Online Learning Design and Its Impact on Theories of Adult Learning

Approximate reading time: 5m 57s

As a learning designer, you probably want to create courses that change your audience’s life. You want to create courses that inspire them, that change attitudes and boost performance. In short, you want to create e-learning that is effective.

Now here is the challenge. Your learners are adults with prior knowledge and clear ideas about what works for them. They are busy and purposeful people who hate wasting time. They want learning and an experience that helps them meet their needs and achieve their goals.

This means that in order to make learning easier and be an effective learning designer, you MUST understand how adults learn best. When creating an e-learning course, it is important for the design to be based on a solid understanding of adult learning theory.

What is adult learning theory?

The phrase “adult learning theory” is widely used in corporate learning circles. Do you know what it means?

There is no single theory of adult learning. There are several common theories that explain from different perspectives how adults learn.

There are many different theories of adult learning, including: andragogy, neuroscience, experiential learning, self-directed learning, and transformative learning. All of these theories have one goal: to help you create effective learning experiences for the adult learner.

Why should instructional designers know adult learning theories? Adult learning theories are not just a collection of terms, concepts, and ideas about how adults learn. These theories help you plan your course during development and implementation in a way that will make the learning process easier.

Here are four reasons why instructional designers MUST know about adult learning theories:

- Courses for adults must be relevant and aligned with learners’ needs, and only then will they be accepted by them.
- Develop learning strategies in line with real learning contexts
- Choose the technology that best matches the learning strategy
- Plan learning strategies suitable for learners in the digital age and possible to use on the go and at any time. 

Andragogy and the use of prior experience

Adult learners use their experience to guide them along the learning path. This is the essence of andragogy, developed by Malcolm Knowles in the 1970s. According to Knowles, adult learners differ from children in:

- Need to know: Adults need to know “why” they should learn.
- Motivation: Adults are driven by internal motives. They will learn if they want to learn. For example, a convincing answer to the question “is this for me” is a powerful internal motivation.
- Willingness: For adults, the desire or readiness to learn comes from whether the knowledge being provided is useful to them. They want to know how learning will help them improve their lives and learn best when they know the knowledge has immediate value for them.
- Foundation or experience: Adults have life experience and personal experiences that shape their attitude toward learning. They analyze, rationalize, synthesize, and develop new ideas or change old ones through the filter of their experience. As a learning designer, you need to take advantage of their “store” of prior experience to help them build connections, perceive appropriately, and draw inspiration.
- Self-direction: Adults are self-directed people who want to take responsibility for the learning content and the time they will invest in learning. They are independent beings who do not want to feel controlled.
- Orientation to practice: Adults learn best when they practice it during learning. They consider task-oriented learning useful, which they can relate to the reality of their workplace. In addition, task-oriented learning exercises their problem-solving ability, which in turn gives them the confidence that, thanks to their newly acquired knowledge, they can cope with life and work challenges.

Transformative learning: creating opportunities to create “AHA moments”

We have all experienced “aha moments.” Flashes of inspiration that make us see reality in a new way. Raw particles of wisdom that radically change our thinking. Deep insights that break through long-held beliefs and rules. These are transformative experiences that change our consciousness. As a learning designer, you should strive to create such learning experiences. Such experiences awaken the mind, provoke strong emotions, and leave lasting impressions. Many such events trigger radical changes in thoughts, viewpoints, attitudes, and behavioral patterns – “transformations”.

The theory of transformative learning explains how adults learn through such “aha moments.” The theory comes from the claim that learning occurs when prior life experience is given new meaning (Mezirow, 1990) or old meaning is interpreted and seen in a new light.

In transformative learning theory there are three stages of learning:

- Identifying a dilemma or crisis: Realizing that we have all along been holding on to false beliefs or that we do not know what we should know is often the beginning of searching for and finding information or revising our current way of thinking and thought patterns. Not knowing, or realizing that we have incorrect information, is a crisis that deeply disturbs us all. You need to point out to your learners what they do not know in order to get them interested in your course.

- Establishing personal relevance: This is the context or answer to the eternal question “what’s in it for me,” which inspires people and drives learning. The context can be personal, professional, or social, and you should establish it early in the course to spark interest and repeat it often to keep learners engaged. Adult learners are motivated to learn when they can imagine the results of their efforts.

- Critical thinking: Your learners are reasonable, rational people with minds of their own. So you need to create opportunities for critical reflection (premise) to encourage them to reconsider their beliefs and attitudes. When you let them sort out their feelings and thoughts and realize for themselves what they need to remove or correct, they will be more likely to accept and assimilate what they have learned.

Experiential learning: linking learning to reality to create meaning
The Chinese philosopher Confucius said: “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me in doing and I will understand.”

As human beings, we are shaped by our experience. For adults, no textbook learning can replace the knowledge, clarity, and wisdom that come from experience. Experiential learning theory states that the essence of adult learning is making sense of experiences. Adults learn best when they learn by doing. They learn best when they are directly involved in “experiencing” the learning instead of memorizing numbers and definitions from books.

Four stages of experiential learning

David A. Kolb reveals the cyclical nature of experiential learning by explaining how it unfolds in four stages:

- Concrete Experience (Concrete Experience - CE): Adults learn best when learning is more than talking at the blackboard.
- Kinesthetic learning or learning through physical actions (simulations) and learning that evokes strong emotional reactions (realistic scenarios that reveal cause-and-effect relationships) create powerful experiences that are not easily forgotten.
- Reflective Observation (Reflective Observation - RO): Adults need to engage with and reflect on their experience in order to gain insights and knowledge. Therefore, it is crucial not only to create opportunities for experiential learning, but also to provide time and space to encourage awareness. Create opportunities to “observe” the action unfolding before your eyes (demonstrations) and “analyze” processes and procedures (scenario-driven activities, case studies).
- Abstract Conceptualization (Abstract Conceptualization - AC): The success of experiential learning lies in the learner being able to recognize abstract concepts, generalize these ideas, and realize their significance for their reality. Assessments in learning serve to encourage learners to exercise their “critical thinking” abilities so that they can formulate concepts and procedures.
- Active Experimentation (Active Experimentation - AE): Role-play activities, internships, and other practical tasks allow learners to apply what they have learned and thus truly “learn by doing.” Active experimentation leads to concrete experiences and the experiential learning cycle begins again.

Mastering visual thinking and using it in creating e-learning courses also plays a role and is an important area of adult learning. You can read more about what visual thinking is and how to think visually in our article.

Theories and practice in creating e-learning is a topic we will not exhaust in this article, but you can get many more practical and applicable ideas and exercises if you enroll in our training: Train the Trainer

If you would like us to create a training course that includes more skills to develop abilities for creating online e-learning, you can call us at +359 878 685 304 or write to us through the form below.