Continuing education at universities as a vacancy for university didactics and vocational training research - Problems and perspectives

The current politically accelerated expansion of part-time study programmes, certificate programmes, study modules and so forth indicates that universities are beginning to open up to the field of continuing education. In this context, questions concerning didactics are becoming increasingly important. Depending on the (disciplinary) perspective (such as vocational, business and adult education, or higher education research and higher education didactics), there are different approaches to the field of continuing higher education. However, these approaches have not yet been compared and contrasted. By focusing on the didactics of continuing education at higher education institutions, this paper aims to interlink selected lines of discourse in order to identify problem areas and point out research perspectives.