# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Adult students are the newest clientele that many of us have noticed in our libraries over the past three to five years. As demographics declined for the traditional eighteen to twenty-one year old college students, more adult students; people who in the 1970s and 1980s were called "non-traditional" students became patrons in our libraries. Librarians need to be aware of how adult students work and study as well as characteristics of adult learners. They need to pay attention to hours of service, access to services from off-campus, and students' understanding of technology. Finally librarians need to market their services and seek feedback from adult students about additional needs.

Adult students are the newest clientele that many of us have noticed in our libraries over the past three to five years. As demographics declined for the traditional eighteen to twenty-one year old college students, more adult students; people who in the 1970s and 1980s were called "non-traditional" students became patrons in our libraries. Some of these students are back in school to start or finish a bachelor's degree but many are returning for certificate programs, master's degrees or selected courses to retool their job skills in order to keep pace with today's workforce requirements. As Speer (1996, 34), points out, "Ten years is more than a lifetime in some fields. The half-life for knowledge in the electrical engineering field is five years; for computer sciences, two-and-a-half years. It's increasingly difficult for many people to kid themselves that four years of traditional "front-loaded" education will suffice for an entire career."

Adult students have different lives and priorities than traditional students. They have family and job responsibilities and their lives are not centered on a campus. Lawler (1991, 12) lists the following characteristics of adult students:

Adults have many roles and responsibilities in their lives, education being only one, and usually not the major task at the time of its undertaking . . . Adults are usually motivated by a pragmatic desire to immediately use or apply their knowledge or skill, . . . Adults are usually prompted by a transitional event in their lives to seek education. Events such as divorce, job change, death, or moving, can be cited as reasons for learning, . . . Most adults attend an educational event voluntarily.

The expectations that adult students have from libraries in institutions of higher education are very different than those of traditional students. In addition, adult students are consumers who will be vocal about their needs and will go elsewhere if a library can not supply the services they demand or materials they require. This is applicable not only to the library but also to the larger institution of higher education.

What can libraries do to accommodate adult students? Librarians should become knowledgeable about adult learning and adult education. They should begin to think about how policies, services and procedures interface with the needs of adult students.

As we look at how to better serve adult students, librarians should first consider the characteristics of adult students and how they interface with what the library currently does.

1. Adult students have other priorities in their lives beside education. Do librarians expect students to come to us for services? Do we give students the ability to access services at locations closer to their homes. The Penn State Great Valley Library has joined the Tri-State College Library Cooperative to help students who may travel an hour of longer have access to libraries closer to their homes. On a Saturday a student may find themselves needing to visit the library in between running children to soccer practice, grocery shopping and other responsibilities. An hour long trip to the Great Valley Library to spend time doing research is probably not practical. The consortium membership allows them to do their research close to home.

2. Adult students are pressed for time. The time limitations of adult students mean that libraries need to be available when students can use them. This is especially important for times just before and after classes as many students only come to campus on the night they have class. At Penn State Great Valley, a graduate only campus, the library is empty during most daytime hours. From 8:30 AM to 4 PM there may only be ten patrons in the library at anyone time, however, from 4-6 PM, just before class, all seats are occupied and any number of students can be found at the Information Desk, in the stacks looking for materials, or sitting at a LIAS terminal or CD-ROM workstation searching the online catalog or databases. In addition, the library does not close on holiday weekends as many adult students consider these long weekends as a chance to catch up on school work. For example, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of three day holiday weekends such as Memorial Day weekend are times for hours as usual at Great Valley with the only day the library closes being the holiday itself. Finally, library instruction classes take place from 5-6 PM at night, just before classes start as well as on Saturday mornings so that students can attend.

3. Adult students want to access the library from outside the campus. Can students access the online catalog and databases from home or office so that they can do research at times that match their schedules? Penn State Great Valley students have access to the LIAS online catalog and databases through dial in and INTERNET. We often get reports of students who dial in from their hotel room on the road to do their papers or who access the catalog late in the evening after children are in bed. It is for this reason that the Head Librarian has created web-based library instruction which includes a library tour and an online searching tutorial. In addition, the individual reference consultations are conducted at times that fit the of the student, mostly in late afternoon or early evening. Finally, we are in the process of implementing faxing and email of interlibrary loan requests so that students can make the most of their time off-campus.

