Lifelong learning is an extremely rewarding activity that allows individuals to cope with the pitfalls and challenges they face during their careers. Through non-formal education activities (e.g. courses, training, lessons, etc.) and individual informal learning, it contributes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills that they need for their work and leisure-time activities or for becoming more actively involved in civil society.
However, adults differ significantly in the extent to which they are able to manage, adjust, direct, develop and evaluate their learning. Many of them are not used at all to planning their learning, dividing it into partial tasks, seeking help with it or motivating themselves positively to it, and making time and space for it.
Therefore, one of the key skills associated with learning is self-regulation and self-management of learning. Both are the key prerequisites for lifelong learning.
While self-direction of learning is perceived much more narrowly in the field of adult learning and directly follows the line of thinking about lifelong learning formulated by Malcolm S. Knowles (1975), self-regulation of learning is a much broader concept based on the psychological theories of meta-cognition and human behavior developed since the 1980s by Albert Bandura (1986).
Both concepts are connected by the assumption that effective educational activity requires reflection. After all, Shane Parrish (Parrish, & Beaubien, 2020) emphasizes in his recently published bestseller "The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts" that "the best teacher is self-reflection." Self-reflection of learning includes a number of sub-components such as planning, organizing, motivation, cognitive stress management, achieving goals or the ability to cope with negative feelings that may accompany learning.
The higher the baseline level of self-regulation and readiness for learning is, the greater are the chances that adults will be successful in learning. It includes the comprehension of the difficulty of learning and the willingness to continue it as well as a certain degree of acquisition of new knowledge and skills. If the level of self-regulation is too low, individuals more often perceive learning as too demanding, experience negative emotions, and tend to resign from it.
Due to these characteristics, the creating of a quality and effective learning environment cannot be achieved without systematically ensuring a certain level of self-management and self-regulation. For this purpose, there are a number of diagnostic techniques such as short questionnaires, e.g. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), Self-regulation Questionnaire (SRQ), and Self-Directed Learning Skills Questionnaire (SDLS), which allow determining that level.
Early detection of this level can help educators not only identify the adults who may have learning difficulties, but also identify areas where these problems occur. Lecturers can then adapt the content and goals of the educational activities to the skills of the participants.
In addition, they may focus some educational activities on the development of self-regulation of learning, which should be a secondary task of any further adult education. A shift in this area has far-reaching consequences. It enables individuals to benefit more from regular courses and non-formal education programs, as well as to further develop themselves through their own informal learning. According to American researcher Barry Zimmerman (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011), a higher degree of self-regulation results in a higher degree of autonomy and gaining the ability to deal with problems. It opens a better quality of life for individuals.
Last but not least, the development of self-regulation and self-directed of learning contributes to getting to know oneself and to the adaptive development of one’s identity. It becomes a transformative tool of one's Self, one of the forms of learning with the deepest impact, as it involves not only getting new knowledge and habits, but also transforming oneself and the ways in which one learns (Kegan, 2018).
References
Bandura, A. (1986). (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kegan, R. (2018). What “form“ transforms? A constructivist-developmental approach to transformative learning. In: Illeris, K. (Ed). Contemporary Theories of Learning (pp. 29–45) New York, NY: Routledge.
Knowles, M. S. (1975). Self-directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers. Front Cover. Malcolm Shepherd Knowles. New York, NY: Association Press.
Parrish, S. & Beaubien, R. (2020). The Great Mental Models. Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts. Latticework Publishing Inc.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (2011). Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance. New York, NY: Routledge.
This is a fascinating blog, Jan!
Speaking as a teacher trainer it is essential that we enable new educators to be reflective practitioners and self-regulated learners. Making the 'leap' from describing an experience to reflectively evaluating it can be a challenge for some.
And then we need to also encourage the next step, reflexive practice, that key ability to use reflection-in-action (Schön) to react to unfolding circumstances, knowing our role and effects regarding them.
I have found that when a person has experienced more traditional, didactic styles of teaching in their own education, they may be more reticent to exercise self-regulation and self-management as they wait for a teacher to 'lead' them. Determining baselines, as you say in your blog, then building confidence, resilience and setting expectations of self-efficacy are important, I think.
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