r use with adult learners (e.g., contact learning, experiential learning, portfolios and self-pacing); this same research can also show educators how to maximize the meaningfulness of the material to adult learners. Third, adult intellectual development research as well as the general adult development research can be used to provide educational counseling to adult learners via a thorough understanding of such topics as the stages and transitions of adult life, the stages of career development, the inter-relationship of adult development and career development, and counseling techniques for use with individuals in transition.
While the foregoing notions are interesting, actually applying adult intellectual development research and theory to adult education requires an organizational framework or model if it is to be implemented in a cohesive and well thought out fashion. In other words what is needed in order to optimize the use of adult intellectual development research for adult education objectives is a strong model of the interrelationship between the two areas. Merriam and Caffarella (1999) suggest that such a model may be found in the notion of transformative adult learning.
The transformative learning model has received a great deal of attention in the current literature (e.g., Daloz, 1999; Hobson and Welbourne, 1998; Mezirow & associates, 2000). In general, transformative learning focuses on making changes in the learner through transforming his or her perspectives or meaning of himself, life, education, and the material being learned as well as upon helping the learner to make sense of the changes wh
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