Adult Learning and Learner Support

 Overview 

These materials support a discussion of the topic of adult learning and learner support. The discussion is in two main parts.

The materials in the first part present checklists of adult learner or target audience characteristics that are useful to course designers and programme planners in focusing their learner support services appropriately.  There is also an outline for a discussion of the implications of some of these learner characteristics for course design.

The second part is intended to support the presentation and discussion of issues involved in the design of learner services and materials and the kinds and mechanisms of support provided to learners.

Source materials for this topic

Brookfield, D. Understanding and facilitating adult learning.  Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986.

Commonwealth of Learning.  Perspectives on distance education: student support services.  Vancouver: col, 1992.

Evans, T.  Understanding learners in open and distance education.  London: Kogan Page, 1994.

Lewis, R.  Tutoring in open learning. Lancaster: Framework Press, 1995.

Macharia, M., and J. Mungai. Adults as distance learners, Unit 3 in Adult learning and communication in distance education, Course 3 of M.A. in Distance Education. London: University of London and International Extension College, 1992.

Mills, R., and A. Tait.  Supporting the learner in open and distance learning.  London: Pitman, 1996.

Rowntree, D.  Preparing materials for open, distance, and flexible learning.  London: Kogan Page, 1994.

Simpson, O. Meeting the needs of the leaner, Unit 9 in Adult learning and communication in distance education, Course 3 of M.A. in Distance Education. London: University of London and International Extension College, 1992.

 Characteristics of open and distance learners

What do you need to know about your learners in order to provide them with the kind of support they need?

Adults as learners

According to Brookfield (1986), adult learners have the following nine characteristics.

•      Adults maintain the ability to learn.

•      Adults are a highly diversified group of individuals with widely differing preferences, needs, backgrounds, and skills.

•      Adults experience a gradual decline in physical and sensory capabilities.

•      The learner’s experience is a major resource in learning situations.

•      Self-concept moves from dependence to independence as individuals grow in responsibilities, experience, and confidence.

•      Adults tend to be life-centred in their orientation to learning.

•      Adults are motivated to learn by a variety of factors.

•      Active learner participation in the learning process contributes to learning.

•      A comfortable, supportive environment is a key to successful learning.

It is important to realise that adults’ past experiences of learning may act against them as well as acting in their favour.  For many adult learners, their previous education was marked by lack of success, exclusion, and frustration.  Therefore coming back to studying as an adult can be a daunting task.

In addition, as adults, learners generally have more commitments than do children, and the place studying takes in their lives is therefore quite different.  This can be a positive factor, in that it enables some adult learners to keep the stresses of studying in better perspective; or a negative factor, in that studying must compete with essential life maintenance activities such as keeping a family, growing food, holding down a job, and finding enough money to get by on.

Some factors influencing adult learners in the way they approach their studies include:

•       prior learning;

•       access to other learners;

•       access to resources in workplace or home;

•       prior training;

•       sense of failure;

•       motivation;

•       fear;

•       prejudice; and

•       time.

Demographic factors

•       How many learners are you likely to have?

•       What ages are they? Are they children? Adults?

•       Are your learners men? women?

•       What is their family status?

•       How many children do they have?

•       What is their geographic location (for example, rural, urban)?

•       What is their previous education?

•       What language or languages do they read and speak?

•       Do they hold jobs?

Motivation

•       Why are they learning?

•       How might your programme relate to their lives or work?

•       What do they want from the programme?

•       What are their hopes and fears?

Learning factors

•       What are their beliefs about learning?

•       What learning styles do they prefer?

•       What learning skills do they have (for example, reading ability)?

•       What experience do they have of open and distance learning?

Subject background

•      How do they feel about the subject of the programme?

•      What knowledge and skills do they already have in that subject?

•      What misconceptions or inappropriate habits do they have?

•      What personal interests and experience might they have that are relevant?

Resource factors

•      Where, when, and how will they be learning?

•      Who will be paying their fees or expenses?

•      How much time will they have available for study?

•      What access will they have to facilities such as study centres?

•      What access will they have to the equipment and media required for the course?

