Models of adult learning: a literature review 7

Models from psychology

Behaviourism
The first significant psychological theories of learning were developed within the field of
behaviourism. Coming from a paradigm that limited scientific study only to those things which
could be observed directly, behaviourist psychologists avoided using any internal mentalist
concepts, such as thought, to explain behaviour. They restricted their explanations to those
material parts of the situation that could be seen and described. Their explanations for
human behaviour were therefore expressed purely in terms of conditioned responses to
environmental stimuli.
The best-known theory of learning and instruction to emerge from this field is Skinners
operant conditioning (see Skinner 1974 for a summary of his work). This approach uses
reinforcement to shape changes in behaviour gradually, by breaking down a complex
behaviour into a series of much smaller steps, and immediately rewarding any change in the
desired direction. The learner then tends to repeat this behaviour, thus operating on their own
environment in order to elicit more positive reinforcement.
Variants of this approach have been used to address problem behaviours such as smoking,
weight gain, drug use and phobias, through behaviour modification programmes. It has also
formed the basis of a number of instructional models. These tend to see the role of the
teacher as primarily one of delivering or transmitting learning by breaking complex
learning down into smaller, simpler tasks. These tasks are practised repeatedly, and students
are rewarded for correct completion. Pre-determined learning outcomes, phrased purely in
Research Report 8
terms of observable behaviours, are set at the start of a course or session. Behaviour that
approximates to these outcomes can then be measured and rewarded.
Behaviourist models of learning offer simplicity, control, a method for approaching the
teaching of complex behaviours in relatively straightforward ways, a way of measuring
whether this has been achieved, and an attractive appearance of scientific rigour. However, in
considering the potential for their application to adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision,
they have significant weaknesses. The behaviourist paradigm is concerned only with physical,
observable behaviours so that the mental processes of understanding and making sense of
things are beyond its remit. While it may be useful for the small sub-set of desired learning
outcomes that do not require the learner to experience changed understandings in order to
change behaviour patterns, it is not enough to draw on in helping people who want to learn to
read, write and do maths. These are complex practices that bring together observable
behaviour with non-observable understandings and beliefs.
Behaviourist models of learning imply that it may be possible to train learners responses
within adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL by using behavioural techniques, breaking
complex behaviours down into simple chains and rewarding correct performance. However
this model can offer little to help conceptualise learners developing understandings or
autonomy.
Cognitivism
The first attempt to address this weakness in psychological theories of learning came with the
development of cognitivist models, which acknowledged the limitations of seeing learning
purely in terms of stimulus response and behaviour change. Instead, cognitivist approaches
studied the roles of individual, internal, information-processing elements of learning. The
roots of cognitivist approaches to learning can be traced back to Gestalt psychology, which
drew attention to the significance of questions of perception, insight and meaning. In
particular, it identified the importance of moments when learning reorganises experience so
that the learner suddenly sees the whole phenomenon under study in a new way.
Cognitivism rejects the model that sees learning only as changes in observable behaviour,
and instead understands learning as consisting of changes in mental constructs and
processes, the development and increasing sophistication of mental maps and schemata
for representing the world. Since these processes are not directly observable, the
development of theory often proceeds by making inferences about these internal cognitive
processes, primarily by setting up laboratory experiments designed to be interpretable in
these terms.
Work from within behaviourism began to perceive the significance of the social setting for
learning. Miller and Dollards work in the 1940s (Miller and Dollard 1941) demonstrated how
reinforcement occurred not only when the subject themselves received a reward, but also
when they observed another subject experiencing a stimulus-reward pattern. This proved that
internal (and therefore unobservable) factors had a part to play in the learning process. This
work influenced Banduras (1977) development of a social learning theory. While rooted in
the behaviourist paradigm, this acknowledged the existence of observational learning and
drew attention to vicarious, symbolic and self-regulatory processes that are not directly
observable.
