CITATION: Ponton, M.K. & Carr, P.B. (2000). Understanding and promoting autonomy

in self-directed learning. Current Research in Social Psychology, 5(19), 271-

284.

  • Process perspective of self-directed learning focuses on the activities that the learner engages in such as goal setting, planning a learning strategy, acquiring resources, and monitoring progress paralleling self-regulation referring to the self-generated activities, both cognitive and behavioral that a person uses to accomplish their educational goals
  • Individuals are motivated to engage in learning to the extent that they feel a need to learn and perceive a personal goal that learning will help to achieve; and they will invest their energy in making use of available resources (instruction and readings) to the extent that they perceive them as being relevant to their needs and goals
  • Fundamentally learning is a self-initiated, self-directed, and self-regulated cognitive process whereby the learner can choose to ignore instruction, to merely absorb it by casual attention, to carefully memorize without critical reflection, or to seek to change or create an understanding of information
  • One aspect of the psychological dimension involves the learner identifying needs that serve as motivational inducements to consider learning goals and another is the learner’s personality characteristics
  • Initiative in learning refers to

Facilitating goal-directedness (establishment of learning goals and working toward their accomplishment) involves helping learners understand the positive relationship between specific learning goals and the learners’ desired outcomes

Self-startedness (behavior of motivating oneself to begin a learning activity) occurs when the learner is able to identify desired outcomes, create goals, develop plans, and work toward goal accomplishment independently

Active-approach to problem solving (behavior of taking the responsibility for the development of solution strategies to one’s own problems)

  • Deterrents to learning may involve lack of resources, time constraints, and a low priority of learning as compared to other activities
  • Educator must convey to learners that it is their responsibility to show an active-approach in their learning by taking the responsibility to create learning opportunities, reserving time dedicated solely to learning activities, and prioritizing learning

Persistence in overcoming obstacles is facilitated when educators recognize the presence of obstacles and encourage learners to take the responsibility to use acquired skills or develop new skills and encourage learners to observe the behaviors of successful models

Learner resourcefulness consists of the activation of anticipating the future rewards of learning, prioritizing learning, delaying immediate gratification and solving problems in one’s learning

  • Encompasses evaluating alternatives and anticipating consequences which can be promoted when the educator models problem solving behaviors in the classroom exercises, and later internalized when the learners are tasked to conduct learning on their own thereby gaining experience that improves their ability to solve learning problems as well as their self-perception that they are capable of learning what they desire when they desire ( i.e., increases self-efficacy in autonomous learning)

Self-regulation is important to persistent learning behavior as expressed though the a cyclic model involving the processes of self-evaluation andmonitoring, goal settingandstrategic planning, strategy implementationandmonitoring, and strategic outcome monitoring

  • Self-evaluation and monitoring (the learner compares current levels of learning to desired levels) is facilitated when the value of anticipated outcomes is conveyed and an accurate assessment is performed to indicate the discrepancy between the learners’ current and desired levels of achievement
  • Goal setting and strategic planning (activity of establishing learning goals and planning learning activities that will hopefully lead to desirable learning outcomes) facilitated through strategies modeled by the educator but later tasked to the learner in course-related activities
  • Strategic implementation and monitoring (implementation of a plan for learning and an evaluation as to the fidelity of the implementation)
  • Strategic outcome monitoring (the process in which the learner makes determinations as to whether adopted goals and plans are leading to desired outcomes) is facilitated by the instructor helping learners understand the desirable learning outcomes at the beginning of the training, the connection between the training goals and the outcomes, why the training format best facilitates the accomplishment of the goals, and then at the end of the training that the desirable outcomes have been realized thereby feeding directly into the beginning process of the cycle, namely self-evaluation and monitoring
  • Learners need to be encouraged to reflect upon outcomes, goals, and strategies thereby reinforcing the importance of the self-regulation process

Description of motivational strategies promoting continued learning