Understanding adult learners

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Abstract
This chapter examines research on the nature of adult intelligence, the acquisition of expertise and adult life-span development psychology. It explores the development of adults’ capacities as learners, outlining the cognitive dimensions of adults, including the psychometric and cognitive structuralist views on adult intelligence. As a balance to our emphasis so far on understanding adult learners in terms of cognitive constructs, we should like to probe the nature of the adult life course itself. The developmental literature proposes a number of models of adult development, which can be broadly divided into those which take a position that the life course is normative, age-related and stage- or phase-based, and those which recognise the significance of non-age-related, non-normative events. As a balance to our emphasis so far on understanding adult learners in terms of cognitive constructs, we should like to probe the nature of the adult life course itself.

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