The Effects of Andragogical Teacher Training on Adult Students' Attendance and Evaluation of their Teachers

Abstract

Although there is a substantial literature on andragogy, there is a paucity of empirical research on the subject. The research reported here deals with a central problem: Is andragogy an effective strategy for teaching adults? To this end two hypotheses were tested: (a) Andragogically trained teachers of adults will have higher rates of student attendance in their classes than teachers not trained in andragogy and (b) students will evaluate more positively andragogically-trained adult education teachers than teachers not trained in andragogy.The design was a randomized control group, post only field experiment utilizing treatment, placebo, and null groups. The intervention was a nine-hour course of instruction designed to facilitate acquisition of andragogical teaching methods. The subjects were public school adult education instructors teaching a variety of subjects. Student attendance and teacher evaluation were dependent variables.It was found that, although the treatment had a positive and significant effect (p = .10) on attendance, there was no significant effect on student evaluation.