Models of adult learning: a literature review 9
Cognitivist theorists include Gagn (see, for example, Gagn 1985), who developed a model in
which learning is primarily about information processing. Gagns theory of instruction is
based on a taxonomy of learning outcomes and he suggests that particular conditions are
necessary to achieve these different learning outcomes. This includes both those internal to
the learner, such as the skills and capacities the learner has already mastered, and those
external to the learner, such as the conditions arranged by the teacher or facilitator. He
studied the conditions under which successful learning occurs, and tried to describe these
objectively so that they could be replicated in other instructional settings.
For Gagn, learning is progressive in that learners draw on previously-learned skills and
capacities when learning new material. He therefore states that in order to attain a particular
learning outcome, such as mastery of a task, it is necessary to produce a learning hierarchy,
by breaking the task into its more basic component skills. The teacher guides the learner
through nine steps or events of instruction to ascend the learning hierarchy: gaining
attention (reception); informing learners of the objective (expectancy); stimulating recall of
prior learning (retrieval); presenting the stimulus (selective perception); providing learning
guidance (semantic encoding); eliciting performance (responding); providing feedback
(reinforcement); assessing performance (retrieval); and enhancing retention and transfer
(generalisation).
The roots of Gagns thinking in behaviourism are clear, both in his terminology and in the
chaining structure he describes. However his focus on internal information processing,
rather than externally observed behaviour, places him in the realms of the cognitivists. His
work has been particularly influential in the USA where his ideas have been taken up by the
military and the educational establishment.
Others have also developed theories of instruction based on cognitivist understandings of how
the mind works. Ausubels (1963) theory of instruction states that, in order for meaningful
learning to take place in a context of expository instruction in school-type settings, new
information needs to fit in with existing cognitive structures. He suggests the use of advance
organisers when presenting new material, to organise the material at a higher level of
generality and abstraction before it is progressively differentiated in detail and specificity.
Cognitivist models of learning moved psychology on from the reductionism of the
behaviourist approaches to a better understanding of the mental complexities associated
with learning. The important implications of these models for adult literacy, numeracy and
ESOL lie in the importance of building on learners existing knowledge, and in the need to
find ways to ensure that learners have understood or made sense of what they are
learning, rather than simply focusing on eliciting the required performances.
Cognitive constructivism
Despite the shift in focus from seeing learning as changes in observable behaviour to seeing
learning as developing internal information-processing mechanisms and models, purely
cognitivist models of learning were still predicated on the notion that learning was a matter of
finding ways to assimilate objective knowledge. The next step in developing understanding
was when theorists became aware that learners themselves played an active role: not merely
in assimilating but also, and more importantly, in constructing the things that they were
learning. While cognitivist models of learning focus on learners developing representational
Research Report 10
models of knowledge provided to them by their environment, cognitive constructivism shifts
the focus to the learners own process of actively constructing these models through
interaction with their environment
Many of these are inspired by Piagets (1950; 1970) developmental model of learning. On the
basis of long-term, detailed observation of childrens development, Piaget suggested that a
childs cognitive structure develops through a series of distinct stages. His significant
contribution was in drawing attention to the active role of children themselves in this process.
He demonstrated that, rather than simply undergoing an inevitable maturing process, the
childrens development occurs through their active interaction with the environment in
different ways.
Cognitive constructivism started from this understanding of child development and applied it
to all learners, examining learners participation in the learning process through the active
construction of new models, engaging in new experiences and thereby building on and
extending their existing schemata. Learning becomes an active process: not the accumulation
of truth or knowledge, but an ongoing dynamic of personal construction of meaning.
Cognitive constructivist theories of instruction reflect this understanding. For example, this is
the principle behind Bruners (1960, 1977) spiral curriculum. Bruner suggests that the basic
principles of any subject can be grasped very early on in its study, if the learner is helped to
discover the underlying cognitive structure of the subject in a way that both fires their
imagination and fits in with their existing modes of thinking. Thereafter, their learning
proceeds by rearranging new evidence in a meaningful way within these existing basic
structures. The role of the educator is to present new material and experiences in a way that
facilitates this process; but it is the learners themselves who construct their own learning.
