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We explore how adult education can be made inclusive, digital and effective.
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The paper tackles the issue of procedures for the validation of competences, which are used in the tertiary education sector in order to evaluate an individual’s study ability on the basis of his/her vocational qualifications. This contested terrain will be explored by means of the University of Hamburg’s validation procedure (the so-called Eingangsprüfungsverfahren, §38 HmbHG). The focus of interest will be put on a qualitative reconstruction of individual decision-making processes during thes…
AiKomPass is a web-based tool to make informal and non-formal competences within the electrical and metal industries visible. It is based on an interview study with potential users and a task inventory, which covers tasks of work areas like process planning, production, maintenance and logistics within production processes. The tool itself was developed within a participative design process. It enables employees and people in search of employment to self-assess their ability to fulfil working t…
This article presents the results of a recent online survey of graduates of the Austrian Academy of Continuing Education. Methodically, the survey’s results on benefit items are interpreted and answers to open questions are analyzed by qualitative content analyses. Empirical findings are subject to an interpretation using concepts of professionalization and the political agenda of validation of informal and non-formal learning. An important finding is, that WBA enhances individual professionali…
The article analyses the linkage between the age of participants of continuing education and the function which learners appoint to their participation. Therefore, the influence of the subjective age for further education is studied. The study differentiates professional, social and personal functions of participation in continuing education. The result of a factor analysis designs subjective age into the two constructs cognitive and social-psychological subjective age. The data of two survey s…
Lifelong education for seniors is becoming a significant policy focus because of factors relating to the global aging society phenomenon. Yet the modern ‘educational demoralisation’ that can result from informal experiential learning not being sufficiently valued or encouraged, may also apply to later life learning—typically manifest as a ‘fear of ageing’ as well as ageism. This is especially so in contexts where policymakers tend to just mainly focus on the worrying economic, health and other …
Teachers‘ professionalism in adult and continuing education is often requested but practically implemented in only a few countries. In Austria and Switzerland, over the past years systems were established with the support of relevant stakeholders, which advance this required professionalism. Based on the exchange of experts in both systems as well as analyses of materials and literature, the following article identifies the key factors, which contributed to the successful establishment of the i…
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.
This report provides an overview of the standards between professional and organisational logic for adult education – from the perspective of funding and continuing educational organisations, education policy and research. It also summarises various strategies for improving teaching and training, and identifies outstanding questions. It also points out the role of teaching as a construct, which largely depends on the viewer’s perspective.
