Adult Learning – What You Need to Know?

We often take for granted that people know how to learn. After all, we all had to learn while in school, right? But this can be a dangerous attitude when it comes to corporate training initiatives. School programs are built on theories about how children and teenagers learn (and how much time they can dedicate to learning). Have you ever wondered if adults learn the same way?

This is where adult learning theory comes into play. By knowing how adults tend to learn, you can adapt corporate training programs to take advantage of the qualities that adults have – such as their readiness to learn relevant material, their need to connect with experience, and their motivation to improve.

To understand adult learning theory and how it can be applied, it helps to distinguish adult learning from child learning.

How does adult learning differ from child learning?

Many corporate trainings are based on education models found in schools. This is not surprising, as school is the first and longest exposure to a learning environment. But we must remember that the reasons adults learn are different from the reasons children learn.

In school, students learn because they are placed in an environment that makes them do so. They are placed in a classroom, gathered with other students who are roughly the same age and level of expertise, and are expected to do nothing but learn for most of the time they are there. Most of the motivation is external, meaning children go through this process to please their parents and teachers (at least until they mature and see the value of learning itself).

Once we finish, things are different. When adults decide to learn something, it’s because they see value in those things. For example, we might learn because it’s interesting or relaxing to us. Or we might learn a skill that will help us advance in our careers. Our interests and ambitions are what drive our learning.