life long learning is the key to success essay

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What Is Lifelong Learning? (And How to Do it Yourself)

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What Is Lifelong Learning? (And How to Do it Yourself) was originally published on Forage .

We often equate school with learning — so once we’ve graduated, we’re done, right? While we may not return to lectures and discussion groups, learning is far from over the second we leave high school or college. Embracing lifelong learning, or the concept of ongoing learning, can help you grab the attention of employers, get hired, and succeed in your entire career.

So, what exactly is lifelong learning, and why do employers care so much about it? Here’s what you need to know, how to get started, and how to show it off in an application.

Lifelong Learning Definition

Lifelong learning is the constant, ongoing pursuit of knowledge. This practice “ensures that individuals continually enhance their skills and knowledge, regardless of occupation, age, or educational level, enabling them to stay ahead of the game,” says Emily Maguire, managing director and career consultant at Reflections Career Coaching.

Typically, lifelong learning is self-motivated, meaning the desire to learn comes from a desire for personal and professional growth.

Professional Skills Development

Develop critical professional skills like project planning, setting goals, and relationship management in a real-world work environment.

Avg. Time: 3-4 hours

Skills you’ll build: Time management, scheduling, explaining analysis, presentations

Lifelong Learning Examples

So, what does lifelong learning look like? While you can take courses or pursue formalized education as part of lifelong learning, this kind of learning doesn’t have a specific structure. Examples of lifelong learning include:

• Taking online courses
• Learning a new language
• Joining a book club
• Listening to podcasts
• Watching TED Talks or educational YouTube videos
• Attending a workshop or seminar
• Earning a professional certification
• Completing a coding bootcamp
• Learning a musical instrument
• Taking an art or cooking class
• Doing a DIY home improvement project
• Picking up a new hobby, like knitting or photography
• Conducting independent research
• Trying a new fitness class or physical activity

Lifelong learning doesn’t always have to be an intense academic research project or something applicable to the professional skills you want to develop. The main point of lifelong learning is that you’re building a new skill or knowledge even if that doesn’t obviously translate to your dream job — flexing that learning muscle is a valuable skill you can transfer to any career path.

Why Do Employers Care About Lifelong Learning?

Employers care about lifelong learning because they seek employees who are willing to upskill, adapt, and navigate change. 

It Shows the Ability to Upskill

“Doors will open for you if you keep a learner’s mindset as you leave school and are constantly willing to get out of your comfort zone,” says Arissan Nicole, career and resume coach and workplace expert. “Employers want people that are open and committed to growth. Innovation and creativity take trying new things, taking risks, and being open to failing. Those committed to lifelong learning know that failing is a step in the learning process and have the resilience to keep moving forward. Employers want people who are unwilling to give up and motivated to do whatever it takes to solve a problem or find a solution.”

As an early career professional, lifelong learning is essential because you don’t have many job skills yet — you’ll learn them on the job! Employers know and expect this, so they’re primarily looking to hire entry-level candidates who’ve shown they’re committed to learning new skills quickly. 

“From our recruitment data, most fresh employees have a greater success rate when they stress on lifelong learning in their CVs and interviews,” says Philip McParlane, founder of 4dayweek.io, the world’s largest four day workweek recruitment platform. “This is because lifelong learners embody a growth mindset that proves instrumental in navigating the swift transformations within industries. Companies recognize this quality as a strategic asset, understanding that employees committed to continuous learning contribute to innovation and demonstrate resilience in the face of change.”

Helps Employees Adapt to a Changing Work Landscape

Lifelong learning is also vital to employers throughout your career as the working world changes. For example, an employer might expect you to use a new technology or software to do your job. Or, there may be a shift in your organization’s structure, and your boss may expect you to take on different projects or leadership responsibilities. Employees who can embrace change by learning new skills are highly valuable to employers. 

“Regardless of one’s chosen profession, the inclination and ability to learn and adapt are central to success on the job, any job,” says Bill Catlette, partner at Contented Cow, a leadership development company. “There are very few roles in the modern workspace where the knowledge required to excel is static.”

How to Practice Lifelong Learning

If lifelong learning is the key to getting hired and success at work, how can you start?

Take a Forage Job Simulation

Forage job simulations are free, self-paced programs that show you what it’s like to work in a specific role at a top employer. In these simulations, you’ll build real-world work skills by replicating tasks that someone on a team at the company would actually do — whether that’s coding a new feature for an app, planning a marketing campaign , or writing a hypothetical email to a client explaining legal considerations in their current case. 

Once you complete a Forage job simulation, you’ll get a certificate you can put on your LinkedIn profile and examples of how to share what skills you learned on your resume and in an interview. Employers are also more likely to hire students who’ve completed Forage job simulations — a sign of lifelong learning! 

Unsure where to get started? Take our quiz to find the best job simulation for you . 

Pursue Independent Projects

Pursuing a project on a topic you’re interested in can show employers that you’re self-motivated and willing to learn. There are tons of options depending on your career interest:

• An aspiring writer working on articles and publishing them on a personal blog
• An aspiring software engineer contributing to an open-source project
• An aspiring data analyst analyzing a public dataset 
• An aspiring UX designer redesigning the experience of a famous brand’s website 
• An aspiring social media manager developing a strategy for a personal brand or business’s social media

Digital Design & UX

Conduct user research and create wireframes for an app for the electric industry. 

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Work With Others

While lifelong learning often comes from personal motivation, collaborating with others can help you build soft skills and help keep you disciplined. 

For example, you could join a book club with fellow aspiring marketing professionals and all read books about marketing strategy. Or, if you’re an aspiring web developer, you and some friends could decide to participate in a daily coding challenge. Finding people who also want to learn can help inspire you and even help you discover new ways to achieve your goals.

Set SMART Goals

Figuring out when and how to fit lifelong learning into your life can be complicated and overwhelming, especially when first trying to enter the workforce! Setting SMART goals can help you break down the process into smaller, achievable, and actionable steps.

