ABSTRACT
The literature is replete with numerous studieson formal, nonformal, and informal learning.These three broader approaches to the nature of learning provide a wide conceptual framework for the understanding, categorization, and acquisition of knowledge. In the literature, formal learning generally refers to the teacher who follows a pedagogical-content plan. The standard paradigm includes: outcomes or learning objectives, a prescribed learning framework, designated credentialed instructors, awarding of credit, time at task, and instruction sponsored by a recognized institution. D. W. Livingstone’s report on formal, nonformal, and informal learning describes a broad framework to determine the boundaries of formal learning (2001). He states that formal education occurs “when a teacher has the authority to determine that people designated as requiring knowledge effectively learn a curriculum taken from a pre-established body of knowledge . . . whether in the form of age-graded school systems or elders initiating youths into traditional bodies of knowledge (p. 3).”
