A theory of adult learning developed by Malcolm Knowles that distinguishes how adults learn from how children learn. Where pedagogy treats the teacher as the authority delivering content, andragogy treats the learner as a self-directed participant who brings existing experience and clear motivations to learning.
Why it matters#
Most workplace training is designed by default with a pedagogical model — a teacher delivers content, learners receive it. This mismatches how adults actually learn. Adults are not blank slates. They have existing knowledge, specific reasons for learning, and a limited tolerance for content that feels irrelevant to their real situation. Andragogy gives you a framework for designing around those realities rather than against them.