In today’s higher education institutions in which sustainable development has been highly emphasized, individuals have changed the understanding of graduates of higher education; as such universities have emerged into a reconstruction period. In such a process, universities have been in need of academicians who are well development in both personal and professional domains. The concept of Lifewide learning, which is an important sustainable development tool, has underlined the fact that people should graduate as wholly-developed people to fulfill the needs of future societies, which releases the idea that academicians are to be role models for students. This study reflects on the research designed to develop and test an instrument that could identify the component of an academician’s Lifewide learning habits. Because of the complex nature of the Lifewide learning, considerable attempts were made in order to handle the process of classifying the cognitive, affective, social, technical and cultural domains related to academicians working in faculties of education. The developed instrument was trialled with 50 academicians, and the data was subjected to an explanatory factor analysis, allowing the identification of 6 sub-dimensions of Lifewide learning. These dimensions appeared to be capable of differentiating between problem-solving, professional habits, cultural interaction, leadership, care-based habits and leisure habits of academicians. The final version of the scale was applied to 211 academicians from faculties of education at 30 universities via “Google Drive”, and Lifewide habits of related people were assessed regarding their gender, title and department. Depending on the collected data, Lifewide learning habits of academicians were discussed, and some suggestions were proposed to support their professional and personal development.
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.
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