Andragogy in Adult Education

3144 Words13 Pages
The concept of andragogical model of adult learning and education was developed by Malcolm Knowles (Zmeyov 1998) serves as the basis for much of “adult learning theory development.” This essay looks to summarize and review Andragogy in terms of its assumptions, principles and recommended practices. By recasting the model as a theory with attendant hypotheses, it is then critiqued in terms of its theoretical adequacy and empirical support. Theoretically, the model is found wanting because it slights the full range of adult learning experiences, makes misleading distinctions between adult and child learners, minimizes individual differences between adult as learners, and does not adequately deal with the relationship between motivation and learning. Research testing the effects of andragogy provides inconclusive and contradictory outcomes. New directions for establishing a better theory of learning effectiveness are suggested. Beginning in the late 1960's in the United States, the "andragogical" approach to adult education, championed by Malcolm Knowles, provided positive answers to both questions, and in the process, rose to dominate the field of adult education in terms of both its philosophy and technique, this approach became “adult learning theory” (Block, 1996). While the term "andragogy" was coined over 150 years ago in Germany and was introduced into American vernacular in the late 1920's by Eduard Lindeman (Davenport and Davenport 1985, 1986; Knowles, 1984; Savicevic, 1991), it was Malcolm Knowles who put "andragogy" on the modern adult education map. As Knowles (1968) puts it: “Andragogy (is) the art and science of helping adults learn … based on certain crucial assumptions about the differences between children and adults as learners” (p. 351). Blending the basic tenets of various human growth and potential movements at the time (Boyer,
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