4. Adult students want credit for what they know. When teaching library instruction classes librarians should try to get a feel for the background of our students. What are their majors? Do they have extensive library experience and just need to have some specialized training or are they novices who last attended school when card catalogs were current technology? Instruction should be geared to the level of the students and to their interests and needs. It should link to the knowledge that adult students have already acquired. In addition to regular library instruction, reference consultations can be used to give one-on-one in depth instruction for those who have specific needs for an individual search.

5. Adult students are self-directed. One of the goals of the library is to teach students to use the online catalog and databases so that they can do at least most of their basic research with a minimum of assistance. This is especially important if students wish to use library resources from home or other off-campus locations. At Great Valley library instruction workshops often take the form of Doing Library Research From Your Home or Office.

6. Adult students learn differently than traditional students. Librarians need to learn about Malcolm Knowles and his theory of andragogy (Knowles, 57) as well as other trends in adult learning. In the andragological perspective the librarian becomes a facilitator rather than the giver of all knowledge. Students learn by methods such as collaborative learning and link what they already know to newly acquired skills

7. Adult students will have wide ranges of familiarity with computer and other technologies. On one hand, librarians may find themselves faced with students who have never worked on a computer, requiring them to take a step by step approach as they train patrons. They may also find students in the same class who are highly technology literate. This second group of patrons may extensively use technology in their workplace. These students will expect the best INTERNET connections and other services. They may be impatient they have to wait for slower students to catch up on technology. It is for this reason that library instruction classes at Great Valley often have a library assistant as well as the librarian who can assist those who are not familiar with technology and allow them to keep up with a moderately paced class.

8. Adult students are consumers making it important for the library to market their services and to be responsive to patron feedback. At Great Valley, information about library instruction is passed out in classes. The Head Librarian writes information pieces for the student newsletter and the library publishes its own newsletter called Know News. For students who prefer to access the library over the web, the Great Valley Library Homepage is an important resource. Solicitation of feedback includes student representation on the Library Advisory Committee, informal conversations with students, inclusion on Center-wide post-graduation questionnaires and a suggestion box in the library. The Head Librarian gives out her work phone number and email address to students at each library instruction session along with assurances that we want to know how the library is doing in serving adult student needs. Finally, key staff members have been given business cards and along with those of the Head Librarian, these are placed at the Information Desk so that staff can immediately give students information about who to contact for a needed service.

In summary, we need to make libraries more user-friendly for adults. We need to be aware of how adult students work and study as well as characteristics of adult learners. We should be cognizant of adult learning theory and understand andragogy as opposed to pedagogy. We need to ask ourselves some important questions: Do we have hours before and after classes so the students can stop in and to do quick research or pick up books? Can students access the online catalog and other services from off-campus? Are we aware of the diverse abilities that students have with regard to technology and are we doing something about it? Finally, are we marketing our services and seeking feedback?; for it is only by listening to adult students that we can we know how best to serve their current needs as well as how their demands will change in the future?

REFERENCES

Knowles, Malcolm. 1990. The adult learner: a neglected species. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company.

Lawler, Patricia A. 1991. The keys to adult learning: theory and practical strategies. Philadelphia, PA: Research for Better Schools.

Speer, Tibbett L. "A nation of students." American Demographics. 18 (Aug. 1996): 32-38+.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can We Still Do Business as Usual?: Adult Students and the New Paradigm of Library Service

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dolores Fidishun, Ed. D., Head Librarian Penn State Great Valley Graduate Center, Malvern, Pennsylvania ABSTRACT Adult students are the newest clientele that many of us have noticed in our libraries over the past three to five years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Helping adult learners with technology knowledge (offer computer classes, tutorials in the library or at home) will build their digital literacy and awareness. 

