Personalized Learning for Adults: An Emerging Andragogy

Recent research has revealed benefits to using technology to personalize and adapt a learning experience to the learner’s preferences, habits, and developing expertise (Cardona et al. in 2013 IEEE Colombian conference on communications and computing (COLCOM), pp. 1–6, 2013; Johnson and Samora in Glob Educ J 2016; Murray and Perez in Informing Sci: Int J Emerg Transdiscipline 18, 2015; Yang et al. in Educ Technol Soc 16, 2013). Personalized learning can give each learner the opportunity to learn effectively and efficiently based on his or her own assets of skills, knowledge, and abilities, supporting a student-centered pedagogy. It also can provide the opportunity for wide-scale access to quality learning and teaching where public or open education has fallen short due to limited resources (Dockterman in npj Sci Learn 3:15, 2018). While there are a number of studies of personalized learning design and implementation, most of these studies were conducted in K-12 classroom environments, where the approach to teaching and learning is different than the approach for adult learners in workplace or informal learning environments. Adult learners have various types and amounts of reasons, access, time, motivation, and resources for learning, which would affect the way a tailored or individualized experience would be designed for them as compared to children (Knowles et al. in The adult learner, 2012). This chapter will review existing research on personalized learning and will define andragogy, which is teaching and learning designed for adult learners. Recommendations for designing personalized learning experiences and technologies will be explored, such as designing proper diagnostics, scaffolds, and features for higher-order thinking skills development. Based on this literature review and outline of recommended practices, the author will delineate next steps and considerations for future research on personalized learning for adults.