Research
We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
Services
Digital tools, specialist portals and data – for teachers, researchers, students and interested parties.
Institute
We offer research, transfer and infrastructure for lifelong learning.
This article provides an overview of the debate on learning environments and learning locations within adult education research; the authors use a historical review of main research topics in order to understand current learning environments and recent theoretical and empirical discussions. The term of learning environments or learning locations has been introduced into research on adult education in the 1970ies; since this time, each following decade can be characterized by several specific re…
PISA and adult education – temptations and open questions “The PISA results are an invitation for the debate and for developing the research rather than conclusive judgeements on the miracle recipe to improve the educational performance” (Heller 2003, p. 30). Earmarking for the discussion of policies of adult education after PISA is that the results are taken to express most different positions in little differentiated way. To this also the typical reception problems contribute, such as t…
Participation in continuing higher education has various perspectives particularly with regard to lifelong learning. By arrangements in the field of continuing higher education, universities need to react to changing learning and educational biographies as well as to enable prospects in the context of lifelong learning. An important aspect belonging to this is the transfer of knowledge. Based on the definition of influencing factors on transfer of knowledge by von Krogh and Köhne, the system of…
This paper provides an outline for a general framework for the assessment of adults’ problem-solving competencies with special attention paid to the requirements of large-scale assessments. The framework can be used as an input to ongoing discussions regarding international comparative studies of adult competencies such as the “Programme for an International Assessment of Adults’ Competencies” (PIAAC) currently being prepared by the OECD, and may also be used in the context of national studies …
Reflections on the current quality debate from a subject scientific perspective The subject scientific theory perspective presented in this contribution makes learning actions from the viewpoint of the learning subjects a subject of discussion. Learning is thereby not composed as a dependent variable of teaching, but as subjective justified acting, that is based on interests, needs and sensitivities which are developed by the learners against the background of societal significance constella…
The process of regulation in the heterogeneous field of education and examination necessarily creates encounters and collaboration of persons, who are standing for different positions and have variable styles of action. In a research project, initiated and financed by the German Ministry of Education and Research, the transfer of formal regulations for examination in certain fields of further education into the reality of the examination has been analyzed. The project utilized three regulated e…
Theme networks and the systematic generation of the new A systematization using the example of the learning regions Meta structures in the form of content orientated “topic net groups” offers a possibility for communication and exchange between the regional projects in the program “Learning Regions – Providing Support for Networks”. Thereby they build a field of communication in which practice problems and their solutions appear and therefore they can be brought to discussion. Thus topic n…
Didactical shift of epoch? Needs for clarification for the further development of didactical thinking, with regard to a DFG-supported research This contribution deals with the question, what science should clarify, explore and do in order to tackle a possible stagnation of didactical thinking (and therewith also its practical possibilities of impact). In spite of the fruitful provocation with which the didactical discussion has been revived in the last decade, especially from sides of cons…
The article discusses the chances of using a gerontological data base (Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adulthood, German Acronym: ILSE) for analyses in educational biography research: Learning to age tends to be the central category of this analyses. The article comments on the current debate of aging and education and expounds the problems of politically driven activation of elders and the programmatic turn in the discussion. In a second step the article elaborates on what terms it is …
Education in the Economic Culture. An Analysis of Approaches in Educational Policy of the Council of Europe and the EU Considering the Discussion of Culture and Economic Orientation The European Union and the Council of Europe play an important role for educational policy in Europe. Education is meant to promote European identity as well as the European Economic Area. This text explores the priorities of the Council of Europe’s and the European Union’s educational concepts in the timeframe …
