Andragogy
Knowles' framework distinguishing adult learning from pedagogy of children.
Andragogy (from Greek aner, 'man,' contrasted with paid, 'child') was substantially codified by Malcolm Knowles in The Modern Practice of Adult Education (1970, revised 1980 as The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy), with the term itself coined earlier by German educator Alexander Kapp in 1833 and revived by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy in the 1920s. Knowles's framework articulates six assumptions about adult learners that distinguish adult education from child pedagogy: adults need to know why they need to learn something before learning it; adults' self-concept is one of self-direction rather than dependency; adults bring substantial life experience that becomes a resource for learning; adults' readiness to learn is oriented to coping with real-life situations; adults' orientation to learning is task- or problem-centered rather than subject-centered; and adults' motivation is more internal than external. The pedagogical implications include collaborative learning planning, leveraging learner experience, just-in-time relevance, and respect for self-direction. Andragogy has been substantially influential in adult education, corporate training, and professional development. Critics have argued that Knowles's distinctions are not as binary as he presented — children also benefit from relevance and self-direction, while adults sometimes benefit from more structured pedagogy — and that the empirical research grounding the six assumptions is limited.
Core components
- Six assumptions about adult learners: need to know, self-concept of self-direction, life experience as resource, readiness oriented to life situations, problem-centered orientation, internal motivation
- Distinction from pedagogy (children)
- Collaborative learning planning
- Leveraging learner experience
- Self-directed learning
- Application to adult education, corporate training, and continuing professional development
Primary use case
Adult education and continuing-education program design; corporate training and learning-and-development; higher-education adult-learner programs (degree-completion, professional masters); foundation for self-directed learning research and practice; reference framework in adult-education research and certification.
Common criticisms
- Knowles's distinctions between adult and child learners are not as binary as he presented — children also benefit from relevance, self-direction, and experience-leveraging
- the six assumptions have substantial empirical support for some learners and contexts but not universally
- cultural variation in adult-learner expectations and self-direction is substantial — Knowles's framework reflects American individualist assumptions that don't fit collectivist cultures equally well
- conflation of descriptive (how adults do learn) and normative (how they should be taught) claims
- the distinction from pedagogy was sharpened in Knowles's later work but remains contested in pedagogical research
- commercial adult-education industry has produced compliance-style adoption
- recent attention to lifelong learning has somewhat reduced the analytical force of the adult/child distinction.
Lineage
- Siblings
- Experiential Learning