•      What access will they have to human support from tutors, mentors, colleagues, and other learners?

Typical problems of distance learners

•       Family pressures;

•       Worries about work and money;

•       Lack of books and libraries;

•       Lack of their own study space;

•       Isolation;

•       Lack of transport to get to tutorials;

•       Lack of confidence;

•       No undisturbed study time;

•       Low levels of reading ability; and

•       Too busy to attend tutorials.

Special needs of distance learners

Distance learners have special needs, which include:

•      information to help learners relate to the institution and understand its system;

•      contact with tutors to help maintain motivation and overcome learning problems;

•      institutional identity, which is some means of helping learners identify with a remote institution and to feel that they are part of a body of learners rather than studying in isolation; and

•      advice on how to study; as well as that provided within the course itself, learners often need additional support to guide good study techniques.

 Implications for learner support 

These characteristics of your learners have implications for the way you design your learner support services, as shown in the following example.

Complete the Sentence

If my learners ...	then I must …
are paying for the course themselves,	try to avoid expensive media.
have a fixed amount of time available for studying,	be restrained in how much time I expect them to commit to tutorial attendance and to completing assignments.
will not see any obvious reason why they should send in assignments regularly for correction and feedback,	emphasise how doing the assignments and receiving their tutor’s feedback comments might benefit them.
have considerable experience in the subject covered by the course,	appeal to that experience by using examples suggested by learners.
differ from me in the way they use certain key terms and ideas, and in their attitude to studying,	begin by identifying and exploring our differences.
are women and men,	make sure that arrangements for tutorials and the language, examples and behaviour used by all learner support personnel are equally welcoming to and inclusive of men and women.
have to travel great distances to reach study centres,	be careful to make the tutorial programme as convenient, effective and useful as possible

Discussion:  Encourage a discussion among participants to analyse the learner support services available in their institution.  Do these address the unique features of distance learners and their special needs?  In what ways could these services be improved?

 Types of learner support 

Tuition and counselling

There are two kinds of support that distance educators should be offering to learners:

•       intellectual support, or tuition; and

•       organisational and emotional support, or counselling.

Ways of providing support

There are a variety of ways of providing this support:

•      face-to-face, at study centres, residential weekends, and summer schools;

•      by telephone;

•      by e-mail and computer conference;

•      by fax and post; and

•      by audio conference, audio cassette, and video conference.

Discussion: Your participants may have examples to provide or types and means of support to add to this list. Explore these options in light of institutional and national contexts.

Support personnel

In addition, there are a number of kinds of personnel who offer this support:

•       part-time tutors;

•       full-time academic staff;

•       counsellors and advisers;

•       administrative staff;

•       library staff;

•       staff of collaborating institutions;

•       other learners; and

•       friends and family.

Discussion: What kinds of support personnel are available in the programmes in which your participants are involved?  What are their roles and responsibilities?

Support structures

There are a variety of ways of describing or categorising the kinds of structures or systems that can be devised to support learners. One way is to look at the kinds of axes along which the characteristics of any given programme’s support for learners can be plotted. These are described in the diagram that follows.

Support Structures Axes

Local support from  regional or sub- regional centres		Distant support, probably from institutional headquarters
Group support		Individual support
Non-specialised in terms of course and needs		Specialised in terms of course and needs
Face-to-face as well as distance media		Distance media only

 

Continuity as learner  progresses		Discontinuity from course to course
High cost		Low cost

These axes are not independent of each other:

•      local support is unlikely to be specialised in terms of either course or needs whereas distant support could be specialised in terms of both;

•      the greater the degree of specialisation in support, the less likely there is to be continuity in that support as learners move through various courses toward their final goal; and

•      institutions devise support systems that both reflect their particular situation and attempt to maximise resources by making compromises such as the use of local part-time staff.

Discussion: You might wish to ask your participants to plot the support structures that characterise their programmes along these axes.

Another way of describing support structures is to look at their various characteristics and the kinds of requirements these characteristics mean for the structure or system. Because of the differences in the media used for communication, tutorial models have different characteristics, as summed up in these questions:

•       Does the tutor–learner dialogue take place synchronously or asynchronously?  That is, do the tutor and learner need to interact in real time or can a response be delayed?