SMART goals are:

• Specific: What exactly do you want to learn?
• Measurable: How are you measuring success? What defines a “finished” result?
• Actionable: When do you have time to accomplish this? What extra resources do you need?
• Relevant: How will this help you in your prospective career?
• Time-bound: What is your deadline?

How to Show Lifelong Learning in a Job Application

You’re doing the work of developing your knowledge and skills — now, how do you show employers that?

List It On Your Resume

It’s almost as simple as it sounds: put your lifelong learning activities on your resume ! 

“You can list relevant courses you have taken, certifications you have earned, workshops and trainings you may have attended, and more,” says Mary Krull, SHRM-SCP, PRC, and lead talent attraction partner at Southern New Hampshire University. “The key here will be ensuring that what you list is relevant to the role. No need to list everything you have done — keep it relevant!”

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Skills you’ll build: Professional summary, illustrating your impact in teams, showcasing outcomes of your contributions

“Get strategic about relevant coursework in your education section,” says Tramelle D. Jones, strategic success and workplace wellness coach with TDJ Consulting. “For example, when applying to a position that lists tasks where you’ll utilize data analytics , list classes such as ‘Advanced Data Analytics Techniques.’ Remember to include any cross-disciplinary coursework and offer an explanation that solidifies the connection. For example, ‘Innovations in Sustainable Business Practice’ – Discussed how data analytics can be applied to consumer behavior to understand preferences.”

You can also list any trainings, workshops, certifications, or conferences in a dedicated “professional development” or “education and certification” section. 

Create an Online Portfolio

If you’ve worked on independent projects, compiling your work into an online portfolio is a great way to tangibly show your skills to hiring managers . Projects make the skills and experience you articulate in your resume, cover letter, and interview visible. Online portfolios don’t need to be extravagant; a free, simple website that shows your projects is all you need.

Share Specific Examples

When preparing your application, whether writing a cover letter or practicing common job interview questions and answers , have a few lifelong learning examples you’re comfortable elaborating on. The key is to ensure they’re relevant to the role you’re applying for and demonstrate your willingness and ability to learn.

“In your cover letter, you can bring up your commitment to continuous learning and how it ties to the specific qualifications for the job,” Krull says. “Explain how your commitment to professional development will benefit the organization and align with its values. If they invite you to interview for a role, you may have an opportunity to discuss your professional development experience. Have a couple of learning experiences in mind that had a positive impact on your development. As long as those examples help you answer an interview question, this can be a great way to weave in your experience as a lifelong learner.”

Unspoken Interview Fundamentals

Learn how to develop your professional story and practice sharing it in an interview context. 

Avg. Time: 2-3 hours

Skills you’ll build: Verbal communication, video interviewing, identifying strengths

Don’t be afraid to get specific, either. Naming particular processes, tools, and technologies you used to learn something new can help illustrate your lifelong learning to the hiring manager.

Lifelong Learning: The Bottom Line

Practicing lifelong learning is about continuously gaining new skills and knowledge. While this is often a personal journey, it can help you get hired and succeed throughout your career.

To start the lifelong learning process, try independent learning, working with others, and setting SMART goals to get the job done. Once you’ve gained new skills, call them out on your resume, cover letter, and in interviews.

“In a nutshell, the educational paradigm is transitioning towards a lifelong journey,” McParlane says. “Employers grasp the value of hiring individuals who perceive learning as an ongoing, dynamic process. As a prospective employee, your ability to articulate not just what you’ve learned, but how that knowledge contributes to adaptability and problem-solving , becomes a pivotal differentiator in a fiercely competitive job market.”

Start your lifelong learning journey with a free Forage job simulation . 

Image credit: Canva

The post What Is Lifelong Learning? (And How to Do it Yourself) appeared first on Forage .

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What Motivates Lifelong Learners

• John Hagel III

Many leaders think it’s the fear of losing your job. They’re wrong.

Looking to stay ahead of the competition, companies today are creating lifelong learning programs for their employees, but they are often less effective than they could be. That’s because they don’t inspire the right kind of learning: The creation of new knowledge (and not just the transfer of existing knowledge about existing skills). The author’s research shows that those who are motivated to this kind of learning are spurred not by fear of losing their jobs, which is often the motivation given, but by what he calls the “passion of the explorer.” The article describes this mindset and how companies can create it among their employees.

It seems that everyone in business today is talking about the need for all workers to engage in lifelong learning as a response to the rapid pace of technological and strategic change all around us. But I’ve found that most executives and talent management professionals who are charged with getting their people to learn aren’t thinking about what drives real learning — the creation of new knowledge, not just the handoff of existing knowledge. As a result, many companies are missing opportunities to motivate their employees to engage in the kind of learning that will actually help them innovate and keep pace with their customers’ changing needs.

• John Hagel III   recently retired from Deloitte, where he founded and led the Center for the Edge , a research center based in Silicon Valley. A long-time resident of Silicon Valley, he is also a compulsive writer, having published eight books, including his most recent one,  The Journey Beyond Fear . He will be establishing a new Center to offer programs based on the book.

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Lifelong Learning

Ivan Andreev

Demand Generation & Capture Strategist, Valamis

February 17, 2022 · updated April 3, 2024

8 minute read

What is lifelong learning?

Importance of lifelong learning, examples of lifelong learning, benefits of lifelong learning, organizational lifelong learning, how to adopt lifelong learning in your life.

Lifelong learning does not necessarily have to restrict itself to informal learning, however. It is best described as being voluntary with the purpose of achieving personal fulfillment. The means to achieve this could result in informal or formal education.

Whether pursuing personal interests and passions or chasing professional ambitions, lifelong learning can help us to achieve personal fulfillment and satisfaction.

It recognizes that humans have a natural drive to explore, learn and grow and encourages us to improve our own quality of life and sense of self-worth by paying attention to the ideas and goals that inspire us.

We’re all lifelong learners

But what does personal fulfillment mean?

