Phases and Stages in Adult Development: How These Relate to Our Learners

Adult developmental theories serve as a basis and as a way to help understand, shape, and develop learning theories. Two areas of developmental theories include phase theories and stage theories. Phase theories often use the metaphor of seasons of one's life and emphasize the responses people make to age and changing social expectations as they move through the phases of adulthood. This theory was adopted by Levinson's 10 phases development. A stage theory is more developmental and biological in nature and can be compared to a family life cycle, where subsequent stages build upon earlier ones, such from immaturity to maturity. Stage research has been done by William Perry and Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Development. Unlike Perry and Kohlberg, Daniel Levinson proposes adult development occurs through phases. Levinson claims that adulthood is characterized by specific age related transitions and that adults adapt to their environment by creating patterns to deal with the demands made upon them such as occupational and family involvements. Kohlberg's model is more understandable and practiced by school teachers because they can more easily understand and can apply classroom rules to students. Perry's model lends itself to adult learning situations and instructors can practice ways to help adults transcend higher order thinking skills. Gender has become a very popular area of adult learning environments, and Belenky, et al., claims that females' learning needs are different from their male counterparts. Therefore, a practical and workable model combining both of Perry's and Belenky's ideas can be very useful for instructors of adult learners. As professional instructors, we can consider these various models for our own program design.