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CAPE Research - Report 2: Motivation Around Adult Education
VALUEUSA: 6.18.2018
What
barriers do adults face to participating in adult education? What solutions do
they recommend to get past those barriers?
The
long awaited first report of the CAPE research gives insight on the deterrents
and solutions of adult learners foregoing education. This is part two in a
series of reports with one more report scheduled for release by Summer 2018.
Check it out!
Motivation around Adult Education: June 2018
By
Margaret Becker Patterson,
VALUEUSA
June 2018
In
an era when 36 million U.S. adults need basic skills, 90% of eligible adults do
not participate in adult education. VALUEUSA believed adults themselves could
best answer questions on why they don’t participate. A purpose of the
Critiquing Adult Participation in Education (CAPE) was to further understand
how adults value education and what motivates them around adult education. CAPE
researchers surveyed and conducted 25 group interviews with 125 adults in five
U.S. states. While motivation can become a force that drives adults past
deterrents toward adult education, often for personal or career goals, adult
motivation around adult education is sometimes suppressed. Theories explaining
adults’ attitudes, expectancy value, past influences, and external regulation
may be considered in understanding potential motivation of nonparticipants in
adult education.
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Introduction
to Motivation
Adults
opt to pursue education – or not – for diverse reasons. Motivation is a force
which drives adults past deterrents toward adult education. Having a personal
or career goal often motivates adults to enter adult education. In some
circumstances, however, adults’ motivation around adult education is
suppressed, such as from perceptions of low immediate need or the amount of
effort participation would “cost”. Theories explaining adults’ attitudes,
expectancy, past influences, and external regulation may be considered in understanding
potential motivation of nonparticipants in adult education.
A
first type of motivation is attitudinal. Hayes and Darkenwald (1990) discussed
how attitudes toward education are multi-dimensional in predicting adult
participation. Wlodkowski and Ginsberg define adult motivation to learn as “the
tendency to find learning activities meaningful and worthwhile and to benefit
from them”. Conversely, if people do not value adult education, they will
probably not feel motivated to participate.
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An
additional component represented the amount of time it would “cost” the adult
to participate, in terms of time taken from other important activities such as
work and family needs. To begin adult education, prospective adult learners
must not only perceive adult education as important, appealing, or useful, but
also believe adult education can meet the need, or find it beneficial. Adults
may thus make ongoing cost-benefit judgments in decisions to participate or
not. However, adults found the cost component to be high; that is, pursuing
adult education would need to be worth the time and effort.
Other
strong motivators include influence of the past and trauma. In the first CAPE
report, influence of the past was the most frequently mentioned dispositional
deterrent to adult education participation. Blunt and Yang (2002) noted that
negative past schooling experiences and
negative responses to those experiences, such as low confidence or fear of
math, could motivate adults against participation.
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Another
motivator for adult education is external regulation. Motivation to further a
career is an example of external regulation, which occurs when adults’ behavior
is motivated by the desire to obtain a reward or to avoid punishment. For
adults motivated to seek better jobs, higher salaries, or promotions, learning
becomes relevant. READ
MORE >>
The
CAPE project was funded with generous support from Dollar
General Literacy Foundation
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