A Conceptual Model for Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners in Distance Education and E-Learning (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Conceptual Model for Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners in Distance Education
Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2022
More than 40% of undergraduate students are 24 years of age or older [1], and over half of these students are enrolled in distance education [2]. Yet, adults do not fare as well as traditional-aged college students who are four times as likely to graduate [3]. Understanding the needs of the adult learner in distance education is important for improving their experience and outcomes. By combining cognitive, social, and emotional factors, sensitive to the impact of context, we can develop programming that meets the needs of the whole learner. Drawing from the science of learning, I will outline the components of my conceptual model for meeting the needs of adult learners in distance education. There is a diverse body of evidencebased instructional practices to support each of the factors in this model, but additional research may show significant interaction effects that may be especially beneficial for adult learners in distance education.
Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners in Distance Education
This paper explores seven journal articles that focus on higher educational institutions, their ability to meet the educational needs of adult learners (aged 25 and older), and the obstacles and benefits adult learners face in the twenty-first century. By identifying the needs of adult learners, both colleges and universities face ever-changing challenges of pre-existing demands on this genre of students. Family and employment, coupled with the technological demands of online learning (distance education) is at the forefront of the minds of the learner. Exploring the theories of Paas, Renkl, and Sweller (2003), and the asymmetrical relationship of intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load to learning patterns help course designers develop online learning programs, which maximize the educational value for adult learners. Review of research findings provides insight and gives guidance to help adult students achieve success in online courses and distance learning environments. Review of the role of higher educational institutions and the educators’ relationship to students in online environments provide the basis to support conclusions in this paper.
How Do Different Types of Adult Learners Adapt to Distance Education
1999
A study concentrated on adult learners and their adaptability to electronic mail (e-mail). The sample (n=168) was composed of all graduate students taking an introductory educational research class during spring 1996 and graduate students taking a measurement and evaluation class during summer 1996 at a public state university. Students were randomly assigned to either an experimental and a control group. Both groups were taught how to use e-mail, and both groups received a minimum of four messages from the researcher. At the beginning of the term, all students were given the Hardy Educational Learning Profile instrument that evaluated learning profiles of interaction, approach, or information source for learning; preferred ways of gathering information; and preferred ways of processing information. The experimental group received more personal, caring (mentoring) messages; the control group received neutral messages that conveyed general information. Results indicated student responses of type of message sent were significantly higher in the mentored group; and inner-directed students replied more often than outer-directed students.
Learning technology, through e-learning, allows adults to adapt learning to their own time, place and pace. On the other hand, the adults’ specific characteristics as learners and the requirements for their effective learning must be integrated in the design and the development of any learning environment addressed to them. Adults in an online environment have also to deal with new barriers related to access to the courses, the sense of isolation and the sense of immediacy with educator and other learners. This paper is dealing with the way through which an online environment can overcome these barriers and can integrate adults’ characteristics and requirements for effective learning. The use of the appropriate communication tools by designers, developers and educators seem to provide the answers as these tools promote immediacy and interaction, both considered very important factors in online educational environments and affect the nature and the quality of communication and learning .
2015
The study aspires, by giving voice to the experiences and perceptions of adult learners and their educators, as they embark on distance learning courses delivered by the Open University of Cyprus and the Hellenic Open University to unveil the adult learning and ‘fine-grained’ processes at work during the organization and delivery of the courses, with the ultimate aim to underline the factors influencing these processes. The project complements previous research and attempts to extract from the findings ideas and practices that could contribute to the re-organization of distance courses that facilitate adult learning. It has as its main units of analysis 16 adult learners and 8 educators, and rests on a research framework that views certain programme elements as being vital in unveiling the processes of adult learning. It harnesses a phenomenological approach and qualitative research techniques. The study contributes to a better theoretical understanding of the processes of adult learning and the mediating role of the distance learning context, in comparison to other previously explored contexts.
Designing Instruction for the Traditional, Adult, and Distance Learner
Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design, 2010
http://www.igi-global.com/book/designing-instruction-traditional-adult-distance/253 Adult students demand a wider variety of instructional strategies that encompass real-world, interactive, cooperative, and discovery learning experiences. Designing Instruction for the Traditional, Adult, and Distance Learner: A New Engine for Technology-Based Teaching explores how technology impacts the process of devising instructional plans as well as learning itself in adult students. Containing research from leading international experts, this publication proposes realistic and accurate archetypes to assist educators in incorporating state-of-the-art technologies into online instruction. This text proposes a new paradigm for designing, developing, implementing, and assessed technologybased instruction. It addresses three target populations of today's learner: traditional, adult, and distance education. The text proposes a new model of instructional system design (ISD) for developing effective technology-based education that involves a five-step process focusing on the learner, learning theories, resources, delivery modalities, and outcomes.
Adult Learners' Needs in Online and Blended Learning
Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 2019
Identifying and fulfilling adult learners' needs is critical to instructional designs aimed at enhancing their achievement and self-empowerment. In reviewing different theories and perspectives on adult learning and online and blended learning (OBL), it is noteworthy that there is not a comprehensive framework to guide the design of OBL environments that meet adult learners' needs, and that are underpinned by adult learning theories, online knowledge construction, motivational theories, and technological acceptance models. In this respect, the theory of existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG) (Alderfer, 1972) is applicable to interpret different types of needs to sustain learning motivation. Employing the ERG theory as the overarching framework, the purpose of this paper is to capture adult learners' needs from both positivist and subjectivist perspectives. In other words, the identified needs are to help adult learners optimally perform the learning activities designed...
Applying the Adult Learning Model to Online Learning
A FutureU Whitepaper, 1998
Alternative to traditional pedagogy are several models that focus on adults as learners. Research into how adults best learn began early in this century. In the 1960s, investigations into the application of humanistic psychology to education and the work place revealed the relationship between self-actualization and learning and the inhibiting effect that several features of traditional pedagogy have on learning itself. This research tended to be culturally centric (white, middle class, American) and thick with speculations about learning that more recent findings do not support. Nonetheless it has much to offer us today as we create learning environments in which diverse individuals learn, in a wide variety of ways, using highly variable learning styles and tools.
Adult Learners’ Online Learning Experience: Methodologies, Motivations and Students’ Perceptions.
As the options for interaction within the online learning environment grows, so does the necessity for identifying the types of interactions that are valued by most learners. It is a widely understood and accepted fact that adult learners assimilate information differently, but to what extent is this widely understood concept applied in the online learning environment? While most educators are acutely aware of what constitutes sound pedagogy, including, the differences between distance learning teaching methods versus classroom teaching methods, few realize that there are indeed subtle, and some not so subtle differences between the experiences audiences bring to the course and that teaching methodologies must be particularly well suited for various student audiences (Williams, 1999). One can argue that higher education has given priority to the integration of technology into the curriculum. As this has occurred, institutions experience many issues that surround making the lessons succeed technologically, as well as, the necessity for making technology something that adult learners can navigate successfully. Williams (1999), suggests that they must structure student input into their design and create technology-based lessons that can easily be adapted to make the presentation of topics relevant to those they teach. This study seeks, specifically, to assess the online experience (the motivation and perceptions that define said experience) of adult learners enrolled in an online Postgraduate degree program.