The role of different learning forms in adult education

Abstract

Adult education builds on the basis of knowledge brought by the person entering the process. Taking this as a baseline, it is obvious that the wider the foundation of knowledge, the more efficient and cost saving the education of adults will be. In the 21^st century, as in the past, the range of knowledge an adult possesses may not only be gained in the framework of a formal education program; the importance of non-formal and informal learning is growing. Increasingly, informally obtained knowledge is becoming appreciated in adult employees. At the University of Debrecen, we conducted an examination of the diverse ways of learning associated to the validation procedure applied to formally recognize the pre-existing knowledge of enrollees in the correspondent section of a Master’s course in human resource advisory. The process of validation establishes a possibility for applicant students to have acknowledgement of their non-formally obtained course or career-related knowledge and work experience, in the form of Master’s degree credits. The result of the process is the exemption from having to take defined courses, so that students may avoid repetition and focus on the more thorough acquirement of the new knowledge the Master’s course offers them. The objective of our research was to measure what role knowledge achievable in a non-formal way has in the workplace and in the motivation to learn among those students who could use this validation procedure. In the completed questionnaires filled in by all the students of the above-named course (191), we also wanted to know the costs and objectives respondents had in their education outside the school system. Our results showed that half of the respondents have informally achieved knowledge which is considered useful and that the reason for learning in this non-formal way may be related to the expectation of their employers.