# data[].attributes.body
In his argument for andragogy, Malcolm Knowles proposed six principles to guide educators who wanted to adopt andragogical teaching methods. These principles are Self-concept,  Adult learner experience, Readiness to learn, Orientation to learning, Motivation to learn, and Active learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Education is a process that continues long after one has concluded their formal education. At this point, the learner is no longer a child, but an adult who's ready to enter the workforce and face the world. Thus, the teaching methods that worked well to educate the person in elementary school, high school, and even college, may not work anymore.

How, then, can a teacher successfully teach an adult?

That's where andragogy comes in.

Andragogy, which is the art of teaching adults, is the opposite of pedagogy - the traditional approach to teaching children. The core principle of andragogy is that adults are more motivated and self-aware than children, so they need to learn in ways that center their lives, instead of their academic potential. As a result, andragogical teaching methods focus on hands-on learning experiences, which encourage learners to be fully present and participate.

Teachers have successfully used andragogy in education for decades, but it wasn't until recently that we began to understand why this theory is so effective.

Read on to find out:

What is Andragogy?

Andragogy, also known as Adult Learning Theory, is a theory that states that adults must be actively involved in the formation, delivery, and assessment of their own learning programs. In other words, training materials for adults must support the notion that adults are self-directed and can make good decisions on their own.

When teachers give adult learners free rein to explore their surroundings while learning, the learners are more likely to remember and apply what they've learned to their specific role. That's precisely why this teaching concept has been successful in helping adults learn in different fields, including business, nursing, military training, transportation, and engineering.

The History and Development of Andragogy

The term "andragogy" was first used by Alexander Kapp, a German teacher, in 1833 to describe elements of Plato's theory of education. The term disappeared from mainstream educational terminology and didn't reappear until 1921 when American educators, Eduard Lindeman and Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey used it in a report. Lindeman and Rosenstock-Hussey argued that "adult education requires special teachers, methods, and philosophy" and they categorized these special requirements under the umbrella term - andragogy.

It was, however, Malcolm S. Knowles, an American educator that popularized the idea and built the foundation for modern andragogy. In the 1950s, Knowles was the Executive Director of the Adult Education Association of the United States of America. He later served as a Professor of Education at Boston University (BU) from 1960 to 1974. It was during his time at BU that Knowles began to notice the insufficiencies of formal learning settings and seek a more comprehensive approach to adult learning.

He positioned andragogy as the answer to the limitations of pedagogy. Knowles felt that the ideals of pedagogy, the art of teaching children, do not carry over effectively to adult education. Thus, traditional pedagogical teaching methods like content-driven lectures, drills, quizzes, examinations, and rote memorization won't work for adults.

Knowles developed his andragogical system based on five foundational assumptions or principles (more on this in the next section):

Malcolm Knowles wrote popular works on informal adult education and self-direction with his wife, Hulda. His work was the defining factor that shifted the focus of adult educators from merely teaching people to helping them learn better.

Principles of Andragogy

In his argument for andragogy, Malcolm Knowles proposed six principles to guide educators who wanted to adopt andragogical teaching methods. These principles are Self-concept, Adult learner experience, Readiness to learn, Orientation to learning, Motivation to learn, and Active learning.

Principle 1: Self-Concept

In his 1975 book, Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers, Malcolm Knowles described maturation as a phenomenon "in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes."

Put simply, as people get older, they want to be able to choose what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and when they want to learn it. This is what self-concept is - an adult becoming more independent and self-directed as they mature.

It's easy for teachers to make assumptions about what learners need, but this approach is pedagogical - not andragogical. In andragogy, teachers give learners the freedom to make their own learning choices, whether that's by letting them choose how they'll receive new information, allowing them to design their own tests, and/or providing a collaborative learning environment for them to thrive in.

For example, a pedagogical middle school agriculture teacher may stand in front of the class and explain, with a diagram, how seeds in the soil germinate, grow, and become trees. The andragogical approach to this would be encouraging learners to get seeds of any fruit or crop of their choice, plant it in whatever container they like, tend to it daily, and record their observations over the next couple of weeks/months.

Learners are more likely to be invested in their learning process when they're given the freedom to choose the elements of the lesson.

