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Based on the background of selective access to further education institutions and the relevance of intercultural understanding and opening, the focus on transition processes within further education institutions will provide benefits for research and development in further education. Results from a qualitative study that was part of the LIQ project will be presented. The analysis of the interviews could be used to highlight diverse and complex aspects that influence the transition from target g…
Biographical Learning as a Contribution to the Professionalization in Adult Education at University Level Biographical learning as a subject matter in the course of studies is a method to reflect upon and change individual learning strategies. One can describe such strategies both as an unconscious as well conscious reflection of biographies that strive for development. On the one hand, this is aiming at reflecting previous learning processes; on the other hand, this shall serve to develop a…
Mathematics, natural science and engineering are not among the most favourite learning objectives of either pupils or adults. While they do enjoy a high esteem, they are also perceived as difficult. The authors discuss why this should be so, and give a summary over participation statistics of Volkshochschulen in the past decades, where courses in mathematics, science or technical matters have been on the decline for some time. Against this background, they present aims and methods of their proj…
Virtuality is not the essence of computer-based learning environments: any learning environment contains elements of virtuality in so far as it concerns itself with representations of reality. Even though the difference between computer-based and traditional settings in this respect is one of degree rather than of substance, conditions at the extreme end of the virtuality scale call for a change in learning arrangements. The authors explore the consequences for learners – self-direction, critic…
For 30 years, the author has been director of the communal adult education institute “Volkshochschule” at a middle-size town in Southern Germany. In 1998, the costs of 3 million DM were financed jointly by the town (50%), the participants of the courses (40%) and the Land Baden-Württemberg (10%). In the next three years, the "Volkshochschule" has to reduce the communal subsidy by 12%. The article deals with the financial challenges the institute faces in its new situation of competition at the …
The market for distance education of adults is experiencing a change of paradigm that has serious consequences on the financial structure of private schools for distance learning. The article sketches the chances and risks of this development: on the one hand the internet offers new possibilities in the form of net-based training concepts (NBT), on the other hand free of charge courses on the internet could cause the financial collapse of distance schools. The author gives reasons why this is n…
The following article focuses the neglected relation between identity and learning by reconstructing foreign language learning efforts by adults. In spite of educational policy’s proclamation of (continuous) lifelong learning, real learning processes are characterised by various discontinuities. Adults deal with these discontinuities by perceiving, describing and structuring them dependent on their self-images as learners. Interpretations of interviews with adult language learners supply eviden…
Although trainers can be expected to be important for the success further of vocational education, there is no regulation of the qualification of trainers in Germany. A so-called train-the-trainer certificate often serves as proof of professionalism. The study describes the topics of those certificates and their frequencies. Therefore we looked at the programs of 47 providers in terms of a qualitative content analysis. The inductively generated category system contains 56 categories on three hi…
Recent empirical data show that 7.5 million adults in Germany do not reach a minimum level of reading and writing skills and, therefore, are classified as functional illiterates. However, the social and educational background of this part of the population differs considerably from wide-spread perceptions of the target group as it is represented in courses for illiterates in adult education. While the latter normally showed heavy learning problems at school, the wider group normally passed scho…
This article, which emanates from the KLASSIC project funded by the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research, explores whether the conveyance of metacognitive techniques effectively boost confidence in one’s own learning effort, thus helping escape the vicious cycle of expectations of failure and failure itself (in this case: older adults in everyday settings void of problems). The empirical study shows that tools such as self-surveys, paired problem-solving, learning diaries or portf…
