Old learning patterns survive in the digital age

Citation

(2005), "Old learning patterns survive in the digital age", Education + Training, Vol. 47 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2005.00447bab.007

Old learning patterns survive in the digital age

Despite Government efforts to promote lifelong learning and a more equitable and inclusive learning society, there is little special or new about adult learning in the digital age, according to research at Cardiff University. The Adult Learning@Home project, which was funded by Economic and Social Research Council, concluded that information and communication technology has not increased participation and achievement rates in adult education. Instead, e-learning tends to be associated with the same factors that determine school-leaving age, such as sex and socio-economic background. “It would seem that patterns of participation in adult education are not being changed for the better by changes in education policy,” said Dr Neil Selwyn.

The study, one of the first large-scale research projects to focus specifically on information and communications technology and adult learning, shows that despite widespread access to computers and the internet, actual use is limited to just over half of the adult population. Using the internet to learn a language or other new skill is secondary to communicating with family and friends, producing documents and searching for specific information and general knowledge.

The report shows that e-learning is most often concerned with the technology itself, rather than a means to learn something else. The researchers concluded that ICT appears to reinforce existing patterns of learning and is mainly of benefit to people who are already learners, or who would have become learners without the availability of ICT. The findings show that adult learning through ICTs is largely informal and unstructured, even when it takes place at work or in educational institutions. It is often augmented by books, television programmes and help and advice from others. Most adults seem to create a use for the technology rather than the technology solving some existing problem or lack in their lives. This is most obvious in hobby and leisure use, such as adults producing greetings cards.

Other findings include:

• •

  Only 38 per cent of the 1,001 adults survey had continued with any form of formal learning directly after reaching compulsory school-leaving age.

• •

  The key determinant of learning in later life is experience of work and family life as an adult, rather than access to ICTs.

• •

  Only 8 per cent of the survey could be classed as excluded from computers and the internet, but 48 per cent had not used a computer during the past 12 months.

• •

  Only 11 per cent of respondents reported using a computer in a public location such as a library, compared to 44 per cent using one at home and 32 per cent in the workplace.

• •

  The key factor underlying the success of ICT-based learning is an individual's motivation and self-discipline.