Exploring Andragogy for Corporate Training

Key takeaways

As a learner-centric teaching approach, andragogy emphasizes adult-directed learning and takes prior knowledge into account.

• Where pedagogy structures learning through courses that build on the learners’ understanding of the content, andragogy provides learning that satisfies an immediate need.

• Andragogical principles assume learners possess maturity, experience, readiness to learn relevant skills, urgency, and motivation.

• You can incorporate andragogical principles into your training by providing student-centric learning opportunities.

Explore andragogy as a concept, including its corporate context for adult learners, its fundamental principles, and how technology affects contemporary andragogical approaches. Then, if you’re ready to experience custom course creation at scale, consider Course Builder, an AI-assisted authoring tool that can help you build new courses, launch custom courses, and increase productivity without additional resources. 

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What is andragogy?

Pedagogy and andragogy are vital terms in the broad educational field that impact the learning experience and require unique approaches. While pedagogy is the process of teaching children, andragogy explores the process of teaching adult learners. A pedagogical approach requires a heavy focus on the teacher or instructor to lead dependent learners. In contrast, andragogy takes a learner-centric approach where the adult directs their learning and education. Andragogy also takes the experience and knowledge adults already possess into account when helping them learn a new skill or close a knowledge gap. 

Andragogical approaches suit adult learners returning to school to gain new skills for their workplace, management training, and corporate training environments. Its paradigm comes from the research of Malcolm Knowles, a figure heavily involved in adult education during the latter part of the 20th century. 

Andragogy vs. pedagogy: How is andragogy different from pedagogy?

It helps to understand andragogical approaches as contrasted to pedagogical approaches. Andragogy and pedagogy differ in how they approach the learner, their experience, and how they learn. Let’s compare how andragogy and pedagogy differ:

Pedagogical approaches

• A teacher plans the curriculum, while the learner depends on the teacher and learns what they present.

• The flow of knowledge goes from the teacher to the learner, where the learner allows the instructor more direction over the methods used to understand the knowledge.

• Society structures the curriculum based on the age of learners so that they can progress as they age.

• Instructors base learners’ education on understanding subject content through logically organized courses that build on their understanding.

Andragogical approaches

• Adults can take a more self-directed, independent approach to learning, where a teacher fosters this process but does not dictate what they learn.

• Adults develop their own experiences and perspectives of the world that help them learn new things by applying various learning experiences from their lives.

• Adult learners want more direct problem-solving or knowledge-building experiences, looking for teachers to create an environment that fosters that growth.

• Adult learning centers on acquiring a particular skill or solving a specific problem more effectively and seeks immediate experience to do so.

Historical perspective of andragogy

Although you can trace andragogy back to its sporadic use in the 1830s, much of its theoretical underpinnings comes from education theorist Malcolm Knowles, who popularized the concept in the early 1970s with his books The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy versus Pedagogy (1970) and The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (1973). Knowles’s research and experience in adult education led him to andragogy as a critical principle for creating effective adult education. 

Key principles of andragogy

The underpinnings of andragogy come from how adults learn, focusing on why they need to know it, how it helps solve problems, learning through experience, and that they learn best when the knowledge is immediately applied. The following offers a summary of the fundamental principles associated with Knowles’s andragogic learning process:

1. Adults mature from dependent children into independent thinkers, desiring education they help to plan and coordinate. 

2. Adults use their experience to help them gain new knowledge, leading to a more natural intuition of new topics. 

3. With the multiplying social roles adults find themselves in, their readiness to learn increases as they have a more pressing need to develop new skills for their jobs, as parents, or as citizens.

4. Adult learners pursue knowledge for skills they need immediately as problems arise that require a solution to solve them. 

5. Intrinsic motivation to learn develops as adults age, with motivation coming from within instead of from external forces. [1]

Defining andragogy in the corporate context

In a corporate context, andragogy helps structure how learning and development (L&D) teams approach employees when training or providing professional development programs. If they take an andragogical approach, they can recenter the learner and have them take control of how they learn in the workplace. 

