Non-traditional Learners Within Traditional Higher Education Institutions: discovery and disappointment

Abstract

This paper reports on the first stage of research on the influence of lifelong learning on the interpretative frameworks used by adults to make sense of their experiences of higher education. Using grounded theory procedures, the paper is based on evidence gathered largely through depth interviews with 25 undergraduate non-traditional learners in four departments representing three faculties in an urban polytechnic. Part of a larger study which will investigate the perspectives of adult learners in other learning contexts, the first stage of data analysis suggests that disjunctions between these learners' expectations and experiences of higher education may be influenced by discoveries about learning and themselves outside the education system. 'Learner identity' is suggested as an organising construct and is looked at in relation to 'barriers to learning' encountered in higher education, particularly by learners who are non-traditional on more than one dimension within traditional higher education. The paper identifies other hypotheses suggested by the evidence gathered thus far about the conditions which, on the one hand, promote conflict, crisis, alienation and fragmentation and, on the other, coherence, continuity, and integration for diverse adult learners interacting with various learning contexts. The paper suggests that re-entry into the formal education system can result in disappointment, dislocation and ultimately re-discovery-the process of which seems to result in renewed value bases upon which to make choices as a learner. The paper also reports interviewees' perspectives on ways teachers and higher education might respond more effectively to nontraditional learners who have been absent from such a system for at least five years. It concludes by raising questions about the purposes and underlying assumptions of traditional higher education, and its responsibilities to lifelong learners who may return to formal education with competing perspectives on 'learning' ahd 'knowledge'.