Conceptualising adult and continuing education practice - towards a framework for research

Oct 15, 2026

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Adult and continuing education practitioners are central to lifelong learning, yet research rarely examines the domain of their practice and the values and practice-related orientations that shape it. This paper argues that theorising practice must address the duality of structure behind practitioners’ values and supports linking practice to wider external milieus through multiple theories. It also proposes teaching practice and program planning practice models, grounded in systems theory, to guide future research.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Researching practice

8 ~~Roger Harris~~ Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009 ~~concludes with recommendations for raising this low level of~~ ~~competence in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals~~. ~~Altogether, this is a bumper issue with nine articles and six book reviews.I hope you enjoy reading them, and rethinking approaches and concepts~~.~~ Have a good year, and happy reading of this first issue for the 49th volume!~~ ~~Roger Harris~~ ~~Editor~~ Conceptualising adult and continuing education practice: towards a framework for research Benjamin Tak-Yuen Chan University of Hong Kong Adult and continuing education practitioners are the core group of staff that enable the lifelong learning enterprise. However, there are few studies that look into the domain of practice of these practitioners, which is shaped by the organisation and its wider external milieux. Research on this topic naturally calls for the elucidation of practitioners’ values and practice-related orientations that have structuring properties on practice. This paper argues that the theorising of practice must pay attention to the issue of ‘duality of structure’for the values of practice. It also suggests drawing from a range of theories to help establish the practice-to-milieu connection. Theories may also assist in bridging the abstract-toreality gap when translating from values to actions. Whilst theories can offer explicative potential for practice, their use is facilitated only through availability of analytical frameworks to organise the practice of teaching adults and program planning into a logical 10 Benjamin Tak-Yuen Chan Conceptualising adult and continuing education practice 11 series of components and processes. In this connection, a teaching practice model and a program planning practice model, based on systems theory, are proposed to guide future research. Introduction The literature on adult and continuing education (ACE in this paper) is replete with studies about learners, programs, policies and various types of theoretical propositions.Surprisingly, there are few studies that focus their attention on ACE practitioners.This category of workers in ACE (who carry functional titles such as tutor, coordinator or program leader), has a major responsibility in planning programs and may have a minor role in teaching.In most university departments, the academic study ofACE is separate from the continuing education unit, essentially meaning a separation of the academic study ofACE from its field of practice. This separation has led to the diversion of research interest away from fundamental questions connected with front-line practice into subject matters such as: the learner, the provision of learning and the wider implications of learning in society.The research focus on learners and their needs is consistent with the learner-centred disciplinary discourse ofACE generated by academics, and may serve to perpetuate it. The preference for researching learners over teachers and program planners also reflects the distance between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ as academic researchers try to construct a corpus of knowledge for the field inhabited by their practice-oriented peers, the ACE practitioners. This paper argues that ACE practice is a legitimate research topic, in view of developments in the parallel field of teacher and teaching research in education, and the challenges faced by program planning when responding to forces of the market and government policy.It surveys the literature to conceptualise ACE practice into four major research themes, wherein practitioners’thinking emerges as the main area of interest.Research in this direction leads to the study of practitioners’values and practice-related orientations, which produces some descriptive profiles of practice. These profiles would require explanation by theories to help understand the nature of practice as a product and driver of change, and to

FAQs

Why does the paper consider ACE practice a legitimate research topic?

It argues that ACE practice deserves attention due to developments in teacher and teaching research and because program planning faces pressures from market forces and government policy.

What gap does the paper identify in existing ACE research?

It notes that studies seldom focus on ACE practitioners, instead concentrating on learners, programs, and policy propositions.

How does the paper propose bridging values to actions in practice?

It suggests using a range of theories to connect practitioners’ values with practice-to-milieu connections and to help bridge the abstract-to-reality gap when translating values into actions.

Oct 15, 2026

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