While pedagogical approaches commonly center on teaching children, they are popular approaches for teaching learners of all ages, with information flowing from a teacher or lecturer. An andragogical approach centers the learner on taking charge of their learning in corporate training. 

Applying andragogical principles in corporate training

Andragogy has many functional principles as a theoretical approach to adult learning, but how can its methods apply to corporate training? It starts by applying Knowles’s andragogical principles to a corporate training environment. While each principle applies to adult learners, two aspects to focus on in corporate training include:

• Tailoring the experience to adult learners in their work environment 

• Encouraging self-directed learning

Let’s look at how these two aspects apply to Knowles’s andragogical principles in the context of corporate training.

Tailoring learning experiences for adult learners

Tailoring learning experiences for adult learners in the corporate environment means using andragogical principles that center the learner instead of the teacher and utilizing their previous experiences to learn new knowledge. Adult learners need to know that the knowledge applies directly to their lives or, in the case of corporate training, directly to their roles. Center the adult learner by explaining, from the beginning, how the knowledge offered through the training directly applies to their job, focusing on solving immediate problems in their workplace. 

Read more: Workforce Skills Development for Companies: A Comprehensive Guide to Nurturing Growth

Encouraging self-directed learning

Many adult learners want independence in learning, while others still have dependent learning tendencies. However, an andragogical approach strives for self-directed learning, where learners choose the learning path that works best for them. In corporate training, this means creating an environment that fosters self-directed learning by allowing the learner to exercise independent control and having them create and monitor their own goals. 

Self-directed learning also aligns with the andragogical principle of intrinsic motivation, in which adult learners have an internal drive to learn to complete their goals or solve immediate problems. In corporate learning, leverage what motivates employees, like taking on new responsibilities, getting promotions, or increasing their earning potential. Creating an environment like this requires independence, socialization of the learning experience, and direct application to the job. 

The role of technology in andragogical training

Technology promotes andragogical training through e-learning methods that center on adult learning, giving them an independent learning experience where they can control the time and information they study as needed. Using technology in an andragogical approach includes offering self-directed courses, providing peer-to-peer feedback, and ensuring multiple learning methods for  a given topic, such as audio, video, and text. 

Another example is the implementation of microlearning, which uses five to ten minutes of time to learn one skill per lesson. This approach allows adult learners to use time effectively, control their knowledge, and see how each module provides applicable skills. 

Challenges and solutions in andragogical training

Andragogical training points to a theory of learning with a receptive adult learner as the subject. Still, some skepticism toward andragogy may persist among adult learners in the corporate environment. This skepticism poses challenges inherent to andragogical training. Let’s examine two challenges and some solutions:

• Overcoming resistance to andragogical methods

• Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity

Overcoming resistance to andragogical methods

Some resistance to andragogical methods comes from the methodologies that adult learners experienced in the past. It breaks down into two challenges:

• The learner expects teaching to be in a dependent, pedagogical manner. 

• It assumes that adult learners want to self-direct their learning. 

Solutions to these challenges require a practical design that gives learners choices about the format of their learning and how deeply they want to go into each topic. This means creating interactive content in various formats like audio, video, and text with courses they can complete at their own pace. Another solution is to demonstrate the immediate application of the skills in a particular training to create an immediate desire for them to learn a new skill. 

Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity

When developing andragogical methods for corporate training, it's essential to continuously understand and evaluate adult learners' needs. From the onset of your andragogical learning initiative, ensure accessibility and inclusivity in your strategies. Some examples include:

• Ensure all learners have the same necessary background information through pre-learning assessments. 

• Provide multiple formats, such as audio, video, and text, to provide diverse learning experiences for each learning point. 

• Create online courses where learners learn at their own pace. 

• Offer online and in-person courses and discussions to interact with knowledge and peers in different forms. 

• Create opportunities for learners to evaluate their learning goals and experience with the andragogical approach. 

• Develop a flexible curriculum that works with many learner approaches, taking feedback from the learner’s desire for self-direction and diversity in learning styles. 

Approaching andragogy from the perspectives of accessibility and diversity creates an environment that works for all kinds of learners. 

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