The reality is that most of us have goals or interests outside of our formal schooling and jobs. This is part of what it means to be human: we have a natural curiosity and we are natural learners. We develop and grow thanks to our ability to learn.

Lifelong learning recognizes that not all of our learning comes from a classroom.

• For example, in childhood, we learn to talk or ride a bike.
• As an adult, we learn how to use a smartphone or learn how to cook a new dish.

These are examples of the everyday lifelong learning we engage in on a daily basis, either through socialization, trial and error, or self-initiated study.

Personal fulfillment and development refer to natural interests, curiosity, and motivations that lead us to learn new things. We learn for ourselves, not for someone else.

Key checklist for lifelong learning:

• Self-motivated or self-initiated
• Doesn’t always require a cost
• Often informal
• Self-taught or instruction that is sought
• Motivation is out of personal interest or personal development

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Here are some of the types of lifelong learning initiatives that you can engage in:

• Developing a new skill (eg. sewing, cooking, programming, public speaking, etc)
• Self-taught study (eg. learning a new language, researching a topic of interest, subscribing to a podcast, etc)
• Learning a new sport or activity (eg. Joining martial arts, learning to ski, learning to exercise, etc)
• Learning to use a new technology (smart devices, new software applications, etc)
• Acquiring new knowledge (taking a self-interest course via online education or classroom-based course)

Incorporating lifelong learning in your life can offer many long-term benefits, including:

1. Renewed self-motivation

Sometimes we get stuck in a rut doing things simply because we have to do them, like going to work or cleaning the house.

Figuring out what inspires you puts you back in the driver’s seat and is a reminder that you can really do things in life that you want to do.

2. Recognition of personal interests and goals

Re-igniting what makes you tick as a person reduces boredom, makes life more interesting, and can even open future opportunities.

You never know where your interests will lead you if you focus on them.

3. Improvement in other personal and professional skills

While we’re busy learning a new skill or acquiring new knowledge, we’re also building other valuable skills that can help us in our personal and professional lives.

This is because we utilize other skills in order to learn something new. For example, learning to sew requires problem-solving. Learning to draw involves developing creativity.

Skill development can include interpersonal skills, creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, reflection, adaptability and much more.

4. Improved self-confidence

Becoming more knowledgeable or skilled in something can increase our self-confidence in both our personal and professional lives.

• In our personal lives, this confidence can stem from the satisfaction of devoting time and effort to learning and improving, giving us a sense of accomplishment.
• In our professional lives, this self-confidence can be the feeling of trust we have in our knowledge and the ability to apply what we’ve learned.

Sometimes lifelong learning is used to describe a type of behavior that employers are seeking within the organization. Employers are recognizing that formal education credentials are not the only way to recognize and develop talent and that lifelong learning may be the desired trait.

Thanks to the fast pace of today’s knowledge economy, organizations are seeing lifelong learning as a core component in employee development . The idea is that employees should engage in constant personal learning in order to be adaptable and flexible for the organization to stay competitive and relevant.

This type of personal learning is often referred to as continuous learning. You can read more about continuous learning and what it means for both the employee and employer here.

According to some researchers, however, there is criticism that organizations are leveraging the concept of lifelong learning in order to place the responsibility of learning on employees instead of offering the resources, support and training needed to foster this kind of workforce.

Do I need to be proactive about lifelong learning?

Most people will learn something new at some point in their daily routine just by talking with other people, browsing the internet based on personal interest, reading the newspaper, or engaging in personal interest.

However, if making more effort to learn something new is important for either personal, family, or career reasons, or there is a need for a more organized structure, then here are some steps to get started.

1. Recognize your own personal interests and goals

Lifelong learning is about you, not other people and what they want.

Reflect on what you’re passionate about and what you envision for your own future.

If progressing your career is your personal interest, then there are ways to participate in self-directed learning to accomplish this goal.

If learning history is your passion, there are likewise ways to explore this interest further.

2. Make a list of what you would like to learn or be able to do

Once you’ve identified what motivates you, explore what it is about that particular interest or goal that you want to achieve.

Returning to our example of someone having a passion for history, perhaps it is desired to simply expand knowledge on the history of Europe. Or perhaps the interest is so strong that going for a Ph.D. is a dream goal.

Both of these are different levels of interest that entail different ways of learning.

3. Identify how you would like to get involved and the resources available

Achieving our personal goals begins with figuring out how to get started.

Researching and reading about the interest and goal can help to formulate how to go about learning it.

With our history example: the person who wants to simply learn more about a particular historical time period could discover books in the library catalog, blogs, magazines and podcasts dedicated to the subject, or even museums and talks.

The individual who wanted to achieve A Ph.D. in history as a personal goal could research university programs that could be done part-time or online, as well as the steps one would need to take to reach the doctorate level.

4. Structure the learning goal into your life

Fitting a new learning goal into your busy life takes consideration and effort.

If you don’t make time and space for it, it won’t happen.

It can easily lead to discouragement or quitting the learning initiative altogether.

Plan out how the requirements of the new learning initiative can fit into your life or what you need to do to make it fit.

For example, if learning a new language is the learning goal, can you make time for one hour a day? Or does 15 minutes a day sound more realistic?

Understanding the time and space you can devote to the learning goal can help you to stick with the goal in the long-run.

5. Make a commitment

Committing to your decision to engage in a new learning initiative is the final and most important step.

If you’ve set realistic expectations and have the self-motivation to see it through, commit to it and avoid making excuses.

