ABSTRACT
We stated in chapter 1 that one of our goals for this book was to begin to bridge the gap between the research in educational psychology and the practice of adult education. More significantly, perhaps, we believe that this effort w ill require the establishment o f an adult educational psychology. This subfield of educational psychology w ill be informed by work in cognitive and instructional psychology, adult development, and gerontology, among other disciplines. We invited several educational psychologists, whose work is represented in this book, to contribute to this effort to more formally establish what we see as a distinct area of study. These individuals’ work has, to a greater or lesser degree, focused on the learning skills and developmental processes of adults. The chapters, as you have seen, include a mix of theoretical perspectives, research projects pertaining to diverse dimensions of adult learning and development, and descriptions of psychologically based educational programs for different populations of adults.
