The Future of Education

In Europe, older workers and professionals are enrolling in online learning and training programmes in greater numbers because distance e-learning is helping adult learners cope better with workplace, family and social commitments. This is also happening in the European Union’s smallest state, Malta. This paper explores the findings of a qualitative investigation of an online top-up degree for nurses provided by the University of Malta. It reports on the experiences and perceptions of the learners’ transition from face-to-face education and training to e-learning. The findings indicate that adult learners were challenged by the lack of interaction and sense of immediacy of real-time, verbal, face-to-face mode of communication. The data also show that these learners, who grew up, were educated and work in a society where the banking education paradigm is pervasive, had to overcome another significant barrier – their active participation in dialogic pedagogies inspired by social constructivist theories. In the transition to e-learning, the adult learners thereby considered the online instructor as having a central role. For the learners, the educator must create motivation, as well as strong social and cognitive presences. The educator must also develop a cohesive community of learning. This case study is part of a three-year project that is investigating the possibilities of e-learning for older workers. The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Education and Employment (Malta) and the European Structural Cohesion funds (under Priority axis 3). This study used constructivist Grounded Theory as the primary methodological approach because it provided the flexibility and strategy needed to generate theory from data. Multiple data collection methods were used.  These included online participant observation, an online questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews which were allowed to develop as conversations with a purpose. This triangulation strategy allowed for a range of rich data to be gathered, and for these data to add depth to the inductive conceptual conclusions. Consistent with constructivist Grounded Theory principles and practices, the data analysis was iterative and occurred throughout the study, as did the review of the literature. The analysis of the data involved line-by-line coding, writing of analytic memos, the generation of categories through constant comparison, and theoretical sampling. 

Keywords: e-learning, online courses, adult education and training, Grounded Theory, workers;