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• Adaptation to change:  In a rapidly changing world, new technologies, industries, and skills emerge. Lifelong learning helps individuals stay relevant, adapt to new circumstances, and remain competitive in their careers.
• Skill enhancement:  It allows individuals to continuously acquire new skills and knowledge, enabling them to perform better in their current roles and explore new career opportunities.
• Career advancement:  Continuous learning enhances career prospects by showcasing an individual’s commitment to growth, making them attractive candidates for promotions and leadership roles.
• Innovation:  Learning beyond one’s comfort zone fosters creativity and innovation, encouraging individuals to think critically, solve problems, and generate fresh ideas.
• Personal fulfillment:  Engaging in learning nurtures personal growth, stimulates intellectual curiosity, and offers a sense of achievement and self-confidence.
• Future-proofing:  Given the uncertain nature of industries and job roles, life long learning is a strategy to ensure individuals are prepared for any future challenges.
• Curiosity and exploration:  Curiosity is the spark that ignites the desire to learn. Embracing curiosity encourages individuals to explore new subjects, ask questions, and seek learning opportunities. Maintaining an open and inquisitive mindset, individuals remain receptive to new ideas, experiences, and knowledge.
• Self-directed learning:  Self-directed learning empowers individuals to take control of their learning journey. This pillar involves setting personal goals, selecting learning resources, and managing the learning process independently. By actively driving their learning experiences, individuals can tailor their education to align with their interests and aspirations.
• Adaptability and flexibility:  Learning requires adaptability and flexibility to accommodate changing circumstances, technologies, and needs. This pillar emphasizes the importance of being open to new approaches, embracing emerging technologies, and adjusting learning strategies to stay relevant in evolving environments.
• Continuous improvement and reflection:  Reflective practice is a cornerstone of life long learning. Regularly reviewing one’s learning experiences, identifying areas for improvement, and adjusting strategies based on feedback contribute to ongoing growth. This pillar also involves seeking feedback from mentors, peers and self-assessment to refine learning approaches.
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• Formal education:  Enroll in degree programs, online courses, workshops, and seminars to acquire new academic knowledge and skills.
• Skill development workshops:  Attending workshops or training sessions to learn practical skills such as coding, digital marketing, photography, or public speaking.
• Online learning platforms:  Using Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning to access various courses on diverse subjects.
• Reading and research:  Regularly reading books, articles, research papers, and journals to stay updated on various topics and expand one’s knowledge.
• Podcasts and webinars:  Listening to educational podcasts and participating in webinars to gain insights from experts and thought leaders.
• Lead by example :  Leadership involvement in continuous learning sets the tone for the organization and encourages employees to follow suit.
• Offer learning opportunities:  Provide access to various learning resources such as online courses, workshops, seminars, and conferences.
• Personalized learning plans:  Tailor learning plans to individual employee goals and aspirations, ensuring relevance and engagement.
• Promote self-directed learning:  Encourage employees to take ownership of their learning by exploring topics of interest and setting their learning pace.
• Provide time and resources:  Allocate dedicated time for learning and offer necessary resources like books, subscriptions, and e-learning platforms.
• Recognition and rewards:  Recognize and reward employees who actively engage in learning, motivating others to follow suit.
• Mentorship and coaching:  Pair employees with mentors who can guide them in their learning journey and offer valuable insights.
• Peer learning and collaboration:  Promote knowledge sharing among colleagues through group discussions, workshops, and peer-to-peer mentoring.
• Feedback and assessment:  Regularly assess employees’ progress and provide constructive feedback to guide their learning journey.
• Gamification and challenges:  Introduce gamified learning experiences, challenges, and competitions to make learning engaging and fun.
• Continuous improvement:  Gather employee feedback on learning initiatives and use it to improve and adapt the learning programs.
• Flexible learning formats:  Offer various learning formats such as videos, podcasts, webinars, and hands-on workshops to cater to diverse learning preferences.
• Incorporate learning into workflows:  Integrate learning opportunities into daily work routines, making it seamless for employees to engage in learning.
• Celebrate learning milestones:  Recognize and celebrate employees’ achievements as they reach significant milestones in their learning journey.
• Promote curiosity:  Cultivate an environment where questions and curiosity are welcomed, fostering a culture of continuous learning.

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Developing a Lifelong Learning Plan Essay (Article)

Environment, risk factors.

Nowadays, the ever-developing world puts great responsibilities on personal development of modern people. One of the key success factors in such dynamic environment is flexibility in both thought and action which is attainable through constant renovation and update of one’s educational experience.

Lifelong learning becomes the key to one’s ultimate success in all spheres of life, including inter alia employment and health (Field, 2006). Considering the objective inability of standard education to satisfy the immediate ever-changing need for innovatory knowledge during one’s whole life, it appears most reasonable to work out a lifelong learning plan so that the need for development and adaptation is fulfilled.

In addition, individual lifelong learning plan is the more successful that it satisfies the requirements of flexibility: it is much easier to adapt an individual plan to the ever-changing environment rather than revolutionize a whole organization.

Since the pace of development in modern world is extreme, any long-term planning should be approached with caution. One never knows how the course of development will proceed in the long run, therefore it appears more reasonable to set up an individual lifelong learning plan that would not exceed the coming decade.

This period is both long enough to allow of setting considerable learning objectives, and short enough not to find oneself at a loss as a result of mistaken planning. A decade’s time is enough for a modern individual to attain significant knowledge, as well as develop one’s abilities that lead to a successful career in the chosen sphere.

Any learning is impossible without proper learning sources that provide adequate information and guidance on the studied issue. Since the present lifelong learning plan is devised for the spheres of general management and health care administration, there are two crucial sources that may serve as instructive inspiration during the learning process.

For the first sphere concerning general management, it appears necessary to utilize Michael Useem’s (1998) work The leadership moment: Nine true stories of triumph and disaster and their lessons for us all . This collection of real-life occurrences, which put managers and leaders in extreme situations and forced them to employ all their managerial wisdom into solving those issues, teaches many valuable lessons to the reader as well.

The secrets and strategies of managing are disclosed in a lively and understandable context, with practical implications obvious and therefore more impressive. The recommended second source, dealing with health care issues, would be Cases in health services management by Rakich, Longest and Darr (2004).

This case collection is valuable for its broad scope of discussed issues that range from quality improvement to strategic planning, include cases of ethical dilemmas, as well as issues of cost-benefit analyses and resource utilization.