In terms of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision, cognitive constructivist theories
would suggest that it is important to allow learners the choice and autonomy to develop
their learning in their own way, by giving them space to follow their own individual
interests and understandings, and by recognising that this process will be different for
each learner.
Developmental theories
Since learning is often related to developmental processes, the field of developmental
psychology has also proved influential within adult education. Many theories of human
development understand humans as developing in terms of a series of stages, and suggest
that the sorts of learning that occur and the forms of instruction that are most appropriate
are qualitatively different in each of these stages.
Perhaps the best known and most influential of these stage theories of development is
Piagets cognitive theory of child development, mentioned above. In this model, children pass
through four stages of cognitive development, each associated with different forms of
cognitive structuring, reaching a final formal-operational stage in their teens which marks
the first time they are able to deal with abstract logic.
Piagets model has been very influential within education, but has also been criticised. One of
the reasons is that a privileging of formal abstract thought is implicit in the four-stage
Models of adult learning: a literature review 11
theory. While this is very common in Euro-American cultures, it is becoming increasingly
clear that abstract thought is only one of many modes of thinking, and is not necessarily the
most powerful or appropriate in every situation (see sections on situated cognition and
experiential learning for more on this). Piagets model has therefore been seen as limited and
culturally-specific and, of course, it applies principally to children.
However, the basic idea that there are stages of cognitive development has also been applied
in several different ways within the context of adult education. (Merriam and Caffarella (1998)
contains a good review of such work.) Perrys (1970) study, based on work with college
students, suggests that undergraduates thought processes typically develop along a
continuum of nine positions, from absolutism through relativism to contextualised reasoning.
Similarly, King and Kitchener (1994) identify seven stages in the process of developing
reflective judgement. Belenky et al.s influential study, Womens Ways of Knowing (1986), is
again based on work in academic institutions but also used research with women in parenting
classes. It suggests that womens thought develops in five stages, from silence, through
received knowledge, subjective knowledge and procedural knowledge, to constructed
knowledge.
Baxter Magoldas work (1992) followed a group of male and female college students over five
years, interviewing them yearly. It identifies a progression in developing epistemological
reflection from absolute, through transitional and independent, to contextual forms of
reasoning. Kohlbergs work (1981; 1984) focused on moral development, claiming that there
are six phases of moral development through which people must pass, from pre-conventional
ideas of obedience and punishment, through conventional morality concerned with gaining
the approval of others and following laws, to post-conventional morality which, in its most
developed form, is guided by principles and conscience.
Many of these stage theories appear to be describing a similar process in which learners
move from absolute theories of what is right and wrong, through a stage of relativising and
subjectivising everything, to a final stage where they accept the contextual and situated nature
of knowledge. At this final stage, the search for truth is inflected by an awareness of the
inevitability of alternative points of view and the inherent contradictions and uncertainties of
real life (see also Brookfield 2000 for a characterisation of adult thinking in similar terms).
While this is clearly a model that reflects the complex nature of everyday cognition more
clearly than Piagets formal-operational stage, there are also questions to be raised about it.
Many of these studies are based on work with small samples of college students undergoing
training in a particular kind of thinking, and therefore it is doubtful whether this work can be
generalised to adults as a whole.
Some theories of development identify a small number of discrete cognitive stages that
people supposedly pass through in a relatively linear fashion. However, many of these
models were developed through researching small samples of particular sorts of learners,
often college students, so we cannot assume that they can be directly applied to all adult
learners. And there is little evidence to suggest that adults needs with regard to literacy,
numeracy and ESOL are necessarily related to any more generalised stage of cognitive
development. Whereas cognitive developmental models imply a fairly reductionist, linear
process of progress, we know that adult learners typically exhibit spiky profiles, that is to
say, varying levels of ability and confidence, even within different elements of literacy and
numeracy practices. This spikiness is likely to extend to their lives as a whole.
