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Commentary - September 2004

Mind the gap

With little new research being commissioned and reports of a growing gap between research and teacher training, we need to find new ways of relating theory to policy and practice, writes PETER LAVENDER.

Someone said recently that adult learning was an 'evidence free zone'. This is not true, but the criticism stings. It is true, as Kathryn Ecclestone says, that we appear to lack 'a coherent theory of learning, and, therefore, of teaching'. Part of the problem is that there has been plenty of borrowing from theories of learning related to young people and children and little that you could say was based on rigorous evidence from research. At least that is how it has appeared until now.

This edition of Adults Learning pays particular attention to research on what we know about teaching and learning for adults. The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is important to all of us because it is a substantial grant, involves top researchers and its managers really do want the research to have an impact on our understanding of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education.

Such a lot is built around the assumption that we know how adults learn and that older people learn differently from younger people. Self-confidently, we can predict that books about how adults learn are likely to sell well, particularly on those teacher-training courses aimed at the post-compulsory sector (there will be an increase of such programmes Ð and this will double in number if the Government listens to the inspectorate report published last year and makes post-compulsory education a qualified workforce). One such book, to be published by NIACE shortly (Older people learning, by Alex Withnall, with Veronica McGivney and Jim Soulsby, expected 2004), looks at the myths and realities of older people learning. Examining 19 myths, such as 'older people forget things' and 'it's not worthwhile to encourage older people to engage in learning', the aim is to inform, to dispel and to help practitioners understand some of the negative attitudes about older people which can so distort kinds of provision and forms of teaching. Not surprisingly, the writers conclude that research evidence tells us that older people learn in much the same way as everyone else; it is individual difference that matters, while situational barriers and attitudes can get in the way. Established good practice in working with all adults, such as using the experience and contribution of the group and individuals, does indeed apply to all adult learners.

The ESRC research programme will yield much helpful data but it may not result in a coherent theory of learning. Those of us who offered advice to the ESRC in choosing the research projects for the TLRP were disappointed at how few of the proposals set out to look at learning in college settings or with adult learners in ordinary adult education provision.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning, London Institute of Education, University of London, has published two new reports which are well worth reading (Adult Education and Attitude Change, by John Preston and Leon Feinstein; and A Model of the Inter-Generational Transmission of Educational Success, by Leon Feinstein, Kathryn Duckworth and Ricardo Sabetes, both May 2004). The centre's work was cited in the evidence to support the Government's skills strategy, 21st Century Skills: Realising our Potential, published last year. There are strong indications that the Department for Education and Skills wants the centre's work to focus more on the effects of learning on children. This is a sure sign of its success. The centre combines quantitative and qualitative methods in order to enhance our understanding of how adult learning impacts on social capital, on citizenship and on health. Regrettably, the centre's success means it may have less and less to tell us about adult learning as its paymaster desires other work to be done.

Not so with the TLRP. These projects have another few years to run, although we may not see such an investment in large-scale post-16 research projects again for a while. The key question for me in all this research is: will we see real efforts to make sure that teachers and education providers are helped to use the knowledge gained from the research? The British Educational Research Association suggests, in an open letter to the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, Alan Johnson, that there is a widening gap between research and teacher training, with 80 per cent of teacher education taking place in universities with no core research funding (Research Intelligence, August 2004, No. 88, BERA, p. 2). Finding ways of connecting research, policy and practice is worth spending much more time on. There is so little research being commissioned and so much we don't know.

Peter Lavender
Director for Research, Development and Information
NIACE

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