ABSTRACT
Adult learning and continuing education are of growing importance in our changing society. By its practice and study, practitioners and researchers may help adults adapt to the new demands of a changing world (Merriam & Cunningham, 1989). Adult education programs are spreading (Rachel, 1989) to meet the challenges of shifting technology and world economy, shifting population demographics, shrinking natural resources and the growth in world pollution, increases in multicultural-ism and immigration, problems with literacy, mandated education and job-related training, and so forth. This practical concern with adult education has reemphasized what common sense and old wisdom already knew: Relative to children and adolescents, adults learn using different methods (Brookfield, 1991; Deshler & Hagan, 1989; Knowles, 1980) whereby motivational, affective, and self-developmental factors are even more crucial than in younger learners. More so than in childhood and adolescence, cognitive processes and motivation in adult learning have to be driven by affective goals and are more often served by self-mediated, perhaps conscious plans (what we term executive processes). In the current adult education literature, adults are described as more self-directed, self-reflective, and able to change perspectives than are children or adolescents; they are also described as more disposed to bring their own life experience to what they learn and the way they learn (Brookfield, 1991; Darkenwald & Merriam, 1982; Deshler & Hagan, 1989; Johnstone & Rivera, 1965; Knowles, 1980; Mezirow, 1978, 1981, 1985, 1989). Unlike children and adolescents, adults are uniquely capable of “reflecting on the self and the way society defines the self (Deshler & Hagan, 1989, p. 155).