Principle 2: Adult Learner Experience

Adult learners have an ever-increasing reservoir of life experiences that play a huge role in their learning. These unique experiences encompass formal education, job experience, and life events.

Unlike children who have little experience and must rely on other people's experiences to learn, adult learners are able to use their unique experiences to contribute to group discussions and understand a topic better. So even if the concepts a teacher introduces are new, adult learners can reference their lived experiences and connect the dots between past knowledge and new information.

Therefore, as a teacher, it's your responsibility to understand the experiences your adult learners bring to class. This way, you can incorporate them into debriefs, explanations, and class discussions to help learners feel acknowledged. Doing this can also help learners absorb new information selectively, as they'll be able to identify knowledge gaps that their past experience doesn't fill and solutions to mistakes they've made in the past.

Say you're hosting a leadership training program for adults who are in the workforce. Instead of simply explaining how they can improve their leadership skills, ask learners who work (or have worked) in a managerial position to reflect on and discuss their performance in their workplace. This session can help them figure out things they did right at work (and how to improve on them), and things they did wrong (and how to fix them).

Principle 3: Readiness to Learn
"What's in this for me?"
That's the question many adult learners ask when trying to decide what they should be receptive to and what they should ignore. Unlike children who, like sponges, absorb as much information as they can as they grow, adults are much more selective about what they direct their energies toward.

Adults will generally be more interested in learning from you if you can prove that the subject/skill you're teaching will have a positive impact on their personal, work, or social lives. So to prepare them for the learning process, you'll need to explain to them they need to learn what you want to teach them.

As an adult takes up various social roles - employee, spouse, parent, caregiver - they must adjust their learning towards the skills necessary to excel in that role. Therefore, an adult who just entered the workforce will be inclined to learn the skills necessary to succeed in their job. But an adult who recently became a parent will be more interested in learning how to take care of infants.

To increase your learners' readiness to learn, determine that what you're teaching has immediate relevance to their personal and/or professional lives. Then develop activities in your lessons that replicate real-world scenarios and include interactive elements. This ensures that learners are able to apply their new knowledge to everyday situations.

Principle 4: Orientation to Learning

As children grow into adults, they move away from subject-based learning to problem-based learning, which focuses on new knowledge that can be applied in practical situations. Their orientation shifts from a postponed application of knowledge and prioritizes the immediacy of application.

For example, when middle school students take algebra in the 8th grade, they don't expect to immediately apply their knowledge to real-life problems. In fact, they might end up not applying it at all if they eventually work in a field where there's no need for it.

On the flip side, adults will rather devote their time to learning a concept or skill if they're sure they'll need the knowledge right away. Because of this, adults don't focus much on the concept itself, but on how they'll apply it in their personal and/or professional lives.

Principle 5: Motivation to Learn

Think back to the time when you were a kid and you dragged your feet when the bus came to pick you up from school. But your parents convinced you to go anyway. And when you got to class, you had to pay attention to your studies because your parents and/or teachers expected good grades from you. You also took your school work seriously because you understood that, without it, you may not get a good job.

This scenario clearly demonstrates how a child's motivation for learning is external - whether from parents, teachers, or the general society. They're required to go to school, and if they don't, they'll likely face external consequences.

However, as children become adults, their motivation for learning becomes internal. They worry less about who expects them to learn and more about their own personal reasons for learning something. So even if the grading system exists in andragogy, it doesn't possess the same motivating factor for adults as it does for children. These internal motivators, which are unique to each learner, include self-actualization, better quality of life, and self-esteem, amongst others.

When an adult is faced with a problem, they find a solution to it. When they want to move up the career ladder, they improve on their existing skills (or learn new ones). Instead of learning to satisfy others, adults pursue education for themselves. That's why educators should try to understand the motivations of their adult learners so that they can implement skills training that helps learners solve their problems effectively and efficiently.

Principle 6: Active Learning

For centuries, educators have successfully used traditional lectures to deliver knowledge to students. And for good reason, too - they're fairly inexpensive, can be used to teach many students at the same time, and can be adapted to any topic and audience.

