From Experience to Understanding: Helping Adult Learners Reframe Misconceptions and Build Conceptual Mastery

Adult learners enter the classroom with a lifetime of experiences, beliefs, and practical knowledge. These experiences are valuable—they help learners make sense of new concepts through familiar lenses.

But in subjects like physics, those same experiences can sometimes lead to misconceptions that conflict with scientific principles. A ball doesn’t keep moving because it has a “force in it.” Heavier objects don’t always fall faster. Electric current doesn’t “run out” like water in a pipe.

For many adult learners, true learning happens when they are guided to confront and reframe these intuitive beliefs.

Learning Begins with Experience

According to Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy, adults learn best when instruction connects directly to their lived experiences. They want to know why something matters and how it relates to what they already know.

When instructional materials intentionally bridge experience and concept, through discussion, reflection, and real-world applications, learners begin to build deeper, more durable understanding.

For example, in physics, adult students often bring intuitive “rules of thumb” from daily life. Instead of dismissing these ideas, effective instructional design acknowledges them as starting points for exploration.

Misunderstandings Are Gateways to Growth

Misconceptions aren’t barriers, they’re windows into learners’ thinking. When instructors create safe spaces for learners to express what they believe, they can reveal the reasoning behind those beliefs.

Using guided inquiry, simulations, or real-life demonstrations helps students test their assumptions. As they see where intuition and evidence diverge, they begin to reconstruct their understanding based on new mental models.

This process, called conceptual change, is at the heart of transformative learning. It turns “I thought I knew” moments into “Now I understand why.”

Designing for Conceptual Understanding

For instructional designers, this means building opportunities for:

• Reflection: prompts that ask learners to connect new ideas with prior experiences.

• Prediction: before experiments or simulations, asking, “What do you think will happen?”

• Discussion: structured dialogue that lets learners share and test their reasoning.

• Application: real-world problem-solving that makes abstract principles tangible.

  
  

When adult learners see how new knowledge reshapes their understanding of the world, learning becomes personal, relevant, and lasting.

Closing Thoughts

Every adult learner carries a story—a set of experiences that shapes how they see the world. Our role as educators and instructional designers is not to erase those stories, but to build bridges from experience to evidence, from intuition to insight.

When we design learning that respects where adults begin, we empower them to go further than they ever imagined.

Reflecting crystal ball.