Exploring problems of self‐directed learning within practice and discourse

Self‐directed learning is an important feature in using experiential approaches with adult students. It is both part of a theorisation and the basis of certain kinds of practices which together form a ‘discourse’ of self‐directed learning. The paper critically examines the general characteristics of this discourse and considers the consequences of the assumptions made about adult learning and teaching.

Case studies of practice involving experiential teaching approaches with two different groups of adult students are then presented and analysed. The idea is to show how the discourse of self‐directed learning relates to these actual situations of practice, it is clear that the discourse since it cannot take account of context misleadingly assumes adult learners to be naturally self‐directing. Practitioners, therefore, need to have a critical awareness of the frameworks of thinking and action which can be imposed by any discourse even if it purports to be ‘student‐centred’.     

Key issues for research in self‐directed learning

This paper consists of two parts. The first part gives an overview of two major paradigms which have influenced research in education; the positivist/empiricist and the interpretive. It is argued that research into self‐direction has been dominated by the positivist/empiricist paradigm and that, because of a fundamental incompatibility between the assumptions underlying positivism and those underlying ‘self‐direction,’ research into self‐direction has been ‘blocked.’ It is suggested that the adoption of an interpretive paradigm promises to reinvigorate and redirect research into self‐direction in learning.

The second part of the paper represents an attempt to develop a research agenda into self‐direction from an interpretive perspective; that is, one which takes account of the learner's subjective construing of the learning situation. This subjective construing includes pur elements: (1) the learner's view of learning in general; (2) the learner's view of the specific learning endeavour being researched; (3) the learner's view of assistance or direction received; and (4) the learner's view of autonomous leaming and the development of personal autonomy. It is also suggested that any adequate research into ‘self‐direction’ should ideally take account of the perspective of the facilitator or other person offering help and assistance, since learning situations depend largely on the quality of the relationship established between the learner and the ‘helper’.     

Reflections on self‐directed adult learning: some implications for educators of adults

Self‐directed learning has attracted intense interest among researchers, theoreticians and practitioners in adult education and human resource development. This paper explores some general reasons for this, before examining several different perspectives on self‐directed adult learning. The main theme is that attention needs now to be focused less on process and more on the self‐directed learner. The key element in self‐directed learning, it is argued, is reflection. This concept is analysed and implications drawn for the educator of adults.     

Predicting students' ratings of the importance of strategies to facilitate self‐directed distance learning in Taiwan

Distance students' ratings of the importance of strategies to facilitate self‐directed learning were evaluated. Students from an open university in Taiwan (449 current and 140 inactive) participated in this study. Current students scored significantly higher than inactive students on internal motivation, insight about self, and self‐directed learning readiness. A combination of high internal and external motivation and high self‐directed learning readiness predicted ratings of the importance of five sets of strategies for helping students become self‐directed learners. The study provides information to help distance learning professionals enhance the effectiveness of self‐directed learning and reduce the number of students who become inactive.     

Self‐directed learning and prostate cancer: a thematic analysis of the experiences of twelve patients

Although self‐directed learning is a common response for many of the 232,090 US men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, very little is known about the nature of the experience for them. Four themes emerged from interviews with 12 prostate cancer patients describing their self‐education efforts in regard to their disease. A qualitative paradigm was used for this study with data collected using a semi‐structured interview protocol. Purposeful sampling technique was employed to identify information‐rich subjects who were within five years of diagnosis and who had used self‐directed learning extensively in coping with their prostate cancer. Using the constant comparative method, four common themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews:

• Men don’t talk. The participants indicated that men are reluctant to talk about health problems, including prostate cancer.

• Living with the reality of my situation and my choices. These prostate cancer patients found that they had difficult choices to make in regard to their treatment and that learning about the side effects of their cancer treatments did not prepare them for the reality of actually experiencing them.

• The struggle with emotions. The men in this study appeared to be very strong in regard to the cognitive aspects of their self‐directed learning in regard to their cancer but to struggle with their emotional responses.

• Watchful waiting. The men in this study indicated that once having been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the process of dealing with it is never over. Their learning involved coming to terms with this uncertainty.

Conclusions included that, for the men in this study, gender appeared to be an important influence on their experiences with self‐directed learning and prostate cancer.     

Implications of task structure on self‐regulated learning and achievement

School tasks interact with student motivation, cognition, and instruction to influence learning and achievement. Heeding calls for additional research linking motivational and cognitive factors in learning and instruction on specific tasks within authentic classroom settings we quantitatively and qualitatively track 90 tenth‐grade science students’ motivation, reported use of learning strategies, achievement, calibration, and task perceptions as they engage in a well‐structured task (WST) and an ill‐structured task (IST). Students achieved higher grades on, and reported more ease and value for, the WST whereas they utilised critical thinking and peer learning strategies more on the IST. Lower academic achievers calibrated their achievement less accurately on each task and experienced lower grades, interest, ease, and management capability on the IST. Conversely, higher academic achieving students reported more self‐efficacy and effort regulation and lower anxiety and elaboration on the IST. Motivation – notably less intrinsic goal orientation in low academic achievers and higher task value and self‐efficacy – predicted performance on the IST. The structure of tasks may provide prompts that illicit unique self‐regulated learning responses in students.     