•       Do learners interact solely with a tutor or do they also interact amongst themselves?

•       Can learners access the tutorial service from home or do they need to travel to an access centre?

The table on the following page identifies the management requirements for systems with the characteristics noted above.  

Management Requirements for Various Support Structures

Characteristic	Requirements of system
Synchrony Example:  face-to-face tutorial sessions, residential schools, audio conferencing and video conferencing.	High requirement for detailed scheduling High need to monitor technical performance of delivery medium as breakdown is a critical problem High need for on-hand technical support High training requirement so learners will master medium.
Asynchrony Example:  independent study and computer conferencing.	Highly desirable to provide flexible temporal access to system Lower need for monitoring technical performance than for synchronous systems, as downtime can be overcome later and learner can re-enter the system Technical skill or operation of system by learners can be gained over a longer period, because mistakes are not as critical as in synchronous systems.
Tutor-learner interaction only Example:  one-on-one telephone tutorials and tutorials by post.	Higher need to guarantee learner access to some minimum guaranteed amount of time High need to ensure tutor availability at regular times Lower need to schedule interaction in a precise manner.
Tutor-learner and learner-learner interaction Example:  any of the conferencing media, face-to-face tutorials.	Requirement to provide inter-group access High need to schedule group interaction if interaction is also synchronous High need to ensure consistent technical performance of technology being used as downtime will affect multiple users.
Home-based interaction Example:  computer conferencing.	Learner needs to be informed of how and when to access system Scheduling is critical if synchronous group inter-action is to occur Learner needs to be trained at a distance to use the system.
Access centre-based interaction Example:  face-to-face.	High need to organise a facility at which learners meet High need to schedule group meetings and inform learners High need to ensure performance of technology used.

 Functions of learner support 

Regardless of how an institution chooses to organise its learner support services, the two basic functions of learner support apply: tuition and counselling.

Both can be broken down further into a number of tasks.

Discussion: Take advantage of both your and your participants’ experience for examples of the functions and tasks that are discussed below.

Tasks involved in tuition

Those who provide intellectual support to distance learners do so on the understanding that it is the materials that are intended to ‘teach’. The primary task for these support personnel is to facilitate the learning of those materials.

Teaching and learning are social processes, however, that arise from and are embedded in social structures and systems of values. For this reason no set of materials, no matter how carefully designed, can effectively teach every learner equally successfully.

This generates a number of tasks for those who provide intellectual support:

•       explaining to the learner; for example, clarifying a concept or an instruction;

•       exploring issues with the learner; for example, how the course material applies to the learner’s own situation and experience; and

•       giving feedback to the learner; for example, commenting on and grading assignments.

Tasks involved in counselling

Personal and emotional support is as essential to the learning process as intellectual support.

The tasks involved for these staff include:

•         giving the learner information; for example, about fees, availability of courses;

•         giving the learner advice; for example, about appropriate course choice;

•         exploring an issue with the learner; for example, helping potential learners set their goals;

•         taking action to help a learner; for example, arranging transport for a disabled learner; and

•         advocating on behalf of a learner; for example, giving a reference or waiving an institutional rule.

Qualities required of support personnel

The tasks set out above suggest that distance educators might need the following qualities to succeed in their work of supporting learners:

•       warmth:  the quality in a person that communicates welcome, respect, comfort, and willingness to give time to another;

•       genuineness:  meaning honesty and openness about one’s own strengths and failings;

•       acceptance:  being able to accept another person for who they are, as someone worthy of respect;

•       empathy:  sensing the hurt or pleasure in another as they sense it;

•       organisational skills:  the ability to manage time well, and to diagnose problems and take appropriate action to solve them;

•       explicatory skills:  the ability to help the learner break a problem into its component parts and then see how they fit back together; and

listening skills:  the ability to give one’s entire attention to another and to respond in ways that do not judge but demonstrate you understand what has been

 Implications for course design 

The features of a support system have implications for the design of learning materials. These implications can be discussed in terms of the following categories:

•       administrative support;

•       counselling support;

•       tutorial support; and

•       peer support.

