Patterns of informal incidental learning: Insights from community action

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Abstract
On a daily basis, adults encounter opportunities to learn from experiences in their roles as family, organization or community members. Despite the abundant potential of informal incidental learning, adult education research focuses almost exclusively on structured, intentional learning, for the most part within educational settings. This article contributes to a new literature that is attempting to understand adult learning from life experiences and, in time, to apply such insights to improving more formal educational practices. Key concepts and patterns that characterize learning experiences described by members of community betterment groups are identified, presented and illustrated through case narratives. Links to three theories of learning from experience are explored. Citizens typically learn through direct experience, through vicarious experience and through guided experience. They develop and change ideas about conditions and strategies that contribute to effective group action. They also change their feelings and ways of thinking about groups and develop new awareness of themselves and others. This study identifies types of experiences that contribute most and least strongly to participant attributions of ‘learning’. While the study thus provides a glimpse into the nature and potential of informal incidental learning, future research challenges include study of the extent and quality of such learning and the building of theory to account for it.