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.
The study examines how research-based learning, based on grounded theory, might enhance students learning abilities. In the context of a qualitative experiment, two groups of students were introduced to research-based learning. The students involved were asked about their learning experiences afterwards. The results of the study implicate that research-based learning is a promising approach for the development of self-determined learning. Students were critical, however, regarding the incompati…
Work-based training is a significant competence development tool for adult educators. The article presents study findings, which were recently developed based on a need and demand perspective. (1) Based on the data base QUA LIDAT , programmes are systematised. (2) The behaviour in continuing education of e.g teachers was surveyed in Niedersachsen.
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 sus…
This article presents the findings of a research project on structure and change in continuing education in Bremen, set out as a longitudinal analysis of selected years between 1979 and 2006. At the level of the continuing education system as a whole, the author identifies a certain structural stability evident from the fact that despite a growth in the number of market-oriented providers from 1996 to 2006, their competition – providers under public law – retained its structural influence on th…
The scope of literacy courses. Results of a representative survey among adult education centres As part of the EQUALS project, the German Adult Education Association (DVV) collected statistical data on literacy courses at adult education centres; this article presents the data and compares it with figures from 1994. The number of courses has risen, as has the number of participants, but fewer institutions than before provide this service. Compared with 1994, the participants are older and t…
Transitions as a test case The concept of lifelong learning and the penetrability of the educational system With the concept of lifelong learning a better interleave of the educational areas is intended. The contribution analyses central sources on how the educational politics has strategically handled the role of lifelong learning and which practices it virtually has supported: With a strategy paper of the federal state and the states of the federation on lifelong learning as well as on the…
Die Weiterbildung befindet sich in ungewissen Zeiten in einem Umbruch. Aktuelle Stichworte sind die zu beobachtende Deinstitutionalisierung verbunden mit einem Bedeutungszuwachs selbstgesteuerter und non-formaler bzw. informeller Lernprozesse, der Ersatz des Bildungsbegriffs durch den Lernbegriff, die Betonung der Eigenverantwortung der Lernenden für die Gestaltung ihrer Lernbiografie sowie die Frage der Zertifizierung informell erworbener Kompetenzen. Diese Erosion des Weiterbildungsfeldes kan…
The paper is based upon a qualitative-empirical study in the field of basic education for adults (literacy, numeracy, language, and computer skills). The study is located in the andragogical research on teaching and learning. A constitutive characteristic of the examined basic skills courses is the variety of the participants. The variety is both, didactical challenge and potential, for it enables teaching and learning interactions. With interpreting some data examples the paper aims to show ho…