Discussion: It would be useful to have some sample materials available for demonstrating ways in which learner support functions are acknowledged and integrated.

Administrative support

In order to learn effectively, learners need to have four basic kinds of support which administrative systems provide:

•       the dispatch of complete course materials in a timely fashion;

•       information of a variety of kinds:

how much fees are and when they are to be paid;

when the course begins and ends;

who the tutor is, and how to contact him or her;

who to contact when things go wrong;

who to contact for certain kinds of information and services; for example, library;

when and where course tutorials take place;

when and how assignments are to be submitted; and

when and where examinations are scheduled;

•       the dispatch of the right examination to the right location at the right time; and

•       accurate and complete records keeping.

Much of the information listed above can readily be included in the course materials, if not in the study guide then in another publication such as a learner handbook.

Such a publication needs to be designed with the same level of care and instructional clarity as the remainder of the learning materials. Accurate written information provided at the beginning of a course can prevent a great number of problems later on.

There are also a number of media that can be used to provide some of this information.  For example:

•      audio cassettes:  tutors can use these for introducing themselves;

•     video cassettes:  can show distant learners the building to which they send their queries and some of the key staff with whom they will be dealing;

•     e-mail:  learners can e-mail their queries to administrative staff for responses that are independent of time zones, unlike the telephone, and faster than the post; and

•     Websites:  a growing number of institutions have Websites on which they post up to date information on courses, programmes, fees, staff, and so on.  In some cases a Website may also provide access to the institution’s library catalogue.

Counselling support

As with administrative support, a great deal of counselling material can be made available in print or other media.  For example, a variety of booklets can be prepared on common problems faced by learners, including:

•       making sure distance study is the right choice;

•       how to choose the right course;

•       how to apply for a course;

•       financial assistance and how to apply for it;

•       coping successfully with unfamiliar technologies;

•       how to write essays;

•       how to prepare for examinations;

•       strategies for overcoming ‘exam anxiety’; and

•       planning for a new career.

Many of these booklets have already been produced (for example, by the Open University in the United Kingdom) and are generic enough to be applicable to a number of institutions beyond the institution that produced them, or could be readily adapted to suit your particular circumstances.

Again, technologies other than print can be used creatively to provide this support.  For example,

•      audio cassettes: can be used to engage learners in a ‘dialogue’ about some common problem, its diagnosis and possible solutions;

•     video cassettes:  some institutions have produced video cassettes of learners talking about their experiences as learners, to let other learners know they are not the only ones who have a particular problem;

•     computer conferences:  computer conferences, both staff- and learner-led, can provide timely and personalised help; in addition, ‘lurkers’ in the conferences who read but do not post messages can also benefit from the discussions; and

•     telephone counselling:  the telephone can be a very intimate and personalised medium for discussion of personal problems.

Tutorial support

Tutors typically have to deal with administrative issues, and also counsel learners.  Roles of educators, and especially distance educators, tend to overlap.

In terms of providing intellectual support and facilitating learners’ learning, however, it is essential in the learning materials themselves to both provide and to prompt access to this support.  For example,

•      tutor contact:  Learners need to be prompted in the learning materials to contact their tutor at frequent intervals, by whatever means is made available. This contact might be to discuss a particular issue, to plan for a major assignment, or to discuss a returned assignment. Instructions that use icons are helpful; for example, a telephone icon for telephone contact or a stamped envelope for correspondence;

•     assignment dispatch and grading:  Learners need clear, complete and accurate information about when and how to submit an assignment, what to submit, where to send it, and how long they can expect to wait before it is returned.  Research indicates that ‘turnaround’ times of two weeks or less have an optimal effect on learner motivation to continue, as does the requirement for submitting an assignment early in the course.  Most learners who get over this first hurdle will end up completing the course;

•     grading criteria:  In the learning materials, learners need to be told the criteria by which their assignment will be graded, and which aspects of their answer will receive particular emphasis.  In turn, the tutors who grade assignments must be explicit in grading according to these guidelines, and provide comments and reasons for their grade that display all the characteristics of effective support: warmth, honesty, empathy, organisation, explication, and the written equivalent of ‘listening’. Acceptance is a little more difficult, since the tutor is in this case required to judge performance, but even so such judgments can be communicated in a constructive and helpful fashion; and

•     examinations:  The learning materials must also provide clear, complete, and accurate information on when and where learners will be sitting examinations; what kind of examinations these will be:  multiple choice, short answer, essay, and so on; what material the examinations will cover; and what the examination grade will contribute to the overall grade for the course.

