Older Adults Learning Self-Directed Activities

One of the principal challenges for the leisure profession in the next few decades will be the provision and management of learning programs for the elderly. The past two decades have witnessed an enormous growth in the demand for leisure education and as the population ages the need will become much greater. Since the 1970s education researchers have shown, however, that adult learning differs considerably from children's learning. In general adults are self-motivated, self-directed learners and ordinary pedagogical approaches do not fare well with such individuals. The term andragogy is used to describe "the process of helping adults learn or facilitating self-directed activities" and leisure professionals need a comprehensive understanding of andragogical principles as they apply to leisure education (O'Dell, 1997, p. 46). A review of the characteristics of andragogy demonstrates the vital importance of this educational approach in the context of learning programs for the elderly.

After World War II when many people's traditional schooling was disrupted educational opportunities became more flexible. Subsequent prosperity led to greater leisure and "more responsive forms of adult education emerged" to meet a growing demand for lifelong learning (Arsenault & Anderson, 1998, p. 27). It was also in the postwar years, from 1946 to 1964, that the great population explosion known as the baby boom took place. Individuals born in those years will reach ages 50 to 70 in

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ng adults learn," thereby delimiting pedagogy as the art and science of teaching children (Knowles, p. 43). Both types of learning can, of course, occur among children or adults and, depending on "maturity level, experiences, orientation to the activity, motivation, needs, and purpose" the individual will fall somewhere on a continuum between the completely "leader-directed" and the entirely "self-directed" educational orientations (O'Dell, 1997, p. 46). But, as the distinguishing characteristics of pedagogical and andragogical learning make clear the traits are generally those that apply to either children or adults. In pedagogical learning the students are dependent on the instructor. In such cases the instructor takes on the total responsibility for what is taught and how it is to be learned. The instructor is also responsible for the evaluation of the learning. But as a person matures his or her "self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being" (Knowles, 1980, p. 39). Thus in andragogical learning the learner is self-directed because s/he has chosen to learn or does so in order to accomplish some goal (i. e., learning that is required by a job). The andragog

Category: Psychology - O