This teaching model implies that:

Strategies that promote active learning include reflective activities, group discussions, case studies, debates, and role-playing. These techniques are especially effective in fields like medicine, engineering, and psychology.

Criticisms and Limitations of Andragogy

While andragogical teaching methods helped many adults learn better, some educators like Jennifer A. Sandlin and Susan B. Bastable criticized Malcolm Knowles' assumptions of andragogy. Below are some of their criticisms:

The entire premise of andragogy is that all adult learners are self-directed learners. This isn't always true. Many adults need guidance and structure when learning a new concept or skill. A great example of this is when a sales representative is learning how to use brand-new software. Without guidance, they may not be able to master the tool.

While it's true that life experiences shape the way an adult learns, andragogy fails to recognize that not all life experiences can help an adult better understand a topic. For example, the language experience of a Chinese native who's spoken Mandarin their entire life likely won't be useful when they're learning how to speak English.

In addition, not everyone is capable of analyzing their experiences in such a way that they'll learn something from them. And for people who have learning disabilities, their cognitive, physical, and psychosocial characteristics transform over time, which can affect their ability to apply life experiences to new knowledge.

Malcolm Knowles proposed that adults learn new concepts and skills to solve an immediate problem they're facing. This isn't always true. Adults learn for various reasons. People who decide to learn a new sport or hobby may not be doing it to solve a problem; they may be doing it because they think it's fun.

Knowles proposed that andragogy works best for adult learners because it capitalizes on the learner's internal motivators. However, educators shouldn't assume that internal desires wholly drive an adult's desire to learn. Personal identifiers like class, race, gender, and sexual orientation can affect what an adult chooses to learn and how they learn it.

Andragogy posits that adult learners develop skills based on the social role they occupy. In some cases, this isn't true. Some people learn new skills to address a need in their community.

In her 2005 essay, An Analysis of Andragogy from Three Critical Perspectives Jessica Sandline argues that andragogy focuses too much on the individual learner while ignoring the social context of the learner or the need for people to address unfairness and injustice in their communities. According to Sandlin, an adult might observe a problem within their community and learn the skill(s) they need to come up with a solution that'll benefit everyone.

How to Apply Andragogy in Teaching

If you're trying to incorporate andragogy into your teaching process, here are a few tips you can try:

Knowing what is relevant to your adult students can help you tailor your curriculum to better fit them. You'll be able to use familiar terms, and examples or problems that they can relate to as you explain concepts. This will reduce any distraction, disinterest or frustration adults might experience if they don't think your course is valuable.

For example, if you're teaching English as a second language to Russian natives and you find out that many of them work in marketing, you can teach them marketing-related terms and phrases they need to know to succeed at work.

Since adults like to be involved in their learning process, you need to work closely with them to determine the direction they'd like to take with their course/lesson. Your students may want you to devote more time to explaining a specific topic or covering additional material.

During the learning process, encourage discussions and collaborations between learners (and instructors). And once they finish the course, ask your students for feedback on the lesson and the way it was presented.

The more you involve your learners in their learning process, the more invested they'll be in your class.

Adult learners learn better when they're able to direct their own learning processes. That's why you should encourage learners to identify their own needs, set their own goals, build their courses/lessons, and evaluate their own performance.

According to Knowles' Theory of Andragogy, adults want to know how their training will benefit their personal and professional lives. So when preparing your course content, include as many relatable real-life examples as possible.

For example, to effectively teach students how to use new software, walk them through a real situation in which they'll need to use the tool, and explain how and why they'd use it. Explaining a topic with a problem that your students may face in the real world is much more effective than providing formulas or abstract information and asking them to memorize it.

Adults are problem-oriented, so when creating your course content, don't give them all the answers at once. Instead, give your learners some problems to solve and work backward to the explanation of the solutions. This approach puts students in charge of their learning and makes them think.

If possible, encourage students to work with other coursemates to brainstorm possible solutions to the problems. Only after they've come up with some answers will you step in, ask them questions, and explain the solutions better.

