Developments in Group Behavior in Adult Education

Abstract

THE past several years have seen the development and expansion of a number of significant trends in education. To the population of educators who have traditionally been concerned with the organization and teaching of classes and the development of discussion groups on such subjects as cultural development, parent education, and current events, has been added a large group of people who are anxious to develop their ability to work with adults. Coming from such fields as business administration, health education, mental health, armed services, government agencies, social work, youth organizations, labor and many local and national organizations, these individuals do not think of themselves as adult educators. Yet, in their concern for better ways of conducting meetings, arousing interest in their programs, leading discussion groups and training meetings, they are turning to the field of education for assistance Most courses for the training of educators now conducted in leading universities enrol students from diverse areas of study on the campus-from schools of business, social work, public health, nursing, engineering, as well as from education-and from many occupational groups. The rapidly growing circulation of Adult Leadership, an education magazine devoted to the improvement of group leadership among a large variety of occupational groups, is further evidence of the growing strength of this demand in education. There has been, secondly, a growing concern with the development of more effective use of discussion methods in education during the past few years. While group discussion has always been a part of education, it was only a small part in earlier days. Research and study in group dynamics and group behavior in recent years have accelerated the use of group discussion. Since 1951 the Fund for Adult Education, established by the Ford Foundation, has given further impetus thru its development of films on discussion methods and materials for discussion. A corollary of the growth of the use of group discussion is the increase in concern for democratic leadership and opportunity for free discussion. In the field of speech education, Haiman (40) questioned the ethics of the attention to training for persuasion rather than for freer interchange of thought for the development of opinions. Articles dealing with the ethics