Adapt a lesson for adults by building on prior knowledge, motivation and real tasks, and drop the learning-styles myth.
Why it matters
Technical trainers mostly teach adults: new hires, customers, career changers and experienced engineers learning a new tool. Computer science teachers face a different mix of teenagers and adult learners. Both groups share the same basic memory system, but they bring different prior knowledge, motivation and constraints. Adapting a lesson to the people in the room matters more than any single technique.
Andragogy: Knowles's assumptions
Malcolm Knowles popularized the term andragogy in the 1970s to describe how adults learn, in contrast with pedagogy for children. His assumptions are that adults:
- Need to know why they are learning something before they invest effort.
- Have a self-concept as responsible for their own decisions and dislike being treated like children.
- Bring experience, which is both a resource and a source of habits that can get in the way.
- Are ready to learn what helps them with real tasks and roles.
- Are problem-centered rather than subject-centered.
- Are motivated more by internal factors (competence, satisfaction) than external ones.
These are useful design prompts. A fair caution, though: andragogy is a set of assumptions rather than a tested theory, and research has not shown that adults learn in a fundamentally different way from children. Much of it is simply good teaching for anyone. Treat it as a checklist, not a law.
Motivation: autonomy, competence, relatedness
Self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, has stronger research support. It says people are more motivated when three needs are met:
- Autonomy: some choice and control (which practice task, which project).
- Competence: early, visible success at an appropriate challenge.
- Relatedness: feeling connected to the trainer and to other learners.
For the Git workshop: explain in the first two minutes how Git will be used on their team (why); let them choose between two practice scenarios (autonomy); make sure everyone completes a first commit within ten minutes (competence); and pair people up for the merge-conflict exercise (relatedness).
Novices versus experienced learners
The biggest difference in any adult group is usually prior knowledge, not age. The expertise reversal effect from the last lesson applies directly:
| Learner | What they need |
|---|---|
| Career changer who has never used a terminal | Pre-training on terminal basics, worked examples, short steps, lots of reassurance |
| Developer who has used Git through an editor | Mapping from buttons they know to commands, then problem practice |
| Senior engineer from another version control system | A quick comparison, then advanced tasks (rebasing, recovering lost commits) |
A five-question pre-assessment before the session lets you group people or offer a "fast track" handout.
Experience as a resource and an obstacle
Adults have misconceptions built from experience. Someone who used shared network folders may think of Git as "a place to save files" and be confused when a commit does not appear on the server. Ask learners to predict what will happen before you show it, and listen to the wrong predictions: they tell you which mental model to fix.
A myth to drop: learning styles
Many trainers were taught to diagnose learners as "visual", "auditory" or "kinesthetic" and to match teaching to their style. In 2008 Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer and Robert Bjork reviewed the evidence and found no adequate support for this "meshing" idea: studies with the right design did not show that matching instruction to a preferred style improves learning. Later studies have found the same.
People do have preferences, and using several modes (a diagram and an explanation) helps everyone, but that is because of how the material is best represented, not because of learner types. Design for the content and for prior knowledge, not for learning-style labels.
Practical constraints of adult learners
Adults in workplace training often:
- are interrupted by work messages, so short segments and clear "where we are" signposts help;
- have limited time, so practice should use realistic tasks they will face next week;
- fear looking incompetent in front of colleagues, so make early mistakes safe (practice repositories that can be thrown away, anonymous polls).
Adapting a lesson: example
Original: a 90-minute lecture on Git internals, then commands, then a quiz.
Adapted for adult new hires: start with a two-minute story of a real merge conflict on the team and what it cost; quick pre-assessment; worked example in a throwaway repo; choice of two practice scenarios; pairs resolve a conflict; finish with a checklist they can pin next to their monitor and a spaced follow-up task on day 3.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the "why" because it seems obvious to you.
- Teaching to an imagined average learner instead of checking prior knowledge.
- Labelling learners by learning style.
- Treating experienced learners' questions as interruptions instead of resources.
Quick recap
- Knowles's assumptions are useful prompts, not a proven separate theory.
- Support autonomy, competence and relatedness.
- Prior knowledge matters more than age; adjust guidance to it.
- Learning styles matching is not supported by evidence.
Try it
Answer the quiz on the Do tab. Then think of a group you might teach and write one sentence each on why they need the topic, what they already know, and one choice you can give them.