Evaluating Lifewide Learning Habits of Academicians for Sustainable Development

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• lifewide learning
• professional development
• personal development