The self‐regulated learning aspect of metacognition: A component of gifted education

As interest increases in the connection between metacognition and gifted, a shift in the definition of giftedness from person to performance variables allows an even closer link to skills of self‐regulatory metacognition such as defining, focusing, persisting, guiding, coping, correcting, reinforcing, and solving. Researchers recommend explicit instructional models that teach specific strategies for disciplined, reflective problem solving while stressing accuracy and persistent concentration. This article provides such a detailed account of a classroom‐tested early childhood pedagogy for gifted learners, especially the underachieving gifted. Teacher and peer modeling of think‐aloud, behavioral demonstration, and cueing of five steps to efficient task accomplishment are outlined with examples. Benefits of productive self‐regulated learning strategies during task periormances are reported from teachers, parents, and students.     

A model for self‐regulated distance language learning

The role of learner autonomy and self‐regulated learning in distance education has received much attention. The application of these concepts impacts course design and, potentially, learner achievement. In the case of distance language learning, course designers must consider not only how to help learners gain communicative competence but also language learner strategies that support success. Although the concepts of autonomy and self‐regulated learning share some similarities, they have been variously defined and applied to distance education. Current research and discussion has not synthesized the ways in which these factors can be more fully utilized to improve distance education. Based on a critical review and synthesis of the literature on autonomy and self‐regulation, this article contributes a new model for distance language learning. The model provides guidance for course designers and assists instructors in supporting their students.     

Educational distance from the perspective of self‐direction: an analysis

To establish which factors predict student intentions to contribute towards an OpenCourseWare site, an online questionnaire was distributed among University of Queensland students via email. The 320 participants completed items that were based on the theory of planned behaviour and were designed to measure attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Measures of altruistic motivation were also included as a predictor for intentions to contribute. Overall, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and altruistic motivation explained 43.1% of the variance in students’ intentions to contribute. Attitudes and altruistic motivation were the strongest predictors, accounting for 7.49% and 7.12%, respectively, with subjective norms accounting for 3.9%. Perceived behavioural control was not found to contribute to the explanatory model. The implications for universities creating new OpenCourseWare sites are discussed. Further research should investigate the effects of barriers on student intentions to develop and contribute and should examine the determinants of faculty support.     

Development of the nonverbal immediacy scale (NIS): Measures of self‐and other‐perceived nonverbal immediacy

In recent years nonverbal immediacy has received considerable attention from researchers concerned with instructional communication, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication. Unfortunately, the instruments used to measure nonverbal immediacy in these contexts sometimes have been problematic in terms of their reliability estimates. This research attempted to overcome this problem, or failing that, to identify the cause(s) of the reduced reliability. The research resulted in a scale with high reliability when used as either a self‐report or an other‐report measure. It was also found to be equally reliable across the contexts of instructional, interpersonal, and organizational communication. Content validity of the scale is good and an initial test of predictive validity produced a high validity correlation. Unexpected sex differences were observed in the results and these are discussed in this report.     

A process‐outcome analysis of learning in group and individual settings

Models of behavior and achievement in small group and individual settings are presented. These models arc based on intensive analyses of observations of groups and individuals at work. For each setting the varieties of behavior observed, social‐psychological mechanisms hypothesized to influence observed behavior, and factors hypothesized to relate behavior to learning are described. A synthesis of the models suggests that neither the group nor the individual setting is best for all persons; the benefits of a particular setting depend upon the experiences of the learner within that setting.     

Variation in the conduct and the quality of self‐evaluations: a multi‐level path analysis

While self‐evaluation leads to valuable results in some schools, it appears that in other schools this is true only to a lesser extent or not at all. This raises the question of how differences in the results of self‐evaluations can be explained. This study looks at to what extent the results of self‐evaluation are determined by the way in which self‐evaluation is conducted, by characteristics relating to the general functioning of the school and by the support which schools enjoy. One thousand seven hundred and eighty‐six school principals and team members from 96 schools (primary and secondary) were surveyed by means of a written questionnaire. The data collected were then analysed using multi‐level structural equation modelling. The results provide strong empirical evidence that “attitude with regard to self‐evaluation”, “self‐evaluation as a policy action” and “self‐evaluation as an act of research” are powerful predictors of the quality of self‐evaluations.     

Maggie’s day: a small‐scale analysis of English education policy

Policy sociologists typically research at large scale. This paper presents an example of a policy analysis which illuminates how policy is embedded in single incidents, lives and places. The case in point concerns the policy fetish for ‘closing the gap and raising the bar’. This rhetoric is taken to mean improving the learning of all students, while at the same time producing a more equitable, quality education system. In the case in point, we mobilise an ethnographic fragment and the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre in order to examine the ways in which the policy technology of transforming students into measurable data plays out in the life of one group of Year 10 girls in a struggling English comprehensive school. We argue that our analysis demonstrates that in this very particular case, the pedagogies intended to promote attainment actually accomplished the reverse. We suggest that, following this example, policy sociologists might gain from further research at the micro/vernacular levels of schooling.     

