Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development

M Cecil Smith, Nancy DeFrates-Densch, Assistant Editor, M Cecil Smith, Nancy DeFrates-Densch, Assistant Editor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781135597399
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

The time is right for this comprehensive, state-of-the-art Handbook that analyzes, integrates, and summarizes theoretical advances and research findings on adult development and learning - a rapidly growing field reflecting demographic shifts toward an aging population in Western societies. Featuring contributions from prominent scholars across diverse disciplinary fields (education, developmental psychology, public policy, gerontology, neurology, public health, sociology, family studies, and adult education), the volume is organized around six themes:

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• theoretical perspectives on adult development and learning

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• research methods in adult development

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• research on adult development

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• research on adult learning

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• aging and gerontological research

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• policy perspectives on aging.

The Handbook is an essential reference for researchers, faculty, graduate students and practitioners whose work pertains to adult and lifespan development and learning.

Part I Theoretical Perspectives on Adult Development and Learning

DOI: 10.4324/9780203887882-1

Chapter 1 Challenges for the Current Status of Adult Developmental Theories

A New Century of Progress

Fredda Blanchard-Fields and Antje Stange Kalinauskas

DOI: 10.4324/9780203887882-2

In order to understand learning in adulthood, we need to understand developmental changes across the latter half of the lifespan. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss a number of contemporary adult developmental theories that explain changes in different domains of functioning. For instance, strategies for dealing with a novel situation may be different for young and older adults as a function of changes in processing goals. When faced with a new situation, young adults may focus on developing and optimizing new strategies to adapt to the problem situation. Older adults, however, may draw upon an accumulated wealth of strategies in order to regain or maintain a viable solution. Adult development theories can provide us with explanations as to why and how individuals change such processing goals that impact the way they approach the problem.

The general framework for our chapter is a lifespan perspective on development. Baltes and his colleagues (Baltes, 1987, 1997; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006) have outlined general theoretical tenets of life-span development characterized by multidirectional, multidimensional, and multifunctional processes that involve the constant interplay of gains and losses within each life period. Applied to a learning situation this means that the learning of a certain skill can involve growth, but this may be at the expense of another skill, therefore implying loss.

By examining contemporary theories through the lens of a lifespan developmental perspective, we hope to illustrate that the core constructs listed above are more fully realized than in earlier thinking. For instance, research focusing on multidirectionality of development has been further enhanced by implementing statistical techniques assessing intraindividual variability. In this case, developmental growth can be distinguished from fluctuations in performance as later described in this chapter. Research focusing on multidimensionality of development has been enhanced with recent attempts to examine developmental linkages in different domains of functioning, such as emotion and cognition or health and cognition.

The lifespan approach takes a functionalist perspective on development. According to this view, the ultimate goal of development is to increase adaptation of the organism to its environment which is achieved through learning. Plasticity and intra-individual variability are key concepts within this perspective because they set the boundaries for the organism’s ability to learn and as such adapt to its environment. One of the central questions of adult developmental theory is to understand the boundaries of plasticity. For instance, in the oldest old, the functional reserve capacity of the individual is declining and developmental gains are become increasingly more difficult to achieve. The dynamic of gains and losses, biology and culture need to be investigated within different stages of life to understand the full cycle of adult development.

Another common life-span-related thread that runs through contemporary adult developmental theories discussed in this chapter is that behavior and development are multiply determined. At the simplest level, age is not the best predictor of behavior. Instead, behavior across the lifespan is determined by multiple forces, some of which are age-related (such as biological changes), differing opportunity structures in society, and changes in motivational orientations and emotional functioning. For example, researchers now acknowledge that cognitive change in older adulthood is influenced at multiple levels of analysis including declines in brain volume and density, the positive and negative effects of stereotyping, and deploying attention away from negative stimuli. Furthermore, investigation of these multiple forces on development has become more tractable as new technologies and research methods have evolved, such as brain imagining techniques and extensive multiple-burst micro-longitudinal studies.

This chapter provides an overview of contemporary theories and recent empirical findings of adult development while at the same time outlining future challenges that need to be addressed by these theories. We begin by discussing three factors that influence the development of theories, the availability of new methods of measurement and analysis, the emergence of new phenomena, such as the fourth age, and changes in the science-political agendas that influence the investment of resources into research. Next, several contemporary theories of adult development are described. Whereas we place some theories in their historical context to highlight how they have extended previous thinking in their respective areas, other theories are shown to reflect new and emerging perspectives on adult development and change. We discuss these contemporary theories and provide empirical examples of how they have been tested. Finally, in elucidating each of the newer theories, we suggest how new methods and empirical phenomena can provide challenges for theories of adult development.

Recent Scientific Trends Influencing Theory Development

Psychological theories are advanced when theory-inconsistent findings require the elaboration and refinement of older theories or sometimes the development of completely new theories (Kuhn, 1962). However, there are other factors that influence theoretical development including (1) the development and use of new methods of measurement and analysis that allow the investigation of both recurrent and emerging research questions, (2) the emergence of new phenomena, and (3) science-political agendas that influence the investment of resources into research.

