ABSTRACT

The opening chapter sought to demonstrate that learning is a legitimate field of study for social sciences, in addition to psychology, and it demonstrated that micro-sociology, especially interactionism and phenomenology, has a great deal to contribute to the understanding of the adult’s learning processes. Additionally, it defined learning as the process of transforming experience into knowledge, skills and attitudes. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the actual processes of learning and it contains four main sections: the first examines one clear attempt to demonstrate the human learning processes — Kolb’s learning cycle; the second records the methodology whereby a new model of adult learning processes was constructed; the third section discusses the model that evolved as a result of the research; the fourth examines the different responses to a potential learning experience that emerged in this research. However, this latter section is only a brief introduction to the model, since the remainder of the book endeavours to expound some of the issues that the model raises.