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INDEPENDENT SELF-DIRECTED RESPONSIBLE EXPERIENCE KNOWLEDGE INTERACTION MOTIVATION PRACTICAL FLEXIBILITY FREEDOM CHOICE CONTROL FEEDBACK CHALLENGE COLLABORATION REFLECTION
Adults learn in a different way to children and young students, they have far more complex backgrounds in terms of accumulated life experience and responsibilities. Being aware of the following characteristics of adult learners can greatly improve your effectiveness as a learning and development professional.
Self-directed
Adult learners see themselves as independent and self-directed; they like to have control over and be responsible for their own learning. Most will have jobs, families, households and budgets to run and used to using their initiative and making decisions for themselves. If they are not given some control over their learning, most adults will resist the learning and some will even attempt to sabotage the process.
When planning training programs trainers should always endeavour to include the adult learner in the planning of the program. They should also allow for self-assessment and evaluation and ensure the learning should be as participative as possible.
Experience
Adults have a lot of experience that they like to use as a resource and share with others. Adults learn by linking new learning to prior learning and experience to evaluate the validity and worthwhileness of new ideas and concepts by how it fits in with their life experiences and solves their problems.
Trainers should make it their business to find out what the knowledge and experience of their adult learners is so that they can link new ideas to their prior learning and experience. They should encourage their adult learners to discuss how the new ideas link up with their experience and how they plan to use them in practice. Encourage interaction between the adult learners so that they network and share experiences and perspectives.
Motivation
Adults are intrinsically motivated by their needs, interests and desires to learn. They are motivated by the relevance of the material to their needs and the prospect of achieving goals. They like to know the reason why they are doing something. Adult learners are more motivated to learn than younger learners. This is because most adult learning is voluntary and learning will be related to their career progression, professional development and job skills.
They like training and development programs...