolm Knowles’s popular Andragogy concept is actually a model but often labeled in some literature with the very official sounding title of Adult Learning Theory, as if it were the only adult learning theory. Even he acknowledged in his 1973 book, The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species, that the term had long been used in Germany, Yugoslavia, France, and Holland to distinguish adult learning from that of children. In 1984, he confirmed that he had built his five Assumptions and four Principles on philosophical theories found in the writings of his friend and mentor Eduard Lindeman. So, Knowles did not originate an actual theory. Instead, he built other people’s theories into a practical teaching model.
Adult Learning Theory, as it is generally regarded today, really became crystalized as a mainstream approach to teaching adults in the mid-to-late 20th century. That means it is relatively new and still being developed. And many diverse perspectives from the fields of psychology, sociology, business and industry, the military, HR practices, computer science, and biology can all be thanked for their many contributions to developing the models and frameworks currently being applied in adult learning.
Whatever you want to call them—they are useful.
So, let’s take a look at three of the most popular: Experiential Learning, Andragogy, and Transformative Learning.
David A. Kolb: Experiential Learning Theory
By the time Dr. Albert Bandura had published his Social Learning Theory in 1977, the learning sciences had already shifted away from Behaviorism to a stronger emphasis on the importance of experience in cognition and the learning process. David A. Kolb published his Learning Styles Inventory (LSI) in 1976, based on earlier models he began developing in the 1960s. LSI is still popular today for business leadership training and in adult education programs, as it helps individuals determine their own information processing and decision-making styles, in order to apply the skills inherent in their personal styles to solving specific types of problems in their lives. It is possible that you have taken the LSI without knowing it when applying for management or supervisory positions, as it is a common HR tool.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) appears to be, by its frequency of mention in other scholars’ work, the most famous and popular adult social learning theory. So, what does it say, exactly? Basically, ELT helps learners to understand and organize their self-directed learning behaviors more efficiently, to make the most of their efforts. In other words, by being aware of the way you tend to learn (or prefer to learn), you can focus your energy on deliberately aligning your perceptions, feelings, and intellect. This alignment makes learning faster, deeper, and more sustained.
David Kolb’s ELT is also referred to as a “cycle,” which is divided into four stages of learning that he says adults always cycle through. The order is consistent, but a person may “jump in” at any point in the cycle, depending on the situational circumstances that started the learning process. These four stages are:
- Concrete experiences
- Observation and reflection
- Generalizing and theorizing
- Testing new concepts
The most important aspect of the cycle is, that having tested their theories in real world situations (i.e., concrete experience), adults begin the process over again on the basis of the concrete experiences they encountered while testing their theories. So, round and round it goes. Another factor in ELT, according to Kolb, is the learner’s style or approach to learning. He delineated four Basic Learning Styles: Accommodating, Diverging, Assimilating, and Converging. These he placed on a circular continuum, fluctuating between Reflective Observation and Active Experimentation on an information Processing Continuum, and along a Perception Continuum that fluctuates between Feeling and Thinking.
Malcolm Knowles: Andragogy
Knowles’s theory of Andragogy does not specify the order of steps in learning, but he agrees with Kolb, that adult learning is a fairly predictable process. While Kolb approaches the adult in his fully autonomous state and emphasizes situated metacognition (i.e., thinking about thinking), Andragogy is presented more from the perspective of a trainer or coach. Knowles believed that human social interactions play the stronger role, although he also acknowledged the importance of situation and context in personal meaning-making.
Andragogy emphasizes that teachers are also peers, part of the group of learners who join resources to experience and learn something specific together. To ensure relevance and engagement in group activities, Knowles suggested involving adult learners in the design and planning of their own learning experiences, even in classroom situations. College professors, for instance, might give a survey at the beginning of a course to find out what learners already know, or what they hope will be covered in the class. Then adjustments can be made to the syllabus to accommodate individual needs or requests, when possible.
One idea to improve engagement is to allow students to lead group discussions or make presentations to the class as subject- matter experts. This helps supply the adult need for esteem and social value and also provides personal relevance, while additionally providing concrete experience and a testing ground for building new competencies.
Another useful idea is for professors to request frequent feedback from students to ensure that the content being covered is relevant and readily applicable. The main idea of Andragogy is that learners are already motivated and ready when instructors meet them, and they want to acquire knowledge and experiences that are relevant to their lives in the current moment.
Instead of delimiting steps to follow in the learning process, as Kolb did, Knowles identified Assumptions that facilitators should keep in mind about adults when designing learning experiences for them. The Assumptions are:
- Adults need to know why they are learning something, including the risks and benefits involved.
- Adults have a strong concept of self, they self-manage and exercise options.
- Adults bring to every situation vast stores of prior knowledge obtained through personal experience.
- Adults are ready to learn and are seeking timely and focused content that isrelevant to their immediate personal circumstances.
- Adults are usually problem- and task-focused, ignoring irrelevant orextraneous information.
- Adults are driven to learn by intrinsic, internal motives more than a desire for external rewards.
