ABSTRACT
For the isolation of demographic variables, such as education, age, which correlate strongly with measures of participation in adult education, is in reality a quest for the conditions which are responsible for adult learning. Someone may well have participated in adult education prior to the time at which the matter is being investigated, making it difficult to decide who is a participant and who is not, as London discovered. Adult educators in their writing and general thinking are apt to premise all discussion on the idea that adult learners are ‘there’ because they want to be. Adult learning is not something which is confined to the lives of individual men and women acting alone. Asking respondents why they participate - their reasons for learning - carries the implication that the origins of learning need and orientation may be found in people’s expressed motives. In both cases, the survey approach is inadequate without a theory of motivation and action.
