Examination Of The Relationship Between Academicians' Life Long Learning Tendencies And Thinking Styles

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between academicians' lifelong learning tendencies and their thinking styles. Relational descriptive method was used in the research. All academicians working in higher education institutions in the 2022-2023 academic year were determined as the population of the research. After obtaining the necessary permissions, the scale was applied to a sample group of 1554 people, by reaching all universities by means of official letters and e-mails to the institutional e-mail addresses of the individuals. Personal Information Form, “Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale” and “Rational-Experiential Thinking Styles Scale” were used as data collection tools. The obtained data were transferred to the statistical package program. In the light of the sub-problems, it was examined whether the scale scores differed in terms of various variables (education level, academic title, field of science). The results were classified according to sociodemographic variables and presented in frequency tables. In accordance with the results obtained from the variables, Kruskal Wallis H test and Spearman-Brown Correlation Analysis were performed, and Mann Whitney U test was applied to determine the direction of the differences. Based on the findings, it was concluded that academicians have a high level of lifelong learning tendencies. While the lifelong learning tendencies of academicians differ according to the variables of educational status and field of science; did not differ according to academic title variables. It was concluded that the academicians' thinking styles levels were at a moderate level. The thinking styles of the academicians differed in terms of educational status, academic title and field of science variables. It has been concluded that the relationship between academicians' lifelong learning tendencies and thinking styles is at a significant level in terms of total and sub-dimension scores, generally below the medium level and in a positive direction.