Do Adult Learning Theories offer adequate explanatory or predictive foundations for HRD? Offer an analytical response to this question with reference to a case study of your choosing.

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Holly Bayliss/

Do Adult Learning Theories offer adequate explanatory or predictive foundations for HRD? Offer an analytical response to this question with reference to a case study of your choosing.

Introduction:

Adult learning theories and theorists seek to establish education as a continuous and lifelong process.  Similarly, in the context of human resource development (HRD) professional and personal development can never be exhaustive, but continues in a cyclical and continuous improvement pattern:

Identify Learning/Training Needs

Evaluate                                                                        Plan

Implement Learning/Training

Kolb describes this cycle as both iterative and interactive (Wilson, 1999 p.195).  Wilson goes on to suggest that adult learning can instruct the field of HRD to recognise both formal and informal learning and the development thereof.  Through an analysis of adult learning theories I aim to demonstrate how the HRD practitioner can apply the models of adult and lifelong learning to enhance the evolution of individuals, organisations and nations.  Furthermore, my exploration endeavours to demonstrate how adult learning theories and practice can act as explanatory and predictive foundations for HRD.

Wilson (1999) summarises three main adult learning theories.   Behaviourist theories of learning recognise learning as a response to external stimuli.  Maintenance of the new behaviour is enforced by positive and negative reinforcement, a system of punishment and reward.  Cognitivist theories of learning emphasise the proactive nature of development.  This school of thought perceives human beings as seekers of knowledge in an attempt to understand our own identities and positionality.  Humanist theories believe that learning occurs as a result of our natural inclination towards it.  People learn because in an environment of ‘warmth, care and understanding,’(Wilson, 1999 p.197) we cannot help it. In this sense education is learner-centred; the student initiates the development environment and needs assessment.

Whilst these theories impact on and explain the processes and practices of some areas of HRD, I have decided to focus upon critical and cultural learning approaches and their impact on national and organisational HRD.  These two approaches recognise the marginalised learner voices and learning practices and challenge the classical models.  The theorists acknowledge the force of culture, society and established power systems upon education and teaching methods and develop our ability to perceive these systems at work and recognise their impact upon our learning.

 

Critical adult learning theories:

Critical adult learning theories focus upon the effect of power relations on the learner and the learning environment.  The relationship between domination and oppression, knowledge and ignorance, teacher and student is based upon a power struggle and serves to marginalise through gender, class and race.  Those who espouse this theory denote that the dominant ideological discourses can only be transformed through an exploration and visualisation of the voice and positions of those who are marginalised.  A social aspect on critical theory demonstrates that the systems of privilege and oppression in which we develop shape not only how we construct our knowledge, but also which knowledge is perceived as being viable and relevant, that is which knowledge should be constructed.

Within the critical approach the economic, political and social order shape the individual consciousness and the way that we perceive our reality.  Every social reality that one could construct is forged from the dominant ideology.  Within this disposition there can be no absolute truths, they must also be viewed as constructions of the social order.  This approach aims to contest and challenge the dominant order, without itself becoming an oppressive ideology.  Thus, it is through a conversational approach that the humanist concept of ‘freedom’ could be achieved.  Tisdell (1998) notes that this approach is based on three models.  The psychological models analyse the individual and in terms of HRD and the learning environment, the individual is perceived as the constructor of knowledge.  The HRD practitioner must then focus upon creating a safe environment for the individual to form a voice.  Structural models analyse the social structures in light of the politics of knowledge production.  The teacher/trainer/facilitator’s role is to confront the unequal power relations.  Poststructural models analyse the connections between the individual and social structures.  The model questions the positionality of the educator and the shifting identities of the participants.  The instructor should deconstruct the binary oppositions in order to allow a voice, by recognising its marginalisation (Tisdell,1998 p.143).

Power struggles: The educator and ‘educatee’

Freire (1987) exposes the antagonistic power relations between the teacher and the student, in whatever environment the relationship manifests itself.  The association is composed of teacher as Subject and the student as patient, listening object (Freire, 1987 p.57).  Within this narrative interaction the teacher and student are graded on their ability to fulfil these constructed roles,

The more completely he [sic] fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is.  The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are (Freire, 1987 p.58).

Within this method of teaching, for the focus is upon the teacher and the position of the learner merely justifies that of the educator, they form a binary opposition.  The teacher designs the needs of the learner and the student is only allowed to store and receive this action.  Freire refers to this as the “banking” of education.  The teacher holds all the knowledge and power, the student, none.

This ‘pedagogy of oppression’ denies the possibility for the participants to simultaneously become teachers and students.  Thus the relationship shapes the concept of learning.  Knowledge becomes a commodity that can be passed down through hierarchical structure; this is the only direction that knowledge can flow in within this structure.

Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others… negates education and knowledge as a process of enquiry (Freire, 1987 p.58).

Thus questioning the knowledge, authority or positionality of the teacher results in negative reinforcement.  I would also suggest that projecting ignorance onto students could result in many accepting this as their place and thus may be reluctant to participate in learning in the future.  Freire argues that students are not encouraged towards inquiry as the oppressors do not want to have their power structure exposed and transformed and thus do not develop student criticality.  Furthermore, I would suggest that this mode of oppression aims to make the environment safe for the teacher, it is perceived as a teaching, not a learning environment.

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This form of learning also affects perception of reality and our place in the world.  Where knowledge is passed as commodity, reality is presented as being ‘motionless, static, compartmentalised and predictable’ (Freire, 1987 p.57).  The more the student is rewarded for passively accepting this view, the less likely one is to oppose this power structure.  Freire comments that this is ‘the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully human’ (Freire, 1987 p.61).  If we do not develop the skill to question others’ and our place within the world, then we become powerless to innovate our own ...

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