Adult Education Research: United States

Abstract

This chapter presents details of adult education research methods in the United States. Adult education research in the United States is decentralized, as is the field to which it is related. The amount and quality of research related to adult education has increased since the 1930s. Research findings include any data-based outcomes from scholarly inquiry published for the benefit of practitioners or researchers associated with the broad field of adult, continuing, recurrent, and lifelong education. Included are technical reports from major research studies, summaries of research findings related to a given topic, and evaluation reports. In the United States, arrangements to produce to use research findings reflect the pluralistic and decentralized nature of adult education. The methods used to conduct these research and evaluation studies have become increasingly specialized since the 1930s. Most adult education research topics can be grouped in one of four categories. Both quantity and quality of adult education research in the United States has increased since the early 1930s.