Peer support

•      Learning materials can also point learners toward others in their communities and social networks who can help them, co-workers, friends, family members, and community members.

•      Some institutions, for example, publish lists of learners and which courses they are taking, along with their telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, postal addresses, and so on.  However, it is essential to obtain the permission of any individual before publishing this kind of information about them, since these data are frequently protected by privacy legislation.

•     Tutorials that involve other learners (for example, at study centres, by audio conference or computer conference) can be used as much for purposes of providing peer support as providing intellectual and other kinds of support from the tutor.

•      Learning materials can even require learners to seek out other learners, to work as a team on a particular assignment, for example.

•      Learners may also be required to find someone from their immediate social network to interview, for example, or to seek information from in some other way.

Support for support personnel

Up to now we have emphasised the needs of learners in open and distance learning programmes for continuing contact with the programme and support from programme personnel as they undertake and work through their studies. The staff who provide this support also need support and contact, however, especially since they are frequently working under conditions such as the following:

•     They tend to be part-time, with major affiliation and commitment to some other institution.

•     They tend to be on short-term or annual contracts.

•     They may be working at a distance from the institution themselves, with no regular face-to-face contact with supervisors and colleagues.

•     Their roles are frequently diffuse and ill-defined.

•     Too often the adage, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, means not just isolation but invisibility for distant staff when it comes to decisions on policies and procedures, which tend to be made without due attention to their particular circumstances and needs.

With distant staff it becomes even more important to practise effective staff relations, by means of measures such as the following:

•      clear role descriptions, expectations, and reporting lines;

•      a thorough induction into the programme, its history, goals, policies, and procedures;

•      frequent and effective two-way communication (e-mail is an excellent medium for this where available);

•      opportunities for face-to-face meetings;

•      frequent performance review and monitoring;

•      accurate and efficient records systems;

•      continual updating on changes in policies and procedures; and  

•      opportunities for input into decisions that affect their work.

 Checklist 

If your support system is successful, you should be able to answer ‘Yes’ to the questions in the following checklist.

Checklist for Successful Delivery and Learner Support

q      Do you know your learners’ geographical location, age range, access to facilities, academic ability, gender, and so on?

q      Are staff sensitive to gender, societal, and cultural differences?

q      Are staff sensitive to the frustrations and time constraints adult learners often face?

q      Do staff have up-to-date knowledge about the institution and its courses?

q      Are your support systems flexible and learner-oriented, available to learners when and where they need them?

q      Are the resources allocated to learner support adequate?

q      Is there an appropriate balance of resources allocated to the development of materials and subsequent support of learning from those materials?

q      Does your support function provide support to the internal functions of the distance learning unit as well as to learners?

q      Is your decision to keep support services centralised, or to manage them on a regional or decentralised basis, appropriate to meeting the needs of your learner population?

q      Does your learner record system contain the following information:

-      personal details, including name, address, age, family circumstances, and employment?

-      academic and professional qualifications?

-      special requirements such as specially adapted materials for disabled learners?

-      tutorial record, including dates when assignments were received, grades, and copies of tutor comments?

-      list of materials sent, including date of dispatch?

-      record of attendance at face-to-face sessions?

-      fees paid?

q      Are your records detailed, accurate, and up-to-date? Do you ensure that:

-      records systems are regularly monitored to ensure they are functioning efficiently?

-      information is disseminated to the right people at the right time?

-      records are kept in a secure fashion so that only authorised personnel have access to them?

-      legal requirements governing the handling and storage of information are met?