The learning impact of both sources mentioned is especially high due to the case method they employ for teaching valuable lessons of management. Additionally, the cases discussed in those works appeal to the learner with their multifacetedness which allows of reconsidering them from various points of view depending on the learning situation.

A lifelong learning plan as such may seem an ambitious undertaking, but once it is neatly structured in a set of goals it appears much more comprehensible. In order to establish the range of goals to achieve, it is essential to realize what changes might occur in the given time within health care management and consequently to work out the ways one should direct one’s lifelong learning to keep abreast with the developments of the time.

The line of development of health care management in the coming decade can be envisaged as evolving in response to the evolution in organization and delivery of health care. The goals of a lifelong learning plan for a health care manager should therefore involve continuous adaptation and upgrading of managerial standards and strategies in response to the ever-changing situation.

A constantly developing health care manager should also build his/her activities in compliance with the technical achievements of health care industry that allow of new managerial techniques and approaches.

Moreover, the development within the lifelong learning plan should consider the current medical situation in the professional environment: health care management should correspond to the current needs of the patients in the given place and at the given time.

Last but not least, lifelong learning plan should have as its goal not only isolated personal development but also creating a learner-friendly environment that would allow sharing knowledge in a larger community of health care managers.

In order to achieve the aforementioned goals of the lifelong learning plan, the health care manager should work out certain winning strategies that would lead him/her to success. For the purpose of adapting and upgrading managerial standards, it is vital to observe the current trends in health care management and develop a flexible approach that would allow meeting the needs of every individual situation.

Technical modernity is promoted via openness to technical innovation and recognition of its importance for creating a contemporary health care institution.

With the view of satisfying the individual requirements of patients at a given time moment, the health care manager is required to possess sufficient up-to-date information on the contemporary health concerns of a given community.Finally, the requirement of constant knowledge sharing among health care managers necessitates creation of opportunities for information exchange and analysis.

In the short-term range, the number of steps to undertake in order to realize the aforementioned strategies for lifelong learning plan is quite high. One thing that appears vital is maintaining one’s learning activities constantly; this can be achieved through variegating them and connecting them with one’s daily working practice.

Thus for one thing, observation of current trends in health care management is possible through observing the experience of major health care establishments. The news of technical achievements and current medical picture of the community are available through firstly, own-conducted surveys and research and secondly, through regular reviewing up-to-date publications in related editions.

The favorable environment for group learning is created through establishing and actively participating in workshops and conferences of healthcare managers. In addition to those tactics, it is worth creating certain topical self-assessment modules that would stipulate the information to learn at a given period of time, as well as the study questions to be answered and practical tasks to be solved on the basis of that information.

Within those module both theoretical and practical assignments should be completed: theory can be drawn from multiple informative publications on health care, and practical tasks arise from everyday managerial activities. It goes without saying that the most efficient and sensible way to conduct lifelong learning is always to connect practice with theory and make sure that the latter serves the needs of the former.

Lifelong learning process makes sense as long as it yields certain results. In order to understand whether the expected outcomes are achieved or not, it is essential to carry out monitoring via a set of various procedures. The most available and immediate monitoring is conducted through self-analysis and own reflection on the course of actions.

Keeping a neat and detailed record of one’s long-term and short-term plans and ways of their realization would create a clear picture of the ways things go for the health care manager in the process of life learning. It would be logical to assume that if the goals are achieved, then the strategies and tactics have been chosen correctly; if not, then the strategies and tactics should be amended correspondingly.

In addition to self-assessment, solicitation of colleague opinions is absolutely vital. An objective detached view would point out the advantages and disadvantages of one’s actions, sometimes doing it more clearly due to impartiality and freshness of perception.

Therefore colleagues feedback should be gathered constantly, either directly (through immediate conversation) or indirectly (through observing colleagues’ cooperativeness and willingness to collaborate).

Achieving success in one’s lifelong learning is subject to action of certain risk factors that may either benefit or hinder one’s success. Among the crucial helping factors, information technology plays a role that is hard to overestimate. Learning as gaining, processing, creating, and sharing information is immensely facilitated by the ever-developing information technology and there is hope that this process continues on to the coming decade.

Professional factors, such as availability or absence of knowledgeable interlocutors who can share and develop knowledge, can play either a positive or a negative role correspondingly. Last but not least, the success or failure of one’s lifelong learning plan crucially depends on personal factors.

For one thing, the personality of the learner influences the learning process: such characteristics as stamina, self-organization, motivation, and openness to new ideas are indispensable to successful learning. For another thing, the personality of the people who may potentially share knowledge also matters: whether they are friendly and willing enough to cooperate is a decisive factor for obtaining the desired information.

Field, J. (2006). Lifelong learning and the new educational order (2nd ed.). Sterling, VA: Trentham Books Limited.

Rakich, J. S., Longest, B. B., & Darr, K. (Eds.). (2004). Cases in health services management (4th ed.). Baltimore, MD: Health Professions Press.

Useem, M. (1998). The leadership moment: Nine true stories of triumph and disaster and their lessons for us all . New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

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1. IvyPanda . "Developing a Lifelong Learning Plan." May 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/lifelong-learning-plan-article/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Developing a Lifelong Learning Plan." May 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/lifelong-learning-plan-article/.

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1 Lifelong Learning: Introduction

Manuel London, College of Business, State University of New York at Stony Brook

• Published: 21 November 2012
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This chapter examines the scope of the field of lifelong learning, covering definitions, environmental pressures, principal theories of development and learning, and environmental resources and structures that support lifelong learning. Lifelong learning is a dynamic process that varies depending on individual skills and motivation for self-regulated, generative learning and on life events that impose challenges that sometimes demand incremental/adaptive change and other times require frame-breaking change and transformational learning. The chapter previews the major sections of this handbook, which cover theoretical perspectives, research on learning throughout life, methods to promote learning, goals for learning (i.e., what is learned), the importance of cultural and international perspectives, and emerging issues and learning challenges.

