Éva Szakos Feketéné: Some Results of the first Hungarian Delphi Study in Adult Education

The application of the Delphi technique receives urgency and relevance in Hungarian adult education in the context of the current pluralism, changes, unsolved problems and new challenges. The aims of the Delphi research presented in this paper were (1) to collect and to chart systematically the array of approaches to complex questions, e.g.: What do experts of adult education mean by adult education today? What are their ideas on relations between andragogy and pedagogy as scientific disciplines?; and (2) to promote communication by rounds of written discussion of experts. The theoretical background of the research was constructivist epistemology. Essays of 70 participating practicioners (both novices and experts) were compared by content analysis in the first round, then all of the essays were sent out to each participant. Answers to a questionnaire developed on the basis of the first round were statistically analysed in the second and third rounds. Results: frequency and contextual analyses show a rich diversity of approaches and terms used by both novice and expert senior practicioners, revealing the lack of consensus on a scientific definition of adult education, or indeed, the Hungarian term for adult education. Significant differences were found in the knowledge constructs of novices and experts. The ideas of practicioners on the status of andragogy among scientific disciplines are not uniform, either. The majority considers andragogy as a relatively autonomic sub-discipline of educational science or human education.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 103. Number 3. 339-369. (2003)

Levelezési cím / Address for correspondence: Feketéné Szakos Éva, Szent István Egyetem, GTK Tanárképző Intézet, H–2800 Gödöllő, Páter Károly u. 1.

 
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