How to Engage Nontraditional Adult Learners Through Popular Education in Higher Education

“Nontraditional adult learners are an important segment of the higher education population and need to be acknowledged and served well.”

Employee. Mother. Wife. Daughter. Teacher. Girl Scout leader. Author. Mentor. Innkeeper. Nurse. Learner. Adult Educator.

As an adult, I wear many hats throughout the day. As a faculty member in adult education within a higher education setting, I encourage fellow faculty members across all disciplines to remember that we serve many students who have adult responsibilities. The profile of undergraduate students is changing and now includes approximately 40% of adult students aged 25 years and older, contrasted with 60% of traditional students aged 18 to 22 years (Chao & Good, 2004; Hussar & Bailey, 2013).

The National Center for Educational Statistics (Choy, 2002) provided characteristics of a nontraditional student, such as enrolling in college later in life, attending part-time, having full-time employment, having dependents, among other factors. Many nontraditional students struggle to navigate the complex web of university services, feeling isolated and stressed because the institution and the faculty do not provide the support they so desperately seek. Most colleges and universities gear their curriculum, programs, advising, and administrative services to traditional students who can access them during working hours. Although these services play a primary factor in helping nontraditional students feel welcomed and at ease, universities rarely offer office hours to serve part-time or working students, so they must make special arrangements to take care of administrative tasks.

Many nontraditional students have responsibilities far beyond our imagination, and as their instructors, we have an obligation to acknowledge adulthood obligations through our teaching and curriculum development. Andragogy is a powerful tool with assumptions that respect the adult students, their prior learning, their need for application of content, their ability to make connections between academic content, professional disciplines, and their lived experience. Through the theory of andragogy, Knowles (1980, 1984) established a set of principles for teaching adults, as compared with principles for teaching children: (a) Adults have independent self-concepts and can direct their own learning, (b) rich life experiences serve as a resource for learning, (c) adult learning needs are related to changing social roles, (d) adults are problem-centered and interested in immediate application of knowledge, (e) adult motivation is internal rather than external, and (f) adults need to know the reason for learning something new.

Each instructor makes strategic decisions about how and what to teach depending on institutional context, discipline-specific content area, and one’s own philosophy of teaching and learning. These strategic teaching decisions are not always conscious ones, as we often teach as we are taught, but each decision affects how the learners respond and how successfully they are able to integrate or apply the new knowledge. Instructors of adults must make these teaching decisions intentionally, recognizing that teaching is never neutral. Instructors can benefit from a critical awareness of the curriculum being taught. Freire (2000) reminds us that each subject can be taught from a status quo, hegemonic approach that continues the dominant social messages of patriarchy, White supremacy, naturalization of violence, acceptable exploitation of the environment, consumerism, discrimination, and othering. Or, educators can make an intentional choice to problematize these messages in the teaching through critically assessing assumptions, asking questions that delve deeper into social structures, reading primary sources of historical events, considering long-term consequences to new technology, and seeking readings that contradict the social status quo of the field.

Adult educators in all settings should approach their educational role in an intentional and critical way. Popular education provides one approach to begin to consider these questions in ways that may be accessible to nontraditional learners. Assumptions and practices within popular education include leading democratically, critically reflecting on self and society, working together toward common larger goals, putting practice into perspective, having an end game plan, and including many voices and perspectives (Highlander Research and Education Center, n.d.). Popular education approaches to teaching and learning often have arts-based components, to make ideas and knowledge more accessible to many people using different learning preferences and provoke emotions.

Popular education is often used in community organizations and other social justice practices, but can contribute new approaches to teaching nontraditional students within formal education settings. Working from a popular education model, my colleagues and I have developed a framework of care (Glowacki-Dudka et al., 2018) that focuses on building a learning community, open communication, critical reflection, equality, and democracy within higher education settings. By paying attention to learner intentions and expectations, educators can create settings and provide opportunities where learners feel recognized, engaged, connected, and valued. Educators at all levels and in all disciplines can draw on Freire’s (2000) guiding concepts of dialogue, praxis, conscientization, and love to promote active learners and support their self-confidence and power to make a change in the world.

None of the ideas presented here can be implemented without a holistic institutional approach to the education model and epistemological frameworks. Higher education institutions overall can respond by changing the culture to embrace nontraditional learners as the new student population. The barriers can be overcome through changes at every level, from university systems to faculty to the students themselves. The unique abilities and the experiences the learners bring to the academic environment should be welcomed as these students bring rich and diverse knowledge to the classroom.

Universities cannot simply enroll nontraditional students, advise them on what classes to take, and send them on their way. Often, unbeknownst to the university, they have created a system that sets the nontraditional student up for failure almost as soon as they arrive. Adult students often feel isolated and out of place on college, so using a framework of care and providing a social support system is helpful (Eifler & Potthoff, 1998). Madfes (1989) recommended universities create specific nontraditional student activities to provide activities that are relevant to the student’s interest and time allowances and include both the students and their families, including children. When families can be involved in the learning journey, the adult students do better.

Finally, academic advisors need to routinely reach out to nontraditional students in their first year to ensure that they are staying on track and succeeding in classes. Higbee and Dwinell (1998) suggested that nontraditional students may have educational gaps or non-apparent physical or learning disabilities and may be afraid to speak up in class or ask for help. Therefore, the advisor or faculty member should keep in contact with the students, to respond to their needs, to instill good academic habits, and to care about their success.

Nontraditional adult learners are an important segment of the higher education population and need to be acknowledged and served well. For many students, higher education may not be the only focus of their time, attention, or resources. Adult education theory, research, and practice have empirical evidence of best practices for meeting the needs of the adult students. Adult education practitioners should do more to promulgate and advocate theories in andragogy, popular education, and care to advance nontraditional student success. I invite higher education administrators and faculty to embrace this population and enrich the classrooms with students who bring passion, experience, expertise, and additional resources to the institutions when they are well served.