Managing Older Worker Training: A Literature Review and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

This article reviews literature on educational gerontology, adult education, and training and identifies factors that may encourage or discourage older workers from participation in training. Previous research has emphasized models based on either motivation or deterrent factors. This article offers a unique exploratory model combining five motivational and two deterrent factors that hold the potential for predicting older worker's participation in training. Research based on the proposed model can help explain older learner's participation in work-related training and, thereby, provide practitioners with clues to enhance training programs for older workers.