Analyse von Lehr-/Lernprozessen

A variety of investigations are concerned with examining competencies of professionals in fields of adult education, neglecting the question what characterizes the activities they perform in order to organize learning situations. By analyzing an opening sequence of two different adult education lessons, the author shows, how microethnographic approaches of analyzing videotaped face-to-face interaction offer new insights in how participants ordinarily deal with challenges of establishing and sustaining a pedagogical business. In this way, this paper reveals some methods of the repertory, teachers (and learners) use selectively for performing learning situations.

This contribution focuses on the significance of analyzing learning processes in case-based learning in continuing education. These analyses play a crucial role in finding explanations for the lack of effective instructional interventions. Furthermore, they allow for the immediate review of assumptions on learning mechanisms. After a brief overview of data collection techniques and of the typical data structure underlying such analyses, the procedure for conducting the analysis is described. After an introduction to the coding of learning activities, the authors elaborate on the automatic analysis of language data as an alternative approach. Finally, cover options for pre-processing and statistical analysis of coded data are discussed.

Working in small groups can be regarded as constitutive for learning with cases. Using the example of case-based “train the trainer courses”, this contribution focuses on cooperative learning processes in small groups regarding the contents of the conversation and discussion structure as well as the effects on the competence development of individual adult learners. The presented results provide an insight of the processes of situated, problem-based learning in small groups which are common in adult education.

The following report focuses on the issue of recording the impact of learning in adult and continuing education. It depicts the complexity of empirical-analytical impact and sensitizes for a differentiated access of adult educational research, based on the demand for evidence-based practice and education policy, which increases the pressure to conduct research on valid data on the impact of educational activities. This is substantiated, inter alia, due to the complex topic and the particularities of adult learning. Within the context of an empirical research, the requirements for adult educational learning research are drafted. In conclusion, the author calls for a wider methodological understanding of evidence-based research, which includes educational theories as well as the system analysis and criticism.

The historiography of adult education has painted an almost entirely optimistic picture of enlightenment until today. The actors are defined as people who are willing to learn and capable of being educated. Thanks to the advances in the enlightenment process they mature into responsible citizens. Sources based on individual history, like the ones presented in the “Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde” (1783-1793), are not taken into consideration. In his role as editor of the periodical magazine, Karl Philipp Moritz (1756-1793) advocates using the contradictory experiences in the progress of the enlightenment to create an incentive for learning, thus fostering the development of both the individual and of society in general.