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Other theories of development in adulthood focus more on the significance of the different
stages, phases, tasks and roles that adults engage in, in social life, and the impact of these on
their learning processes. One such early study was by Levinson et al. (1978) involving the study
of 40 males using biographical interviews. Levinson developed a theory of a life cycle
consisting of four eras, each lasting approximately 25 years, with each era having a distinctive
character and period of development, and a transitional stage between each. Eriksons life-
stage model similarly maps a series of stages through which people are supposed to pass, and
suggests that within each there is a teachable moment at which learning appropriate to that
particular stage of development can happen (Erikson 1963; 1978; 1982; Erikson et al. 1986).
Again, these models of development suggest a single linear path through which everyone is
expected to progress. This absolutist thinking has been questioned by theorists who suggest
that similarities in peoples development are more likely to relate to the contexts, cultures
and communities within which they grow, than to development understood as a phenomenon
which acts in the same way irrespective of context.
Neugarten (1976) points out that every society has expectations about age-appropriate
behaviour, but these differ from one society to another and are socially constructed rather
than absolute. She argues that when life changes occur other than in the order society
expects, they are experienced as problematic. Riegel (1976) develops a more complex
understanding of human development as consisting of at least four dimensions: inner-
biological, individual-psychological, cultural-psychological, and outer physical. He argues that
periods of equilibrium between these dimensions are the exception rather than the rule. He
suggests that when any two (or more) of these dimensions are in conflict, there is potential
for change, and that development is therefore normally an ongoing, continual process.
Tennant and Pogson (1995) explore the significance of this development literature for adult
education practice. They argue that more recent work moves beyond stage theories and
comes to understand that adults develop through having the experience of dealing with real-
life problems, rather than as an inevitable progression through a given series of stages. The
problems adults encounter in the real world are often not the kind which can be addressed by
formal-operational logic. They tend to be open-ended, contradictory and ambiguous. They
seldom have a single logical or correct solution, but nevertheless require a commitment to a
single course of action such as buying one house or choosing one job from among several
possibilities. This sort of problem is not solved, but is resolved in an ongoing process.
Tennant and Pogson claim that, as a result of experiencing this type of problem, adults
develop a form of reasoning that they call dialectical thinking, in which working through the
formal logical properties of a task becomes less important than the ability to draw on ones
accumulation of experience in dealing with similar problems.
Tennant and Pogson suggest that notions of fixed phases and stages and ideal end-points
should be abandoned, with the focus shifting to processes of change and transformation and
the learning involved in these, acknowledging the multiple and non-linear pathways through
which adults tend to pass. (They cite Merriam and Clarks (1991) Lifelines study of work, love
and learning as one which takes this perspective.) This changes the focus from normative life
stages to the social and cultural processes that trigger changes and developments. It involves
(but is not limited to) understanding the socially-prescribed life course patterns in different
historical, social and cultural settings, as well as paying attention to psychological
development. By acknowledging the social and historical dimension of development, adult
educators can try to distinguish changes and learning experiences that genuinely transform
Models of adult learning: a literature review 13
and liberate from those that merely key into socially-approved life course expectations.
The implications of developmental models of adult learning for adult literacy, numeracy
and ESOL are that we should not see development in adulthood as a single linear process
with fixed goals towards which we are trying to move people. We must understand that
many of these theories of development are socially and culturally contingent. Rather than
trying to impose a single model of development, we need to know learners current social
roles and positions and the practices they engage in, and come to an understanding of the
role of literacy, numeracy and ESOL within these. This should enable us to teach in a way
that enriches learners current lives and encourages them to develop further in their
desired direction.
