Conclusions and Recommendations: How Do Adults with Little Formal Education Learn?

Conclusions

As you read about our participants and their learning, you found out about many things: how they learned, how their lives affected their learning, how agency, or lack of agency, affected their lives and learning, and the complex role emotion played in their learning.

The adults with little formal education who took part in our study told us about a variety of strategies they would use to learn a skill or find information. They most commonly ask other people, read, observe, try (just do it) and use some form of technology.

• "Ask Someone" was by far the most common strategy mentioned by participants. Some of our participants indicated that they would choose the person to ask based on the expertise that person had in the area, but many participants indicated they would ask a family member or friend no matter what subject was under consideration.
• “Read” was the next most common strategy and often it was cited either immediately before or after asking someone. Participants would read first to familiarize themselves so as to “not appear stupid”. They would read after asking to go farther in depth on a topic.
• “Observation” allowed participants time to watch and analyse prior to attempting the task or skill on their own.
• “Just do it” required lots of self-confidence, previous success with the strategy and a very strong desire. Some also chose this strategy in a way that indicated a lack of critical thinking skills.
• “Use technology” (includes telephone, computer, television, radio and Internet) was also a strategy mentioned often by participants.

Our participants had a broad view of learning and of themselves as learners. They were aware of what affected their current learning strategies and some were aware of why they did not complete their formal education. Some told us how they managed their lives with out formal learning and others told us their lack of formal learning had kept them from what they wanted in life. Our questions were all related to adult learning, yet, as they told us their stories, participants told us about how they learned as young children. They mentioned the stressors in both their childhood and adult lives that interfered with learning. Many mentioned their school and school leaving experiences, as well as their first jobs as being part of the story of how they learned today.

Agency, or the ability to act in the world, appears to be a key factor affecting how the participants in our research project learn. Agency includes the quality of self-confidence, control over aspects of one’s life, awareness of self, learning and life and the ability to reflect on one’s experiences. Participants with high agency had more confidence in their ability to learn and employed a wider variety of strategies for learning than participants with less agency. Agency was not solely connected with formal education or lack of it, rather with factors outside the sphere of education. Agency can come from sources other than formal education as all our participants had little formal education but their levels of agency varied greatly.