Regardless of whether their motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, adults undertake a course of learning with much more sophisticated needs and expectations than younger learners, and this will strongly influence their persistence. The six assumptions of Knowles’ Andragogical Model provide insight into this psychomotivational cocktail that we will use to make practical recommendations for instructors about how to fully activate adults’ imperative to articulate and accomplish their online educational goals—an essential variable toward their success. Given an attrition rate of up to 80% for some online learning contexts, it is vital that the educational approach of instructional design for online learning aligns with the learning objectives that correspond to learners’ real-world needs. If educational technology is to live up to the promise of enhancing online learning outcomes, a different paradigm for instructional design and delivery of content is needed. This paper will provide guidelines and techniques for incorporating adult learning principles into the structure, delivery, and mentoring/administration of online courses of study.
Ferreira et al. (Mon,) studied this question.