VISIBLE LEARNING: ADULT EDUCATION AND THE QUESTION OF PARTICIPATION.
Author(s)
COURTNEY, SEAN.Keywords
Education, Adult and Continuing.
Full record
Show full item recordAbstract
Sorry, the full text of this article is not available in Huskie Commons. Please click on the alternative location to access it.341 p.
The purpose of the study is to clarify the question of participation for adult education. Why men and women involve themselves with education has been the subject of a considerable body of literature in America since the 1920's. Recently, theories purporting to explain the phenomenon have appeared in greater number, accompanied by a belief that traditional research in this area has been, by and large, atheoretical.These theories tend to assume that the question of participation is a question of motivation. It is a problem for psychology. On the contrary, as this study shows, before the 1960s participation was studied from a more or less interdisciplinary perspective, one which fused three strains of research: a Survey Strain, Sociological Strain, and Psychological Strain. The main purpose of this study is to challenge the belief that previous research has little value for theory-building by unraveling the contribution of each of these strains to an understanding of why adults pursue education.Since the mid-1960s, research within the Psychological Strain has mainly consisted of attempts to test and eleborate motivational typologies of adult learners. This research program is chiefly associated with the work of Roger Boshier and his concept of motivational orientations. A second purpose of this study was to critique motivational orientation research, especially the work of Boshier.It is an underlying theme of this study that participation in its individual, psychological manifestations cannot be adequately understood without a prior understanding of how education functions in modern society. A theory of education ought to precede a theory of motivation. Only through a thorough analysis of the functions of education in a post-industrial society can we understand what individuals mean by their expressions of motives. According to this perspective, participation in adult education is a form of social practice and, thus, has less connection with learning than with other forms of participation in the organized social life of the community.
Date
2011-06-22Identifier
oai:commons.lib.niu.edu:10843/9096http://commons.lib.niu.edu/handle/10843/9096
http://hdl.handle.net/10843/9096