Reinvestigating the Determinants of Lifelong Learning: Can Pedagogy for Critical Thinking Contribute to Developing Lifelong Learners?

• Authors: Maryam Homayounzadeh
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the current study is to investigate practically the determining factor(s) affecting the students’ inclination to become lifelong learners and further to verify the potential effect of pedagogy for critical thinking to play a significant role in this respect. Participants in the study were 80 freshman English majors, found mostly through the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) questionnaire to be amotivated as learners. Primarily, significant variables, identified in the literature to affect the students’ inclination to grow as lifelong learners, were specified. The criteria were applied in practice to investigate their relative contribution in making a group of amotivated freshman English majors motivated as lifelong learners. Various instruments and materials from questionnaires to student writings were used to collect data concerning the identified variables so as to identify through both quantitative and qualitative analyses the most determining one(s) in educating lifelong learners. The results suggested critical thinking as the most consequential variable involved. Implications of the study for pedagogy in higher education were discussed and questions were raised for future studies to take into account.

Keywords

EN

intrinsic motivation; lifelong learning; critical thinking; self-regulated learning; self-determination

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Signum Temporis
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-14

Dates

published

2015-06-01

online

2016-09-10

Contributors

author

Maryam Homayounzadeh

• Shiraz University

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/sigtem-2016-0001