Learning is all about change, and change drives learning. The two are inevitable and go hand in glove. Change imposes gaps between what is and what is going to be, or between what was and what is now. Change creates opportunities and imposes demands. In the workforce and other areas of life, change raises questions about readiness to take advantage of opportunities or to face demands for different ways of behaving and interacting and more demanding goals to achieve. Learning can bring about change by creating new capabilities and opening the door to new and unexpected opportunities. As such, learning is risky. It upsets the status quo, raising ambiguities and uncertainties. It also has the potential to empower a person to influence the future, providing choices that would not be available otherwise.

Throughout life, changes occur that are large and small. Small changes provoke incremental changes in behavior. They force us to adapt. Indeed, we learn to adapt to these small changes almost unconsciously. We develop routines that work and apply them as coping mechanisms for managing change. Usually, behaviors that work in one setting apply equally well in another setting or a different situation, perhaps with minor adaptations. However, when we are thrust into totally new situations—transitions that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, we learn new behaviors and skills that lead to transformational changes. If we fail to learn and fail to make the transformational change, we are likely to be mired in the past, perhaps stuck alone on a plateau while others move away and ahead of us, or worse yet, we face loss and a life of self-doubt or unhappiness.

Change and learning occur throughout our lives. They occur in work and career. Indeed, we spend our early lives in educational settings that give us life skills, but ultimately prepare us for a career. The question is whether we also learn how to learn so that we are prepared to face change, and create positive change for ourselves and others. Adaptive learners are prepared to make incremental changes. Generative learners are ready for transformational change. They seek new ideas and skills, experiment with new behaviors, and set challenging goals for themselves that bring them to new ideal states. Transformative learners have the skills to confront and create frame-breaking change. For them, change is the process of recognizing gaps, setting goals, establishing a learning plan, and maintaining motivation for carrying out the plan to achieve the goals.

This handbook is about lifelong learning. It clarifies the context and need for learning and sets an agenda for theory, research, and practice to promote successful learning and change throughout life. It examines the press for change and the concomitant need for learning at all career and life stages, through minor shifts and major transitions. It considers the extant research on learning and paves the way for exciting research that is needed to understand and promote learning to face the complexities, stresses, opportunities, and challenges of life. It examines methods to encourage and facilitate productive learning (learning that leads to goal accomplishment and meets life’s demands). It considers technological and cultural issues that shape learning in our fast-paced world. It recognizes generational differences and the value that people from different generations can contribute to each other. It also focuses our attention on emerging issues that direct future research and practice.

Lifelong or continuous learning is often viewed as the domain of adult or continuing education. This field examines how adults learn, usually within work contexts. The field encompasses continuing education and professional development programs offered by universities and corporate training centers. Today, such education is influenced by new technologies for instructional design and delivering educational programs. This handbook takes an expansive view of lifelong learning drawing from a host of fields, including psychology, sociology, gerontology, and biology. It looks at learning in young and old, in work and in life beyond the job, in Western and Eastern cultures across the globe. It offers understanding and direction to shape thinking about aging, personal growth, overcoming barriers, and innovation.

Transitions are a time for change. A key question is whether people are ready to change and learn. Opportunities for change may go unrecognized because people are stuck in their routines (Hertzog et al., 2008 ). People who are used to adapting will rely on transactions that worked in the past making incremental adjustments if necessary. People who seek new knowledge, like to try new things, and are sensitive to demands and challenges in their environment have learned how to be generative. Some have had the opportunity to be transformative in bringing about frame-breaking change.

Defining Lifelong Learning

Consider ways that lifelong learning has been conceptualized. A simple definition of lifelong learning is that it is “development after formal education: the continuing development of knowledge and skills that people experience after formal education and throughout their lives” (Encarta, 2008 ). Lifelong learning builds on prior learning as it expands knowledge and skills in depth and breadth (London, in press). Learning is “the way in which individuals or groups acquire, interpret, reorganize, change or assimilate a related cluster of information, skills, and feelings. It is also primary to the way in which people construct meaning in their personal and shared organizational lives” (Marsick, 1987 , p. 4, as quoted in Matthews, 1999 , p. 19).

The basic premise of lifelong learning is that it is not feasible to equip learners at school, college, or university with all the knowledge and skills they need to prosper throughout their lifetimes. Therefore, people will need continually to enhance their knowledge and skills, in order to address immediate problems and to participate in a process of continuous vocational and professional development. The new educational imperative is to empower people to manage their own learning in a variety of contexts throughout their lifetimes (Sharples, 2000 , p. 178; see also Bentley, 1998 ).

A traditional definition of lifelong learning is “all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective” (European Commission [EC], 2001, p. 9). Jarvis ( 2006 , p. 134) offered a more detailed definition: “The combination of processes throughout a life time whereby the whole person—body (genetic, physical and biological) and mind (knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, emotions, beliefs and senses)—experiences social situations, the perceived content of which is then transformed cognitively, emotively or practically (or through any combination) and integrated into the individual person’s biography resulting in a continually changing (or more experienced) person.”

London and Smither ( 1999a ) conceptualized career-related continuous learning as a pattern of formal and informal activities that people sustain over time for the benefit of their career development. Claxton ( 2000 ), examining the challenge of lifelong learning, focuses on resilience, resourcefulness, and reflectiveness and the learner’s toolkit of learning strategies including immersion in experiences. Candy ( 1991 ) examined the concept of self-direction for lifelong learning, exploring four principle domains of self-direction: personal autonomy, willingness and ability to manage one’s overall learning endeavors, independent pursuit of learning without formal institutional support or affiliation, and learner-control of instruction. Ways of increasing learners’ self-directedness is a challenge for adult educators.

