What we know
What Do We Know About Adult Learning?
This fact sheet summarizes information from all of the fact sheets about how different aspects of learning appear in adults. Few of these issues have been tested with adults, so they need to be tested before we can be sure of the conclusions.

Very Little Research Has Been Done On Adult Literacy Students

Adult Skills Are More Uneven Than Children's Skills

18: Adult Learning
Ideas That Interfere With Learning

Low-Level Adult Readers Do Not Read For Meaning
Adults May Have More Entrenched Mental Models
Adults Have Had A Long Time To Decide That Certain Topics Are Hard To Learn
Adults May Have Poor Memory Strategies
Adults May Have Mistaken Ideas About Learning That Interfere With Learning

18: Adult Learning
Adults May Think That Learning Should Be Effortless

Adult Students May Not Be Used To Actively Participating At School
Adults Have Had Their Misconceptions For Longer, And May Not See Them As Dysfunctional
Adults May Have Been Using Ineffective Strategies For Years

Memory
Adults Have A Fully Developed Working Memory

18: Adult Learning
Thinking Continues To Develop Throughout Life

Wisdom Peaks In The 40s And 50s, School-Type Problem Solving In The 30s
Even The Lowest-Skilled Adult Learners Have Many Thinking Skills
Everyone's Thinking Develops Throughout Life
Adult Literacy Students' Reasoning May Be More Uneven Than Children's
Children's Thinking Is Better, And Adults' Thinking Is Worse, Than Was Thought

18: Adult Learning
Strategies And Content Knowledge Can Be Taught

Most Adults Sometimes Have Trouble With Abstract Thinking
Most Learners Start With A "Get The Answer" Approach And Only Later Try To Understand
Children's Misconceptions Persist In Adults And Interfere With Learning
More Active, Involved Students Get More Attention And Develop More Adult Experience
Using Adult Experiences To Teach With Analogies

18: Adult Learning
Adult Literacy Students' Narrow Knowledge Base Can Make It Harder For Them To Learn

Life Experience May Not Lead To Large Vocabularies
Life Experience Is The Basis For Some Better Comprehension, But Only In Familiar Topics
Most Adults Are Expert At Something
Adult Literacy Students Make The Same Kinds of Thinking Mistakes As Everyone Else

18: Adult Learning
Motivating Adults

Problem-Based Learning May Be Particularly Suited To Adults
Adult Self-Esteem is Not Helped By Easy Assignments
Interests Are Motivating For Adults
Self-Motivated Learners Can Still Be Oriented To Pleasing The Teacher
Current Motivation Practices Are Probably Less Effective Than They Could Be

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