You can take this approach up a notch by giving your students periodic assignments, projects, tests, or even examinations to gauge how well they're understanding the topic.

Techniques for Andragogical Instruction

As an educator who teaches adults, here are some techniques you can use to enforce andragogical instructions:

Roleplay is a teaching technique that allows students to explore realistic situations by interacting with their classmates. So instead of explaining to students what they should do in a particular situation, ask them to act it out.

For example, say you're teaching newbie customer representatives how to handle angry customers. Instead of reeling out de-escalation techniques and calling it a day, you could ask two students to assume the roles of a customer representative and an angry customer and act out different scenarios.

That way, all the students can see what de-escalation techniques look like in action and have discussions about the interaction.

Storytelling is an old teaching technique that works well in both andragogy and pedagogy. For adult learners, storytelling is a great way to channel their emotions and help them retain their lessons better.

As you use real-world examples to buttress your points, tell stories from your own experience as a teacher about how your lesson has helped others. You can also ask your learners to tell stories from their own personal and/or professional lives that you can use to drive your points home.

Pro tip: If you're using an LMS, you can illustrate your stories via cartoons, images, and colors.

Instead of explaining everything at once, break your course down into 20- to 30-minute lessons that progress logically as you teach the topic. This ensures that your students can take a break after each lesson to recharge and prepare for the next one.

Pro tip: Make learning easier for your students by providing them with notes or slides that highlight the key points of each lesson. This will help them review what they learned, and identify where each section begins and ends.

Immersive learning involves using advanced technology to simulate real-world situations and help students learn new skills. This teaching method combines the immersive feeling of virtual reality (VR) with advanced learning theory and spatial design to improve students' engagement and retention of new information.

The great thing about immersive technologies is that they blur the lines between reality and illusion, so learners become active participants, instead of passive spectators. With immersive technologies, teachers can recreate virtual learning environments that don't have the barriers that may exist in the actual environment.

For instance, say a car manufacturing company is training engineering interns on how to assemble the body of a car. Instead of risking injuries by demonstrating this in an actual car factory, it'd be cheaper and safer to generate a virtual factory where students can learn how to assemble a car.

With virtual reality, learners can develop their skills in a safe environment where success can be accurately measured.

Help your adult students learn better

While the techniques involved in adult education have changed since Malcolm Knowles came up with the Theory of Andragogy, many of his assumptions and principles still apply today.

Helping adults learn effectively requires educators to put their learners first, pay attention to their previous knowledge and life experiences, and give them free rein to decide how they'd like to receive new information and participate in their own learning process.

Andragogy is a theory proposed by American educator, Malcolm Knowles, on how educators can facilitate learning for adults.

The six principles of andragogy are:

Some great ways to implement andragogy in your teaching practices include:

Pedagogy is the teaching of children, while andragogy is the art of facilitating learning in adults. With pedagogy, teachers lead the lessons because children are dependent on them. But with andragogy, lessons are student-led with the teacher as a facilitator or guide. This is because adults are usually independent, self-directed, and aware enough to make learning decisions for themselves.

Some of the criticisms of andragogy by educators are:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Principles of Andragogy: Theory, Examples, and Implementation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the principles of andragogy, its theory, examples, and implementation in this comprehensive guide. Understand the six principles of andragogy and how to apply them to your teaching practices.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning Theories:

Educational theories are generally organized in three different categories: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.

Behaviorism: People learn through repeated acts. If a process is repeated a number of times, people will learn the concept. Students learn through practice and memorization of facts.

The key concepts of behaviorism: contiguity, reinforcement, stimulus-response, operant conditioning, and contingency.

Cognitivism: focus on mental processes, including how people perceive, think , remember, learn, solve problems , and direct their attention to one stimulus (thing or evident) rather than another. When learners receive information, they have to process it to acquire knowledge. How a person processes information.

Constructivism: individual s or learners do not acquire knowledge and understanding , understanding and knowledge through understanding. Learners acquire learning through discovery, being presented with a problem to solve and relating the problem to prior experience

Howard, J. K. (2017). The school librarian as Curriculum leader. Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.