Edwards ( 1997 ) examined different notions of a learning society and the changes in adult education theory and practice that will be required to create a learning society. He addressed issues of government policy pertaining to knowledge development, economic growth, technology, and learning. The focus should be less on ways of providing adult education in a formal sense and more on understanding outputs, that is, learning and learners’ capabilities. As such, adult education should support access and participation, open and distance learning, and assessment and accreditation of outcomes in an increasing number of learning settings.

Field ( 2006 ) considered lifelong learning as a new educational order. Noting that governments are actively encouraging citizens to learn and to apply their learning across their lifespan, he explored policy measures that governments are taking to encourage adult participation in learning across the life span to achieve a viable learning society.

Creating Learning Environments

Sternberg ( 1997 ) argued that society needs a broad understanding of intelligence as “the mental abilities necessary for adaptation to, as well as shaping and selection of, any environmental context” (p. 1036). Students perform better when they learn in a way that lets them capitalize on their strengths and compensate for and remediate their weaknesses. As such, instruction and assessment should be diverse to allow for learner-guided methods for encoding and applying subject matter.

Tannenbaum ( 1998 ) described how salient aspects of an organization’s work environment can influence whether continuous learning will occur. He surveyed over 500 people in seven organizations. The results showed that every organization has a unique learning profile and relies on different sources of learning to develop individual competencies.

Zairi and Whymark ( 2000 ) showed how the transfer of learning can become embedded in an organization. They described the case of Xerox’s and Nationwide Building Society’s continuous quality improvement training and processes, started in the 1970s, which became the basis for the company’s later culture of quality improvement through its business excellence certification process.

Other Handbooks of Lifelong Learning

Several handbooks of lifelong learning examine alternative views of lifelong learning. In the introduction to his handbook, Jarvis ( 2008 ) focused on the awareness of the gap between what we know and do not know as the stimulus for learning at any stage of life. In today’s complex world, the challenge of a learning gap is increasingly frequent, making lifelong learning a habit for many people. Learning becomes necessary to ensure employability and career progression (Jarvis, 2007 ). Employers recognize the need to provide learning opportunities to keep their employees, and their companies, competitive (Department for Education and Employment, 1998 ). From a societal perspective, nonindustrialized societies have more to learn, and learning is more nuanced and complex in industrialized societies (think knowledge workers; Jarvis, 2008 ). His handbook (Jarvis, 2008 ) focuses on the learner and the societal and international context. It examines where people learn, the modes of learning, social movements, and national policies that support lifelong learning.

The International Handbook of Lifelong Learning , edited by Aspin, Chapman, Hatton, and Sawano ( 2001 ), proposed policies and an agenda for schools in the 21st century, arising from the concept of the learning community and transformations of information technology, globalization, and the move toward a knowledge economy. “We are now living in a new age in which the demands are so complex, so multifarious and so rapidly changing that the only way in which we shall be able to survive them is by committing to a process of individual, communal, and global learning throughout the lifespan of all of us.”

Focusing on transformative learning, King’s ( 2009 ) Handbook of the Evolving Research of Transformative Learning Based on the Learning Activities Survey recognizes the multiple ways that people make meaning of their lives. “Transformational learning theory serves as a comprehensive way to understand the process whereby adult learners critically examine their beliefs, assumptions, and values in light of acquiring new knowledge and correspondingly shift their worldviews to incorporate new ideas, values and expectations” (King, 2002 , p. 286). Phases of transformative learning include experiencing disorientation (e.g., recognizing a learning gap), self-examination, critical assessment of assumptions, realizing that others have experienced similar processes, exploring options, forming an action plan, and reintegration (cf. Mezirow and Associates, 2000; Cranton, 1997 ).

Wang and King’s edited book ( 2007 ) focused on workplace competencies and instructional technology advances for vocational education to support workforce competitiveness. Longworth ( 2003 ) considered policy implications of lifelong learning.

Evers, Rush, and Berdrow ( 1998 ), addressing instructional development specialists, academic leaders, and faculty members in all types of postsecondary institutions, explained what skills and competencies students need to succeed in today’s workplace. They suggested how colleges and universities can strengthen the curriculum to cultivate those skills in their undergraduate students. The book is based on research that asked executives and university presidents to identify technical skills essential for workplace mastery. These skills include managing self, communicating, managing people and tasks, and mobilizing innovation and change.

Scope of the Field

In my chapter on lifelong learning for the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (London, in press), I examined lifelong learning from the standpoint of organizational needs and expectations, the importance of learning and development for career growth, individual differences in propensity for continuous learning, and support and reinforcement for development. I pointed out that trends driving continuous learning include pressures to maintain competitiveness and readiness to meet future needs influenced by such factors as globalization, changing technology, emphasis on sustainability, and economic cycles. I noted that support for learning includes the corporate environment and culture, the emergence of learning organizations, empowerment for self-development, and formal and informal methods of development. I discussed technological advances in career development, such as online multisource feedback surveys, just-in-time coaching, and Web-based training.

Understanding lifelong learning requires analyzing the societal, cultural, and organizational trends that drive continuous learning opportunities and behavior. Continuous learning has become a core competence for employees at all career stages (Hall & Mirvis, 1995 ). “Lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies; it is a necessity rather than a possibility or a luxury to be considered” (Fischer, 2000 , p. 265). In particular, consider the implications of lifelong learning for the growing body of professionals who are “permalancers” (Kamenetz, 2007). These individuals freelance their work as opportunities are available. They need to be aware of developments in their field of experience and may even have to change career directions in order to remain employed as they move from one temporary position to another. For most everyone, and especially knowledge workers, the complexity of our knowledge society poses information overload, the advent of high-functioning systems, and a climate of rapid technological change that demands continuous learning (Fischer, 2000 ).

Livingstone’s ( 2000 ) study of informal learning in Canada examined self-reported learning activities from a 1998 telephone survey of a national sample of 1,562 Canadian adults. The study found that more than 95% of the respondents reported being involved in some form of explicit informal learning activities that they considered significant, spending approximately 15 hours per week on informal learning on average, compared to an average of 4 hours per week in organized education courses. The most commonly cited areas of informal learning were computer skills for employment, communications skills through community volunteer activities, home renovations and cooking skills, and general interest learning about health issues.

