Desire as response to experience: Reflections on Motivational Aspects of Adult Learning

A central aspect to consider when researching or facilitating learning is the participants’
motivation to engage in learning processes. Learning does not just happen by itself, but
learning is the result of an activity situated in the context of an individual existence and
learning is related to the way the individual takes up a position within the world and the
direction and meaning integrated in this position. Hence, a central question to ask is: How
does the learning process start up and stay in motion? What is at stake in our actions
which brings us to learning? Existing theoretical conceptualizations of motivation
provide us with a range of understandings which carry different practical implications in
relation to the possibilities for creating planned learning situations based on participant
motivation. This paper is aimed at discussing motivation theory in relation to adult
learning. The first part of the paper presents and critically discusses the answers given by
need gratification theory (Maslow, McClelland, McGregor) and by learning theories
placed within the field of workplace learning or organizational learning (Senge, Argyris
et Schön, Wenger) and it opens up the ambition to rethink motivation from the point of
view of a phenomenological understanding of desire. The second and third part of the
paper follows up this ambition by presenting an understanding of desire based within a
phenomenological framework (Merleau-Ponty) and by discussing the implication of a
shift in focus from needs to desire in relation to creating learning situations based on
participant motivation.