FEATURE: Enhancing Adult Learning in the Modern Business Environment

By Timothy A. Edward

Adult learning, a phenomenon that has immense complexity, occurs daily across various business environments. This process is driven by the advancement of technology, IT improvements, changes in systems and processes, and evolving customer and market demands. Consequently, adults continuously learn through informal and formal means, participating in numerous learning events and activities regularly.

In a recent conversation with a friend who has successfully facilitated numerous adult training sessions, I asked him about his secret to effective training. Without hesitation, he mentioned that adult training should resonate with people's hearts, provoke thought, and inspire change. His simple yet profound answer highlighted that adult learning should consider individuals' psychological orientations within a broader context to become truly holistic.

Andragogy: The Principles of Adult Learning

The principles governing adult learning are known as andragogy. This approach emphasises learning through integrating and transforming meanings and values. Adult learning is inherently a personal and natural process, where individuals assume responsibility for managing their lives, including their learning endeavours. Adults come with varying orientations toward learning, which should be appreciated and addressed when designing courses. Their desire to learn is closely tied to their life contexts, jobs, and sociocultural settings. Adults may also experience anxiety or ambivalence toward learning or training events. Therefore, designing adult learning programmes, curricula, and classroom practices should aim to create a high level of motivation among participants.

The Learning Context

One crucial step in fostering motivation is ensuring participants are engaged from the moment they arrive at the training venue. Special consideration must be given to the venue and food to achieve this. The venue should put adult learners at ease. For example, seating arrangements should be made according to the cultural context, ensuring sufficient spacing and distance between men and women. Additionally, adults might arrive at the venue with various thoughts and emotions. The venue should defuse any tension within the participants' minds, ensuring they are not looked down upon or penalised due to their dress code, ethnicity, or educational levels.

One medium to reduce stress and unify participants is to serve culturally acceptable, tasty, palatable, and healthy food. Think about our homes—where do most conversations, laughter, and celebrations happen? Undoubtedly, in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Similarly, if all these elements are present, a training venue can become a homely and conducive learning environment for adults.

IT companies excel in this regard compared to other organisations. Their work and learning environments are uniquely designed and decorated, creating a pleasant atmosphere that contrasts with traditional classrooms or lecture halls. Walking into one of these ICT learning and working labs or hubs, one would want to linger and soak it all in due to the warm, inviting, and unique setup.

The Learner's Role

Adults largely define themselves through their unique experiences, making them a rich resource for learning. They bring diverse experiences to learning events, which can serve as valuable tools or resources for others. However, sometimes adults' past experiences can become stumbling blocks to absorbing new knowledge. In such cases, individuals need to unlearn negative attitudes and prejudicial ways of viewing learning.

Life events and transitions also contribute to significant and meaningful learning experiences for adults. For instance, career transitions or taking on new challenging roles can necessitate training and mastering new skills and knowledge. Understanding an adult's life schedule can provide insights into their learning schedule. Unfortunately, diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's can reduce the potential for lifelong learning. However, studies have shown that maintaining a positive mindset, a happy disposition and prioritising spiritual activities can dramatically decrease the effects of such diseases on the human brain.

Addressing Training Needs

Training needs can be defined as the requirements learners feel when starting a learning activity. Since adults' training needs are closely connected to their life situations, they will not pursue new learning if they perceive it as meaningless. Their motivation to learn should come from within.

Research indicates that with maturity in a particular subject, adults can think and learn laterally and dialectically, which becomes a hallmark of adult learning after their forties or fifties. For example, individuals like Benjamin Franklin, physicist John Wheeler, theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, and mathematician Ken Ono made significant contributions to their fields well after their fifties.

Clearly, there is a strong link between the motivation to learn and an adult's life experiences and development needs, which are situation-specific forms of competency building. We all need to reflect on our adult learning practices and strive to make these experiences unique and outstanding for learners.