While possession of agency seems to lie along a context affected continuum, it was apparent in this research that it is a powerful influence affecting people’s lives.

Participants’ personal levels of agency seem to be a significant factor in how they feel about themselves and how they get on in the world. In turn, agency itself seems to be partially affected by the various life experiences our research participants have had. The interplay of these two factors helps dictate what learning strategies they use as adults. To enhance this profound and interdependent relationship, the theme of emotions emerged during our data analysis.

Emotions

The participants in our research often spoke with feeling, and often spoke about their feelings. Learning was not described as cold and impersonal; rather, it was warm and associated with particular people. When she heard about the data, friend and colleague Winna Jorgensen made the insightful comment that the choices people made kept them in their comfort zone. When reviewing the data we found more evidence of the importance participants placed on feeling safe or comfortable.

If the emotion they feel in association with a particular learning strategy, for example, reading, is positive, they will be more likely to use books, rather than use another strategy that their experience has taught them to avoid. Although we did not have any absolute measure of their relative skill levels in the different strategies, participants rarely said they would choose a particular learning strategy because of its usefulness or application to a particular question. Instead, they talked about their feelings.

They observed that a good relationship with the person who has the information or the skill they want enhances learning. A poor relationship with that person may deter learning. Participants spoke of their fear of embarrassment, humiliation and rejection should they ask the “wrong” person. Many, particularly those without agency, or with low agency, were unwilling to take the risk. Often they had experienced embarrassment and ridicule at school, and would avoid situations where that experience might be repeated.

In their daily lives, participants chose among the five learning strategies outlined in the beginning of this chapter; however, it was often not a purely rational choice, based on the requirements of the situation, or the type of learning to be done, or the relative quality of information from two sources. Instead, participants based their choice on emotional considerations. As seen in the previous section, participants with more agency generally had a wider range of learning strategies available to them. People with less agency had fewer options for learning, and were often aware that they were stuck.

The section on emotions is organized using the framework of the five learning strategies: ask, read, observe/model, just do it and use technology. There appears to be a strong connection between the strategies participants choose and their emotional context.