My Initial Exposure to Andragogy

Introduction

This chapter begins with a very personal perspective of how the author became involved with the concept and practice of andragogy – an educational term which was previously unknown to him He shares his first exposure to andragogy at Boston University, including the background and research foundation giving impetus to writing this book. Nine chapters are listed on andragogy’s history and philosophy and six major andragogy themes comprise four additional chapters. Kapp from Germany coined the andragogy term based on Comenius’ [from Czech] earlier conceptions stemming from educators in ancient times. Savicevic gave andragogy strength in Europe, also sharing it with Knowles who advanced it in the USA through application to human resource development (HRD) and viewing self-directed learning (SDL) as the most important way to implement andragogy. Hadley developed/validated an andragogy/pedagogy measurement instrument. Simpson validated andragogy in the United Kingdom. Kabuga validated andragogy in Africa. Ingalls validated andragogy’s nine dimensions for corporate managers’ helping workers keep abreast and up to date with their various fields – in such things as: feeling respected; treating mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth; discovering what they need to learn; extract learning from practical work experiences; take responsibility for designing their own learning; engage in planning for performance improvement; innovating and experiments to change what appears possible; developmental tasks and readiness-to-learn issues; engaging in joint problem-finding and problem-solving strategies. Mezirow brought the idea of a charter including 12 Self-Directed Learning (SDL) items for andragogy and Suanmali developed/validated with 174 adult educators’ andragogy’s charter with 10 of the 12 SDL items.