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.
Why do senior citizens stop taking part in continuing education? The author tries to find and explain reasons, drawing on a survey regarding courses of scientific continuing education of Ulm University. One key finding is that the biggest impediments are a lack of time and other obligations.
In 2001 the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research arranged an information and advice centre for German adult education providers called “iMOVE“, which plans activities in foreign markets. The contribution takes a stock by making an interim statement of the work of iMOVE and it introduces the services offered.
Data on adult education centres kept since 1962 shows interesting longitudinal historical results regarding time structures for adult education classes offered at adult education centres: (1) The increase in continuing education activities which can be observed on the whole is only accounted for by course-type classes, not by individual classes. (2) The average course time has decreased by about 20 percent over the last 20 years. (3) With respect to forms of time organisation, the evening cours…
The staff in adult and continuing education is the most important factor for a high quality and demand-oriented development of training courses and their effective implementation. However, there existed only insufficient data and information on these persons. For the first time, the wb-personalmonitor now provides data on demographics, employment situation, living conditions, job profiles, qualifications as well as job related attitudes for the staff in adult and continuing education. Thus, the…
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…
Educational focus group surveys. Practical experiences from the Wesermarsch district When planning educational measures, education providers in structurally weak areas need to take into account regional peculiarities and potential course participants. For this reason, in a project in the district of Wesermarsch, the instrument of a focus group survey was used to determine people’s educational needs. This article describes the method used and experiences gained, and how the results were impl…
This article aims at analyzing the consequences of using educational monitoring data for adult education research. Refering to the Statistics on German “Volkshochschulen” (Adult Education Centers) the advantages and challenges that the usage of educational monitoring data brings for research purposes are shown. This is made explicit by focussing on the research project “Governance structures and educational performance profiles in adult education organizations” (GLOW) and discussing the empiric…
Research activities in adult education are currently only partially visible and dispersed across numerous data sources. This report examines existing information resources and identifies limitations in terms of completeness, accessibility and technical interoperability. To improve the long-term visibility of research and provide a reliable basis for research on the discipline itself, existing infrastructures should be more closely interconnected, persistent identifiers such as ORCID systematica…
In contrast to the enthusiastically propagated possibilities of e-commerce and telelearning, searching the net for a telelearning course which meets the individual needs can be time-consuming and frustrating. In 1997, the CNC-Zentrum Hamburg in cooperation with the European Commission and the City of Hamburg thus set up the project „Bildungsforum Hamburg“ as a regional virtual market place for fur ther education. Project leader Laila Meyer presents the interactive platform for information, disc…
Biographical Orientations for Older People in Adult Education In times of demographic changes and an increasing flexibility of biographies, adult education is in need of adjusting its repertoire. General and highly standardized programmes alone do no longer fit the heterogeneity of its target groups. The article is based on two empirical studies – one focuses on individual management of work path, the other shows the importance of structuring time and activities to elder people. With these, …
