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 ways in which computer games can affect learning are identified using the example of games for fun, starting out with the aspect of research into learning and teaching theory. Approaches used in behaviourism, cognitivism and individual and social constructivism are compared. In the psychology of emotions, activating and deactivating emotions are distinguished with regard to their learning effect. From the point of view of the psychology of motivation, special emphasis is placed on the self-…
The education cheque, introduced in North Rhine-Westphalia, is a funding instrument which has been running since 2006 and is based on demand. This article presents the central results of an independent evaluation carried out in 2008. The quantitative aims have been achieved, or are likely to be achieved (212,000 attendees funded, 42,000 small and medium-sized enterprises approached by 2013; increasing attendance of continuing education courses in SMEs by two percent). On the negative side the a…
Diversity management is a popular management approach. It promises to allow diversity in organisations and thus to appreciate people for what they are. It undertakes to recognise different points of view, ideas, abilities and potentials; not to standardise cultural variety but to reinforce it. For adult education, this concept seems highly promising. After all, one claim of educational management is to promote personality development and personal progress in a business context. However, critica…
Learning at the workplace – an “intimate” event The author takes the example of two female employees with a background of migration to show how strongly adults’ motivation to learn and their learning decisions are influenced by personal, deeply private motivations, even when they are pushed into learning by an external influence, as is often the case in companies. The theoretical basis on which the author interprets the case examples in the light of the “intimacy of lifelong learning” is th…