Understanding Adult Learners

The understanding of adult learning processes has undergone dramatic changes. New theories informing adult learning continue to appear, existing theories get attacked or reinvented, while educators must wonder where, amid all the argument, lies the best approach for their practice. In search of holism, practice-based perspectives of learning have continued to evolve and draw on disciplines like complexity theory, ecology theory, cybernetics and technocultural theory. A range of rich learning theories have appeared that move entirely away from a rational brain-centred view of learning to an embodied ecological view, exploring how cognition, identities and environment are co-emergent. This chapter argues that educators need to critically reflect on their position with respect to different theoretical perspectives. It examines ways in which educators can approach the variety of learning theories available. An instrumental perspective sees adult learning as producing a competent and efficacious person, one who has mastered the knowledge and acquired the skills to act in the world with confidence.