 

 Practice exercises 

Profiling your target audience

Instructions: To give your participants an opportunity to profile a target audience, you may wish to try the following:

•      Have participants select a sample target population (for example, the kinds of learners they expect will be attracted to a programme they are developing). 

•      For that target population, instruct participants to answer the questions that have been posed in this session.  The sets of characteristics can be divided up so that one small group deals with demographic factors, a second with motivation, and so on. 

•      Have participants chart these characteristics and their implications for the design of the course or programme, and present these to the group as a whole.

Timeframe: Half to three-quarters of an hour.

Materials:  Flipchart paper or overhead transparencies and marker pens.

Designing for learner support

Instructions: Distribute to participants sample course units of any courses which are available to you.  Ask the participants, in small groups, to study the materials and from them to

•     determine from the sample units they what kinds of support are provided to learners by the institution that produced the units; and

•     assess as far as possible whether that level and kind of support is likely to meet learners’ needs.

They then report their findings to the group as a whole.

Timeframe: Approximately one hour.

Materials required: Sample course materials, flip charts or overhead transparencies and marker pens.

Justifying learner support

Scenario:  An open and distance learning unit has been in operation for eighteen months at Prestige University.  For the past six months three courses have been delivered by distance means, using a basic correspondence model.  Learners can telephone the unit if they have problems, but there is no continuous assessment provided and learner performance is assessed only by the final examination, which learners must sit at the same time, and in the same examination hall, as the on-campus learners in the course.

Situation:  The director of the open and distance learning unit is meeting with the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Learner Services, to whom she reports, to justify more funding so that tutors can be paid to support learners during the course rather than just marking the final examinations.

Task:  Divide the participants into two groups.  Group One is the Pro-VC group.  Their task is to come up with reasons, from a strictly conventional, campus-based point of view, as to why learners ought not to need this ‘special’ service.  Group Two is the distance education director group.  Their task is to justify from the point of view of the distance education unit why learners must have the services for which the director is asking.  Ask each group to supply a ‘role player’ who will play out the meeting situation with his or her counterpart, and argue the case that the group has developed.

Discussion:  Draw out some of the issues and problems that confront open and distance learning providers in trying to supply adequate support services to their learners.

Timeframe: About an hour.

Materials required: None.

Meeting learner needs

Instructions: Provide the participants with a copy of the table below, either as a handout or by drawing it on a flipchart or blackboard.

Ask participants to complete the table, filling in each cell with the specific kinds of tuition, and advice and guidance, that they think a learner would need at each stage of a course in their own institution or a course with which they are familiar.

This exercise can be the basis of a discussion and exploration of the area of learners’ support needs. Instead of doing the exercise as an individual or pair activity, it could alternatively be done as a plenary, where the facilitator elicits responses from the group and adds them to a flipchart or board.

Learner Support Needs at Various Stages of the Course

Stage	Tuition	Advice and guidance
Applying
At start of study
Preparing first assignment
After first assignment
Midway in course
Towards exams
Near end of course
After completion

 

Blocks to learning

Instructions: As with the previous exercise, provide participants with a table such as the one below, but with the cells blank (only the headings Blocks and Solutions would be filled).  Ask them to consider what would block their adult distance learners from learning. Divide participants into small groups and ask them to complete the table.  The completed version below is included as an example; every group will come up with a different version. Have each group report its results to the larger group as a basis for discussing emerging issues.

What Blocks Learning?

Blocks	Solutions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Completed ‘What Blocks Learning’ Table

Blocks	Solutions
1.            Anxiety and stress           (home-related, job-related, or study-related)	Through counselling by tutors, mentors, and family
2.            Lack of interest	Motivation through praise, encouragement, help to build self confidence
3.            Comprehension skills	Encourage more reading, use of resource materials, and exposure to things of interest
4.            Academic incompetence	Remedial work
5.            Fear of failure	Opportunity for learners to experience success
6.            Negative criticism	Avoid negative criticism, give positive reinforcement
7.            Poor self-esteem	Frequent praise, boost to self-image, help from group
8.            Poor learning environment	Create constructive learning environment for example, aids, apparatus, good rapport