Activity theory and social constructivism
The Soviet school of sociocultural theory or activity theory (Vygotsky 1962; 1978; Wertsch
1985a; 1985b; 1991) offers a different focus, bringing together theories of development and a
constructivist approach. This was an attempt to develop a different form of psychology from
the behaviourist understandings that were predominant at the time. Rather than studying
behaviour in a decontextualised way, this new form of psychology examined how the human
mind develops in the context of ongoing, meaningful, goal-oriented action and interaction with
other people, mediated by semiotic and material tools.
Vygotsky was interested in the emergence of higher mental functioning in human beings. He
therefore made developmental analysis the foundation for his study of mind (Wertsch 1985b;
1991). On the basis of a series of rigorous experimental observations, Vygotsky concluded that
the development of higher mental functioning in the individual, while dependent on and
rooted in biophysical processes such as the maturation of the brain, derives essentially from
social interaction. Without this social interaction, higher mental functioning would not
emerge. His main aim was to specify the processes involved in this.
Whereas Piagets work developed a form of cognitive constructivism, Vygotsky is generally
seen as taking a social constructivist approach. From this perspective, interaction with other
people and cultural artefacts, not just with new ideas, is crucial for learning. His general
genetic law of cultural development claimed that any function in the childs cognitive
development must first appear on the social plane, that is in interaction with others, and only
thereafter on the psychological plane.
While acknowledging that the internalisation of the process changes its nature, Vygotsky
claimed that the specific structures and processes of intramental functioning can always be
traced to their intermental precursors. Therefore, social relations underlie the development
and learning of all higher cognitive functioning. This leads to an understanding of higher
mental functions, such as thinking, voluntary attention and logical memory, as being
potentially social as well as individual activities. An example would be when two people
remember something together, prompting or scaffolding one another until recall is achieved.
Learning is also seen as involving this scaffolding process (Bruner 1985), particularly as it is
involved in perhaps the best-known of Vygotskys concepts in the educational field, the ZPD or
Zone of Proximal Development. This refers to the difference between a learners current level,
as determined by independent problem solving, and the higher level of their potential for
Research Report 14
development, as determined through problem solving under guidance, or in collaboration with
peers (Vygotsky 1978).
Vygotskys work also draws attention to the role of mediating tools or artefacts, both material
and non-material, in this interactional process. Peoples interactions draw on concepts,
strategies, and technologies, including writing and other representational technologies, which
mediate the meanings constructed. Vygotsky and colleagues showed the significance of such
mediational artefacts through a series of experiments with children and with adults with
impairments such as Parkinsons disease. These demonstrated that very simple mediational
tools, such as coloured cards or paper templates, enabled people to perform tasks they could
not otherwise do (Vygotsky 1978). Vygotskys work supports not merely a social, but a
sociocultural theory of learning, which sees cognition as distributed both between the people
present in the interaction, and across such mediating tools for thinking as are present in the
culture more generally.
This is clearly a very different understanding from that developed by the cognitivist model
described above. Rather than focusing on the role of the individual actor in constructing
meaning, Vygotskys sociocultural theory has interaction with other people at its very core.
A sociocultural understanding of adult learning suggests that in adult literacy, numeracy
and ESOL provision, learners need interaction with others at the right level for their own
stage of development, and appropriate mediational tools and artefacts play a crucial role in
the learning process.
Activity theory was further developed by Vygotskys associates Leontev (1978; 1981) and Luria
(1976; 1978). Translations of these writers into English in the 1970s led to their ideas being
taken up by researchers in the West who developed the potential offered by understandings of
human action and learning in terms of activity systems: that is, as communities of people
engaging in a common activity. Studies of learning in activity systems draw our attention to
the role of interaction and mediational artefacts (both material and semiotic) in goal-oriented
activity, developing a very different sort of understanding from the much more individualistic
cognitivist or behavioural models.