Interrelations between self‐efficacy and learning approaches: a developmental approach

Two major theoretical frameworks in educational psychology, namely student approaches to learning (SAL) and self‐efficacy have been used extensively to explain and predict students’ learning and academic achievement. There is a substantial body of research studies, for example, that documents the positive interrelations between individuals’ self‐efficacy beliefs and their approaches to learning. In particular, evidence ascertained from structural equation analyses suggests both a positive sense of academic self‐efficacy and deep learning approach combined to influence students’ academic achievement. More recently, albeit limited, research has focused on the study of developmental changes of these two constructs over time. As a contribution to this approach, we used latent growth curve modelling (LGM) to explore the initial states and trajectories of self‐efficacy and the two major learning approaches – surface and deep – over a two‐year period. Furthermore, we regressed both gender and academic experience as possible external correlates that could account for the change in the two theoretical frameworks. Two hundred and fifty‐two (116 females, 136 males) university students were administered Likert‐scale inventories on three occasions. SPSS AMOS showed a few major findings – notably, for example, the negative impact of academic experience on the change in self‐efficacy and the positive impact of academic experience on the initial states of self‐efficacy and surface learning approach.     

The impact of different teaching methods on students’ arithmetic and self‐regulated learning skills

The present study examines the effect of three different structured methods, traditional, independent and problem‐solving, of teaching children arithmetic in the beginning of 7th grade in Sweden, age 13 years. The progress made by these students is presented by measures of their arithmetic ability, calculation and quantitative concept, as well as their self‐regulated learning skills in mathematics, characterised as internal and instrumental motivation, self‐concept and anxiety. The results will be discussed with reference to a socio‐cultural perspective. This study has a split‐plot factorial design with time as within‐subject and type of intervention as a between‐subject factor. The results show that there are no significant differences between teaching methods when assessing arithmetic in total and calculation. Students’ progress in quantitative concepts is significantly better if teachers teach traditionally or with a problem‐based curriculum. In order to develop aspects of self‐regulating learning skills, the results show that pupils would benefit in a traditional or problem‐solving curriculum. Problem‐solving seems to be more effective than traditional and independent work for students’ internal motivation. Traditional work and problem‐solving are more effective than independent work for students’ self‐concept.     

Student‐directed learning strategies to promote the progress of students with intellectual disability in inclusive classrooms

Student‐directed learning strategies involve teaching students to modify and regulate their own behaviour. Teaching students to self‐regulate behaviour has been identified as one means of promoting self‐determination, and promoting and enhancing self‐determination has become a valued outcome internationally. In addition, however, student‐directed learning strategies could prove important for including students with disabilities in general education classrooms by reducing the student's dependency upon others in the classroom setting. Four students with intellectual disability were supported to select an educational goal on which they wanted to work and were taught to self‐monitor their progress toward that goal in general education classrooms. Their progress toward the goal was evaluated through data collection activities and by using the Goal Attainment Scaling process. In general, students achieved their self‐selected goals. The potential contribution of student‐directed learning strategies to inclusion and promoting self‐determination are discussed.     

Effect of the number of scale points on chi‐square fit indices in confirmatory factor analysis

This article investigates the effect of the number of item response categories on chi‐square statistics for confirmatory factor analysis to assess whether a greater number of categories increases the likelihood of identifying spurious factors, as previous research had concluded. Four types of continuous single‐factor data were simulated for a 20‐item test: (a) uniform for all items, (b) symmetric unimodal for all items, (c) negatively skewed for all items, or (d) negatively skewed for 10 items and positively skewed for 10 items. For each of the 4 types of distributions, item responses were divided to yield item scores with 2,4, or 6 categories. The results indicated that the chi‐square statistic for evaluating a single‐factor model was most inflated (suggesting spurious factors) for 2‐category responses and became less inflated as the number of categories increased. However, the Satorra‐Bentler scaled chi‐square tended not to be inflated even for 2‐category responses, except if the continuous item data had both negatively and positively skewed distributions.     

Typical intellectual engagement as a byproduct of openness,learning approaches,and self‐assessed intelligence

Students (n = 328) from US and UK universities completed four self‐report measures related to intellectual competence: typical intellectual engagement (TIE), openness to experience, self‐assessed intelligence (SAI), and learning approaches. Confirmatory data reduction was used to examine the structure of TIE and supported five major factors: reading and information seeking, intellectual avoidance, directed complex problem solving, abstract thinking, and intellectual pursuits as a primary focus. These factors were significantly and positively associated with deep learning, openness, and SAI, and negatively related to surface learning. Other correlates of TIE were more factor‐dependent. In general, correlations suggested that TIE is related to, but different from, the other intellectual competence constructs examined. Results are discussed in relation to the typical performance approach to intelligence and the importance of TIE with regards to the intrinsic motivation to learn.