Chapter 5: The Learning Environment Preference Inventory: Measuring Pedagogy, Mesagogy, and Andragogy in a Community College Setting

A great deal of attention has been given to the work of Malcolm Knowles (1970, 1980, 1984). Whether positive regard (Brockett, 1983; Pratt, 1993; St. Clair, 2002) or leveled criticism (Alfred, 2000; Brookfield, 1986; Davenport & Davenport, 1985; Elias, 1979), there is an undeniable Knowlesian heritage in the field of adult education. Knowles’ ideas of andragogy were met with great interest at the time of their unveiling (Brookfield, 1986), but based on contemporary scholarship in the field, have been discounted and perhaps even ignored in the years since. His ideas served as the impetus of great passion and excitement, but as the field has matured, his work has become less salient. As Knowles’ ideas developed in his later work, he reframed the overly simplistic idea that children are collectively characterized by a specific set of learning principles (pedagogy), while adults, across-the-board, were characterized by another (andragogy). He acknowledged that while the spectrum was related to learner maturity, it was not solely determined by one’s status as a child or an adult (Knowles, 1980; Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2005). Beyond this, Knowles indicated that there might be a number of contextual factors that could influence where one fell on that pedagogy—andragogy spectrum.