Activity theory has been developed more recently in psychology through the works of Cole,
Engestrm, Scribner and colleagues. A good summary of the work in this field can be found in
Cole, Engestrm and Vasquez Mind, Culture and Activity (1997), which draws together
seminal papers from the Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human
Cognition. This collection shows the historical development of an approach that studies the
actions of people participating in routine, culturally-organised activities. It generates a
psychology that places context, rather than individual cognition, at the centre of our
understanding of human thought and activity.
Situated cognition
When psychologists began to look at how cognition occurs in real situations rather than in
decontextualised laboratory settings, a situated model of learning and cognition began to
emerge (Lave 1988; Rogoff and Lave 1984; Scribner and Cole 1981). Many of the cognitive
processes that had been seen as universal and transferable within cognitive psychology were
now understood to be closely tied to the particular experimental situation in which they were
Models of adult learning: a literature review 15
exercised. It became clear that decontextualised studies of learning could give very
misleading results.
A particularly good example is the Adult Math Project in the US, reported in Lave (1988). This
research combined traditional testing of mathematical skills with ethnographic observations
of the mathematical practices in which people engaged in their everyday lives: for instance,
while doing their grocery shopping in the supermarket. It was found that adults performed
very differently in experimental settings and in normal everyday activities. Murtaugh (1985)
states that, on average, US grocery shoppers scored 59% correct in calculations in
decontextualised tests, and 98% correct when shopping in a supermarket. Similar
phenomena have been found with Brazilian street children whose ability to perform complex
calculations while selling in the streets is not reproduced in school maths-type tests and
settings (Nunes et al. 1993).
This distinction between the results people achieve in tests and the way they deal with real-
life problems is brought out by Tennant and Pogson (1995). Drawing on the work of Robert
Sternberg (see, for example, Sternberg 1985), they outline common differences between
typical test problems and real-life problems. While written test problems are already defined,
a key skill in adult life is the ability to define a problem and its parameters in the first place.
Test problems usually have a single correct answer, whereas everyday life problems often
require people to find a resolution from many different possibilities, none of which is
necessarily completely right or wrong. While a test would normally provide all the information
necessary to get the right answer, problems in everyday life often have to be resolved without
enough information, or on the basis of conflicting pieces of information. Even when decisions
have been made, feedback in everyday life is rarely unambiguous. Finally, where test
problems are normally required to be solved alone, most of the problems encountered in
everyday life are addressed in conjunction with other people. Therefore, the thinking and
problem-solving processes in which people engage in everyday situated activity are often very
different from the decontextualised cognitive skills addressed by intelligence tests and the
like.
This is not to say that transfer between the learning setting and the everyday life setting
(where these are separate) is not possible, but it highlights the fact that this is not an
unproblematic process. Evans (2000) research with adults on the relationship between
mathematical thinking and emotion develops a model of transfer which acknowledges its
complexities. He draws attention to the need for transfer to be seen not as directly carrying
over the same skill from one context to another, but as a series of reconstructions of ideas
and methods from the context of learning, so that they are appropriate for the target setting.
(p.232). In addition he claims it is necessary to take account of the often unpredictable
influences of affect and emotion, and of the ways in which meanings flow along semiotic
chains. He suggests that the ability of a signifier to take on different meanings within different
discursive practices provides both the basis of, and limitations on, translation of learning
between different practices.
Tennant and Pogson (1995) relate the historically powerful distinction between abstract
thought and situated practice to the distinctions made between the theoretical and practical
in Western culture, beginning with Greek thinkers such as Plato. Practical intelligence
emphasises practice rather than theory, direct usefulness rather than intellectual curiosity,
and procedural usefulness rather than declarative knowledge. Everyday action and thought
tends to have immediate, visible consequences and a real-life end in mind, which is not the
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case for academic intelligence.
The authors describe Scribners Milk factory studies (1983/1997) as an example of this sort
of everyday practical reasoning. Scribner combined ethnographic work in an industrial dairy
with job simulations and controlled laboratory experiments. The experiments tested
hypotheses relating to processes of problem solving and the features distinguishing skilled
workers from novices that arose from the ethnographic work. On the basis of this work, she
developed a model of practical thinking as a dynamic process embedded in the purposive
activities of everyday life, rather than purely as a cognitive construct.
