Delivering Instruction to Adult Learners

George G. Ambury is an associate professor of adult education at
Queen’s University.

The author aims to provide resources and background for both novice and
experienced instructors of adults, an objective he meets with limited
success. The focus is on skill training through what might be called an
instructional technology approach, or, as Cantor puts it, “training
programs developed for highly critical skills training in the military
and para-military and nuclear utility industries.” The content is wide
ranging, touching on communication skills, the learning process, writing
instructional objectives, test development, lesson planning, content
delivery, motivation, evaluation, managing learning environments, and
the use of media.

The teacher who works primarily in the psychomotor and cognitive
domains will find here a rich repository of tips, tricks, and techniques
widely used in this genre of training. There is even a section on memory
and the use of various mnemonic devices to help students recall
information. The book is written for practitioners, with only cursory
mention of theory and research that supports the author’s position.
For the most part, the writing is effective and the extensive use of
figures and diagrams makes the book easy to follow. Sample forms for
evaluation and so forth will be useful to the beginner.

Delivering Instruction brings little new to the literature on the
technology of instruction, except for its references to some recent work
on memory and its mention of computer-assisted and managed learning. It
is somewhat deceptive of the author to try to link his work with that of
Malcolm Knowles and the concept of andragogy. This book deals almost
exclusively with the science (or, more precisely, technology) of
instruction, and has little in common with the ideology of Knowles and
similar adult educationalists. Novices will find the book to be a useful
resource, especially in the context of a course on instructional design
and delivery; experienced trainers will find little new here.