Regarding empirical research on participation in adult education, it has been criticized that only rarely has there been an integration of theoretical and empirical approaches and that empirical testing was lacking. This, it has been stated, was an impediment to further developing the research field. To empirically check if this is still the case, a qualitative content analysis of selected journals in the field of adult and continuing education was carried out. 38 peer-reviewed articles, published in professional journals between 2018 and 2020, which presented empirical research on participation in adult education were examined. The main goal of this study was to assess the extent to which theory is used in these articles along a continuum of theory use. The result of the analysis gave a mixed picture. Nine contributions (24%) show no reference to theory at all, one contribution (3%) merely cites theoretical work without making further use of it. Most frequently, theory is reported to inform the empirical research (16 contributions, 42%); six contributions (16%) further apply theory. Only three contributions (8%) report either theory testing or building. The theories used vary: 20 different theoretical approaches were observed. A thorough integration of theory into the research process still seems to be lacking: Most articles report no or only limited use of theory. Empirical testing or further development of theory only takes place in a small portion of the studies analyzed.