An Emerging Trend in Today’s World for Future Societies: Life-Wide Learning - a Scale Development and Application Study for Undergradutes in Faculties of Education

Abstract

The recent changes in Europe have changed the understanding of higher education systems in Turkey; as such, higher education institutions have affiliated themselves with a reconstruction period. In this process, it has been emphasized that today’s societies are in need of individuals who are well-developed in personal and professional domains. The concept of life-wide learning has emphasised that the people graduating from universities just with the knowledge of their domains will be inefficient for fulfilling the needs of future societies. This study reflects on the results of research that was designed to develop and test an instrument that could identify the components of an undergraduate’s life-wide learning habits. Since it was difficult to anticipate the components of lifelong learning because of its complex nature, considerable attempts were made in order to handle the process for cognitive, physiological, affective, social, technical and cultural domains. The instrument which was developed - Life-wide Learning Habits Scale- was trialled with 645 undergraduate students studying at the faculty of education across a range of variables. The data was subjected to an explanatory factor analysis, allowing the identification of four dimensions of lifelong learning. These dimensions appear to be capable of differentiating between the personal developmental habits, professional habits, care-based habits, leisure habits of graduates. The developed scale was applied to 296 undergraduate students and the life-wide learning habits of students were assessed regarding their genders, departments and socio-economic situations. Depending on the collected data, lifelong learning habits of university students have been discussed, and some suggestions have been proposed to overcome diffi culties in organizational changes in higher education.