Practical thinking for Scribner has the following characteristics: it is flexible; it is able to solve
similar problems in different ways responding to the situation at hand; its problem-solving
system is finely tuned to the environment, drawing on social, symbolic and material resources
outside the mind of the individual problem-solver; it is driven by principles of economy, with
experts designing strategies to save effort wherever possible; it is dependent on knowledge
that is specific to the setting (one characteristic of experts was that they used specific dairy-
and job-related knowledge to generate flexible and economic procedures); and it is about
problem formation, that is, reformulating or redefining problems, rather than simply
problem solving. Within this model, adult development and adult intelligence must be
reconceptualised as comprising practical knowledge and expertise, not cognitive processes
alone, and learning is something that happens through sustained engagement in this practice.
Tennant and Pogson go on to explore the implications of several other studies of expertise,
knowledge and skill gained through sustained practice and experience, to develop a different
way of conceptualising learning. They identify common factors in these studies: experts excel
mainly in their own domains; they perceive large meaningful patterns in those domains; they
are faster and more economical in what they do; they have superior memory in that particular
domain; they see and represent a problem in that domain at a deeper level than novices; they
spend a great deal of time analysing a problem qualitatively; and they have strong self-
monitoring skills. The authors state that there has been little attempt so far to analyse the
implications for adult education of research into expertise.
A significant point made here is that it is important to maintain a distinction between
expertise as an outcome, and the acquisition of expertise as a process. It is by initially
behaving as novices that experts finally develop expert-type behaviour. Therefore education
and training programmes that attempt to teach expertise first may be misguided, if novice-
type behaviour is an essential part of the process through which expertise is developed.
Lave and Wenger (1991) studied situated learning in a variety of contexts, developing an
understanding of learning by doing. They developed the concept of learning as legitimate
peripheral participation in communities of practice, as a way of conceptualising the process
of development of expertise in practice. They point out that it is possible within a given
community for experienced old-timers to engage in the practice that defines the community
and, at the same time, for novices to have a legitimate peripheral role, gradually moving into
a more central position as they continue to participate in the communitys activity.
They examine five ethnographic studies of apprenticeship, looking at the learning processes
involved in becoming a Yucatec midwife, a Vai tailor, a naval quartermaster, a supermarket
meat cutter and a nondrinking alcoholic. They suggest that the forms of learning in these
settings (or failure to learn, particularly in the case of the meat cutters) may be accounted for
Models of adult learning: a literature review 17
in terms of the underlying relationships of legitimate peripheral participation in these
communities, that is, whether its structuring resources offer the novice possibilities for
participating directly in the communitys practice.
Wenger (1998) developed the concept of the community of practice in more theoretical detail,
defining a community of practice as being a group of people who regularly engage in activity in
pursuit of some jointly-negotiated enterprise, thereby developing a shared repertoire of ways
of going about things that is constituted in the ongoing process of the communitys practice.
He refines the notion of learning as participation in practice, and underlines the central role of
this participation in the constitution of individual and group identities. This work has been
particularly influential within management, with many large companies attempting to
promote the development of particular sorts of communities of practice in the workplace.
Other detailed studies of practice in a variety of settings reinforce this perspective on learning
in practice. Singleton (1998) is an edited collection of studies from Japan which shows similar
processes at work in the way people are trained in traditional arts such as Noh theatre,
calligraphy and martial arts, and in everyday socialisation in a variety of Japanese settings.
The book Understanding Practice (Chaiklin and Lave 1996) includes studies of a wide variety
of activities, from university examinations to maritime navigation. These show how, in each of
these settings, learning as situated social practice is ongoing in the communitys activities,
developing an inherently contextualised understanding of learning to challenge the prevailing
decontextualised cognitive models.