Jack Mezirow: Transformative Learning Theory
A final adult learning theory for consideration in this discussion is Transformative Learning (TL), which is also sometimes called Transformational Learning (TL), strongly suggests that certain kinds of reasoning and problem-solving cannot be performed without collecting a vast store of knowledge through experience first. It is unlikely that any child or adolescent would be prepared for the kind of reasoning and decision-making that TL requires, so TL seems to prove that—Yes—sometimes, adults do learn in different ways from children. The chief goals, or expected outcomes, of TL are wisdom for individuals and cultural change for societies and organizations. TL is about causing change and managing change.
Since the theory was first introduced by Jack Mezirow around the year 2000, it has split into factions that are quickly becoming their own theories and practices. TL is a very complicated theory that involves the whole human organism, from intellect to social setting to emotional responses.
Some branches of TL are focusing their research and practice on racial and gender issues, seeking to use the theory’s principles to change societal cultures. Other branches are focused more on personal change, while still others are looking more closely at how to bring about neurological and synaptic changes in the brain. And, obviously, there are implications for its use in information technology.
All the approaches to TL have in common their emphasis on the Humanist concepts of personal growth, the involvement of a person’s whole self in learning, and the requirement that the TL process bring about “dramatic, fundamental change in the way we see ourselves and the world in which we live” (Merriam & Baumgartner, 2020, p. 166). TL is decidedly a social process, unlike ELT or Andragogy which, by their nature, are self-serving pursuits.
TL requires a crisis, such as a confrontation that exposes personal failings or hidden prejudices, wherein the learner has strong emotions and seeks to reestablish equilibrium and a sense of security. Not knowing what to do next, or where to turn, or how to resolve a conflict, are important precipitating factors for change in TL, and are considered good things.
TL forces a person or whole group of people to reevaluate everything, tear down what they know, and put it all back together again in a new form. Transformation requires “tough love”, rather than self-pity. Emotions like pity for others or shame of your own past behavior, however, might be the natural outcome of self-awareness that indicates a person or group has begun the process of transformation.
Conclusion
Yes, sometimes adults do learn in a different way from children. But, some children are capable of the type of self-regulation and self-direction that tends to characterize adulthood, so sometimes “adult learning” and “childhood learning” are not exclusive concepts.
Cognition, experience, self-direction and self-regulation are, undeniably, the central themes of the all adult learning theories. These themes make up the bulk of research, branching and rejoining repeatedly across variously paradigms, theories, models, and frameworks that have been developed under the auspices of Adult Learning Theory.
It seems clear that the distinctions made between a number of adult learning theories are arbitrary and unimportant. The first thing to understand about adult learning is that it is nearly always self-directed. Even in formal settings like teacher-centered lectures or mandatory workplace training courses, adults follow their interests and make conscious choices about what they receive or reject from what is presented. They also tend to choose the circumstances of their learning experiences. Adults have autonomy and they know it and they exercise their freedom readily.
Development into adulthood depends on mature problem-solving competencies. Physical maturity and sufficient life experience are required for adults to cope with life’s uncertain nature. But achieving wisdom, not merely coping with uncertainty, should be the ultimate goal of mature adults—full self-actualization, as Abraham Maslow described it in the 1940s. TL theory aims at achievement of wisdom, insight, intuition, and dramatic changes in self-concept.
To meet their immediate needs, and also to meet their higher needs for esteem, belonging, and transcendence, adults boldly exercise choice to head in this direction or that direction, at will. Kolb and Knowles both acknowledge this simple fact in their learning models. Transformative Learning established the importance of pushing through a personal crisis to recreate oneself through transformation of mind, body, and spirit.
Humanists and Psychosocial theorists, like Erik Erikson in the 1960s, pointed to the period of transition from adolescence to adulthood as key years for establishing personal identity. The years immediately after high school are essential for identity formation because those years are dynamic, involving resolution of a crisis. This sounds a bit like one step in David A. Kolb’s cyclical Experiential Learning Theory, where he says a personal crisis is necessary to send people looking for answers.
Overall, it seems that finding one’s unique identity, purpose and place in the world is a lifelong process.
When adults exercise self-directed learning behaviors in cooperation with mature self-regulating habits, they will naturally find themselves in social situations where they can learn and transform. TL, Andragogy and ELT theories share a strong belief in the power of self-efficacy, personal agency, experience, and the ability to think beyond what is given. All three are useful in some way to adults who want to improve themselves or society.
References and Recommended Reading
Bandura, A. (1977, March). Self-efficacy. Harvard Mental Health Letter, 13(9).
Bandura, A. (2005). The evolution of social cognitive theory. In K. G. Smith & M. A. Hitt (Eds.), Great minds in management (pp. 9–35). Oxford University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1957). Going beyond the information given. Norton.
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Belkapp Press.
Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 39(7), 3–7.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Touchstone.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relations of reflective thinking to the educative process. Heath.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Collier Books.
Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). Norton.
Knowles, M. S. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Chicago: Follett.
Knowles, M. S. (1984). Andragogy in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice-Hall.
Lindeman, E. (1926). The Meaning of Adult Education. New Republic.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4).
Merriam, S., & Baumgartner, L. (2020). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Mezirow, J., & Associates. (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. Jossey-Bass.
Pappas, C. (2017, July 20). The adult learning theory andragogy of Malcolm Knowles. eLearning Industry.
Perry, W. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A scheme. Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. International Universities Press.
