The aim of this article is to determine the perceptions and experiences of climbing at artificial climbing walls (ACWs) as undertaken by a cohort of 'young-old' people (approximately 65-75 years). The engagement of older people in outdoor activities and adventure is an evolving topic; however, as part of this development, little has been written…

This paper reports a case study focusing on naturalistic communication between a Chinese beginning non-native speaker of English (NNS) and an English native speaker (NS). The participants engage informally in a form of tandem learning, with each in turn taking the dominant role in the conversation through teaching the other vocabulary items in…

The study described here is based on the work of creative writing students engaged in life writing for a piece of assessment in a distance-learning course. Using the finished assignment pieces themselves, the students' reflective commentaries on their completed task, and a follow-up questionnaire, the analysis was designed to explore the…

This paper demonstrates the use of conceptual modelling to assist with the competence development of adult learners with interrupted occupational and learning careers. The research introduces a self-evaluation approach used with a group of adult female students in the United Kingdom. The study aimed at increasing learners' awareness of the…

This action research project looks at what happened when a small group of adult numeracy teachers with widely different experiences of learning and teaching mathematics explored their own informal numeracy practices and undertook a series of collaborative mathematical tasks. Evidence from qualitative data collected during the enquiry suggests that…

This book assembles over 50 papers from the 7th Triennial European Research Conference of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA), which was held from the 4th to the 7th of September 2013 at Humboldt-University in Berlin. The title of the conference was "Changing Configurations of Adult Education in Transitional…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore learning for and through retirement from the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: First, "retirement" is considered in the light of the existing literature, demonstrating a complex concept. The paper describes the research project from which a theme of retirement as a learning process…

Over recent years, approaches to education and training have become more informal, situated, outcome focused and experiential. Within this context, formal learning now plays a greatly diminished role, being supplanted by activity-based and technologically-based learning. This article, structured in the form of a polemic challenges readers to…

Highlighting the application of ethnomusicology beyond the traditional boundaries of the academy, this article investigates the use of music in adult literacy education. In 2005, as part of the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society (LEIS) project, adult literacy tutors working in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom (UK), were invited to enrol in…

Everyone learns in a different way--for some, learning comes naturally, but for others it can be a real struggle. Many negative experiences of education are a result of individuals not knowing how they learn most effectively, or believing that they do not have the capacity to learn well. Addressing the issues of how individuals learn can help…

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore the learning process associated with international mergers and acquisitions (M&A) integration strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The paper employs a comparative case study methodology, utilising qualitative data through in-depth interviews with top management responsible for…

The UK's National Adult Learning Survey has emphasised that graduates are more likely than other groups of people to engage in further learning and to be motivated by the intrinsic nature of the subject matter. However, beyond this we know relatively little about the learning of graduates as a specific group. In particular, we know very little…

Growing diversity among international students requires analysis of the experience of particular groups of international students, which would provide implications to understand other groups of students. Changes in the society encouraged the Japanese to seek professional training on postgraduate courses in Japan as well as overseas. Employing a…

While the most common type of student entering higher education falls within the 17-19-year-old age group, universities in the UK are keen to accept other categories of students onto programmes as a means of increasing diversity and maintaining student numbers in the latter portion of a programme. One such category is those students who enter a…

We propose Lifelong Learning Organisers (LLOs) as tools to support the capturing, organisation and retrieval of personal learning experiences, resources and notes, over a range of learning topics, at different times and places. The paper discusses general requirements for the design of LLOs based on findings from a diary-based study of everyday…