The accumulated evidence of this field therefore convinced some to shift from a view
according to which cognitive processes (and thus learning) are primary and a view according
to which social practice is the primary, generative phenomenon, and learning is one of its
characteristics (Lave and Wenger 1991). This means that whenever people engage in social
practice, learning will inevitably take place. This is an understanding of learning that moves
beyond looking only at changes in peoples thought processes, to seeing learning as becoming
able to participate in particular sorts of social practices. Learning is understood to be
embedded in other forms of social participation, and therefore provision that helps people to
engage in social participation is likely to be of more use than provision that aims to equip
people with decontextualised skills.
Situated models of learning suggest that in adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision we
need to understand the sorts of social practices that learners want or need to participate
in, and to offer opportunities that enable them to learn through engaging in these
practices. More importantly, perhaps, it implies that learners already engage in
sophisticated forms of social practice in their everyday lives, in ways that the practices of
the classroom may hide. An approach to adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL teaching that
acknowledges adults competence in engaging in practice in their everyday lives, and uses
this as a starting-point for education, is a powerful antidote to some prevailing deficit
models of adult basic education.
Brain science
Even within the field of brain science, which might seem to be the place where one might
most expect to find individual internalised models of human thinking, recent research has
demonstrated the socially-situated nature of brain development and the dialectical
Research Report 18
interpenetration of individual thinking and learning with social context. Early theories in brain
science tried to map different areas of the brain to different thought processes, developing
concepts such as the idea that the right brain was the location of creativity and the left
brain the location of rational processing.
Advances in neuroscience have enabled us to understand more clearly the way the brain is
constructed in process, emergent from the interaction between the brain and the
environment. Cohen and Leicester (2000) describe how new techniques such as PET and MRI
scans have allowed us to develop a better understanding of how the brain works and that, as
a result, many neuroscientists have moved on from looking at the brain in terms of
specialised areas for particular tasks to seeing it as a network of paths working and
recombining in parallel. These pathways are continually developed and recombined as people
interact with the world around them. The brain is physically formed by this ongoing process of
interaction between intelligence and extelligence, the cultural capital available in a given
context (Stewart and Cohen 1997). Cohen and Leicester suggest that the brain is best
understood not in terms of areas reserved for particular sorts of processing, but rather as
permeable, branching and flexible moving pathways criss-crossing and recursively
interacting with each other and with incoming information from the external world (imagine
Spaghetti Junction reeling and writhing and repeatedly re-assembling).
This vision of the brains networks constantly reconstructing themselves through interaction
with the world around is similar to the models drawn on by Gee (1992), who develops a model
of the mind based on theories of neural networks. Constructors of artificial neural networks
have found that artificial neuronal units, arranged in parallel processing networks, can learn
to perform tasks simply through a process of trial and error, beginning with a purely random
network and nudging it in the direction of increasing accuracy. (The example he gives is of a
system to distinguish between sonar signals from mines and from rocks.)
Gee suggests that our capacity for learning can be explained in terms of the brain engaging in
this sort of ongoing interaction with the world, only in a much more complex way involving
recursive interrelationships between many millions of neurons. Again, this is an intrinsically
social model of learning, in that the interactions between the neural networks and the world
beyond always take place within a socially-constructed world, with the resources drawn on
being socially and historically constituted.
In summary, there are two contrasting families of models of learning within psychology.
The earlier models, including behaviourism, cognitivism and cognitive constructivism,
focused primarily on learning as something that takes place for an individual, whether this
learning is seen in terms of changed behaviour patterns or altered mental models and
processes. More recently, an alternative paradigm has developed in fields such as
sociocultural psychology, social constructivism, activity theory and situated cognition, in
which learning is seen as a socially-situated phenomenon, best understood as a feature of
peoples ongoing participation in social contexts. This second understanding is supported
firstly by research that has left the experimental setting and examined the learning
processes in peoples everyday lives, and secondly by advances in neuroscientific research.