In this section we focus on several noteworthy examples of how these factors have influenced current thinking in human development. First, we focus on neuroimaging as an example of a recent technology that allows the non-invasive investigation of brain functions. Second, we use the sample case of intra-individual variability to illustrate how new methods of data analysis can shape our understanding of developmental processes. Third, we discuss the impact of measures of everyday functioning, such as time-sampling studies that enable us to more closely examine psychological processes as they occur in everyday life. Fourth, we discuss the theoretical implications of the emergence of the fourth age as a likely extended phase of aging for most people. Fifth, we briefly describe how putting aging on the science-political agenda advances the field of adult development.

The Century of the Brain: Observing the Brain Working

The 21st century has been called the century of the brain. Recent technological advances, such as the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), allow us to study brain structure and functions using non-invasive technologies. Neuronal correlates of behavior can be studied in living individuals. Neuroscientific approaches have been widely applied to research questions that deal with cognitive aging. However, recently researchers have used this technique to investigate processing preferences for emotional compared to neutral information in older adults (Mather, Canli, English et al., 2004). Research in the emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience has shown associations between neural structures and a variety of social cognitive tasks such as person perception, stereotypes, and theory of mind (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Ochsner & Lieberman, 2001). One of the challenges for adult development theories will be to incorporate these models and techniques into their thinking. Finally, the neuroscience approach has taken intervention research to new heights. Now, we cannot only observe change as a result of intervention at the behavioral level but also at the neurological level (Colcombe, Erickson, Raz et al., 2003).

Three approaches to the neuroscience of aging can be distinguished: The neuropsychological, the correlational, and the activation imaging approach (Cabeza, 2004). The majority of work in this area has focused on cognitive aging rather than including the entirety of adulthood. Therefore, we will focus in our discussion on this aspect of adult development. The neuropsychological approach compares the neuropsychological functioning of healthy older adults with adults showing certain pathological patterns. A good example is Parkinson’s disease which is accompanied by dopaminergic deficits that affect the frontostriatal system and reduce, for instance, speed of processing. The primary objective of this approach is to identify neural mechanisms that are associated with both normal and pathological decline in cognitive functions. These findings stimulate theoretical development by describing influential factors that warrant theoretical explanation as to how and why these factors may cause cognitive decline as we age.

The correlational approach, on the other hand, tries to link cognitive and cerebral aging. It focuses on the correlation of cognitive behavioral data, such as executive functioning, with neural structural measures, such as white matter deterioration or brain volume. Data from this approach focus on the role of brain structure in explaining cognitive decline (Raz, 2000).

Finally, the activation imaging approach, tries to directly link functional brain data with cognitive behavioral data. This approach allows the in vivo investigation of changes in brain function as they relate to cognitive performance within individuals. For example, studies using this approach found that younger adults’ brains show unilateral activation in their brains when they work on cognitive tasks whereas older adults’ brains tend to show increased activation in both brain hemispheres (Cabeza, 2002).

Overall, as the sample case of research on cognitive aging demonstrates, theoretical development within the field of adulthood is enriched by neuroscientific methods in several ways. First, theories can be tested using neuropsychological approaches. For instance, the idea of selective allocation of attention can be tested by relating event-related potentials to behavioral data (Wood & Kisley, 2006). Second, changes in performance can be associated with both functional and structural brain variables to explain how the brain influences performance. This is not only applicable to change processes in older adults’ brains, but could be also investigated in the maturing brains of adolescents and children. Third, research methods that focus on the architecture and functioning of the brain can help to explain why certain cognitive functions, such as well-practiced tasks, vocabulary, and wisdom can be preserved into old age while other functions, such as processing speed, decline rapidly as people age.

However, neuroscientific methods also have their limits. For instance, documenting activities in different brain regions does not necessarily imply that different psychological processes are involved (i.e., decline in sensory motor functioning, vision and hearing may be similar processes but different regions of the brain). Nevertheless, advances in the field of neuroscience have major impacts on the development of theories of cognitive age because they reveal new findings for which psychological theories have to account and with which they must be consistent.

Statistical Innovations: a New Focus on Intra-individual Change

Past methodological debates have revolved around criticisms of cross-sectional designs comparing young and older persons as adequate tools for studying developmental change. It has been demonstrated that inter-individual differences between young and older adults cannot necessarily be attributed to changes that accompany age. For instance, many human phenomena are non-ergodic. Non-ergodicity refers to the fact that variations between persons (inter-individual variability) and variations within persons (intraindividual variability) are not equivalent (Molenaar, 2004). For example, if we would find that older adults prefer to learn in a face-to-face context, whereas younger adults prefer a computer-based instructional tool, this may reflect generational differences rather than aging-related effects. In this scenario, we would not expect young adults to change their preference as they get older. In other words, the inter-individual difference (i.e., between younger and older adults) would not translate into intra-individual differences.

Furthermore, adult developmental theories are informed by observed behavioral differences between age groups. Thus historically, intra-individual variability has often been considered measurement error or noise (Luszcz, 2004). There are two major problems associated with the cross-sectional approach. First, it is unclear whether behavior measured at a specific point in time is representative of the person’s typical behavior. Second, it is questionabl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter Reviewers
• PART I Theoretical Perspectives on Adult Development and Learning
• PART II Research Methods in Adult Development
• PART III Research on Adult Development
• PART IV Research on Adult Learning
• PART V Aging and Gerontological Research
• PART VI Policy Perspectives on Aging
• Postscript
• Contributors
• Index