st challenges facing adult learners are balancing school and life, accessibility and costs. The realisation of how time management is essential when deciding to enter or re-enter education is evident in all aspects of living. ‘The Balancing Act’ is detrimental to the success of progression, but many adult learners have family and work obligations. Furthermore, these ‘additional responsibilities can lead to stress and frustration for adult learners.’ It is then considered that accessibility is linked to time commitments and therefore attendance to classes may become more difficult during the regular course timetable, as employment and childcare may cause conflict. In turn, reluctance in the pursuit of higher education may occur. The long-term cost of higher education can also have a major impact on adult learners living situations.
However, knowledge of these concerns is being addressed by many educational institutes, resulting in more flexible options being made.
Moreover, positive information is given first and then the concerns are then listed after, giving the backward impression that the concerns are the dominant issues. Concerns therefore may not have occurred to some adult learners and still may not have any effect on further studies.
This piece of literature is written by London Council for Adult Education Co-chairperson and can therefore be assumed valid. However, 2013 is time restricted when it comes to society adaptions, making the information less noteworthy.
According to Bishop-Clark (cited by Milheim, 2005) the awareness of the most apparent problems adult students has included their overall discomfort , different orientations towards their professors, having different learning styles and holding hostility between age groups.
Personal life barriers, financial responsibilities and different learning styles are known as the wide variety of characteristics in adult learners, compared to a traditional student.
However, these barriers can be overcome by the aid of the educational institution and the course tutors, as it’s their responsibility to do so by any means. Thus, resulting in the learner feeling comfortable and welcomed when they return to the classroom.
The disadvantage of this journal article is the date it was published. Consequently, 2005 is outdated in terms with the adaptation movements of modern technologies, bearing witness to limited evidence of change.
From reviewing these 3 literature pieces, the similarities are evident in that the main concern is not established.
Discussion and the development of research questions were created following these to make the main concern confirmedly known. From this discovery, the researchers created an open titled question to ask individuals who they knew were thinking about going back into studying higher education.
Method