Theories of Learning and Education

In my summary article describing the field of lifelong learning (London, in press), I noted that theories of learning and development focus on the interaction among environmental conditions, individual differences, task demands, educational technology, and career opportunities across the life span. Scholars have developed models of lifelong learning. For instance, Kozlowski and Farr ( 1988 ) developed and tested an interactionist framework to predict employee participation in updating skills. They highlight that innovation, adaptation to innovative change, and effective performance require up-to-date technical skills and knowledge obtained through participation in professional activities, continuing education, and new work assignments. Moreover, individual characteristics (e.g., technical curiosity and interest, readiness to participate in professional and continuing education activities) and contextual features (e.g., support for continued training, work characteristics that allow autonomy, and on-the-job support for learning, including feedback, the need to work with others, having a range of job functions, encountering novel problems, and uncertainty of outcomes) jointly affect individuals’ perceptions of need to learn and eventual participation in learning. People differ in their motivation to learn and in their ability to be self-directed in identifying need for learning and to control their engagement in learning (Candy, 1991 ). People develop a learning orientation as a positive feeling about learning (cf. Maurer, 2002 ) and form mastery learning goals (Bandura, 1986 ; Dweck, 1986 ). A “reflective practice” of viewing experiences as opportunities for learning and reexamining assumptions, values, methods, policies, and practices supports continuous learning habits (Marsick & Watkins, 1992 ). People learn to value and seek feedback to help them improve their performance (London & Smither, 2002 )

Life Span Development

Lifelong learning is knowledge-intensive and fluid. The clear divide between education followed by work is not as clear as it once was (Fischer, 2000 ). As such, considerable theory and research has focused on life span development. Vygotsky ( 1978 ) called the difference between an individual’s current level of ability and accomplishment and the individual’s potential level the zone of proximal development . Learning stimulates awareness of potential and of the gap between current knowledge and skills and one’s potential level. This awareness stimulates more mature, internal development processes. People become aware that they need to learn and they also become more aware of how they learn. As this occurs, they are likely to try more complex ways of learning that require deeper thinking and learning. According to Kegan’s model of life span development (see, for instance, Kegan, 1982 , 1994 ; Kegan & Lahey, 2001 ), a person moves to increasingly complex “orders of mind,” deeper levels of self-understanding and awareness of how others see the world—qualitatively different levels of social construction:

Cognitive processes of a young child.

Older children, teens, and some adults whose feelings are inseparable from those of others.

(“Traditionalism”) Teens and many adults who distinguish between their own and others’ viewpoints but feel responsible for others’ feelings. As such, they are terrific team players. More than fifty percent of all adults do not proceed beyond this third stage.

(“Modernism”) People who have a sense of self that is separate from a connection to others. They are autonomous and self-driven, self-governing and principled, but they do not quite understand the limits of self-governing systems.

(“Postmodern”) People who come to recognize the limits of their own system of principles—a stage of cognitive development that happens before midlife, if it is reached at all.

Learning experiences must be structured to recognize how people interpret events and deal with challenges that require a higher level of cognitive and emotional functioning. Some are more able than others.

Other stage models focus on ages and related life and career transitions. Hall’s ( 1976 ) career growth curve distinguishes between (1) exploration and trial (between ages 15 and 30), (2) establishment and advancement (ages 30–45), and (3) (after age 45) continued growth, maintenance, or decline and disengagement. Levinson’s ( 1997 ) career growth curve distinguished between (1) preadulthood (birth to about age 22), the formative period of defining and developing relationships and gaining a sense of self; (2) early adulthood (ages 17–45), when the individual defines and develops relationships and gains a sense of independence, the biologically peak years that may include the emergence of satisfaction from career advancement, creativitiy, and achievement of major goals or may be marked by disappointment and stress with overwhelming financial obligations, marriage problems, and parenting troubles; and possible (3) midlife transition (ages 40–45), with a new sense of individuation and contentment; (4) middle adulthood (ages 40–65), with diminished biological capacity but potential for personally and socially satisfying life and mentoring others; and (5) late adult transition (60–65 and beyond) with the potential for continued generative and reflective development, but for many, a time of physical or mental decline.

Theories about how people learn distinguish between reflective/passive learners, who learn by watching and listening, and experiential/active learners, who learn by doing (Kolb, 1984 ; Boyatzis & Kolb, 1991 ; Mainemelis, Boyatzis, & Kolb, 2002 ). Experiential learning occurs as individuals engage in exercises and on-the-job experiences that are unexpected and pose challenges. Van Velsor and Guthrie ( 1998 ) distinguished between four learning tactics: thinking, taking action, asking others, and dealing with one’s feelings; they suggest most individuals prefer one learning style but may use several.

Sessa and London ( 2006 ; London & Sessa, 2006 ; 2007 ) distinguished between adaptive, generative, and transformative learning. Adaptive learning is reactive, changing in minor ways or not at all depending on pressures or opportunities in the environment. Generative learning is proactive. Generative learners challenge themselves to become experts, seeking and trying new behaviors, skills, and knowledge (Senge, 1990 ). They take the initiative instead of expecting to be told what they need to learn and when they need to learn it. Transformative learning is reconstructing meaning and changing modes of operating in fundamental and dramatic way. People are ready to learn generatively and transformatively when they are high in such characteristics as self-efficacy, internal locus of control, extraversion, mastery learning orientation, cognitive ability, conscientiousness, self-monitoring, feedback seeking, openness to new experiences, and public self-consciousness (London & Smither, 1999a ).

Resources for Learning

Learning is both an individual and organizational responsibility. People do the learning, and must be motivated and take action to learn. The organization needs to provide the resources to enable and reward learning. An environment that empowers people to learn provides individuals with nonthreatening performance feedback, ensures choices for learning, encourages feedback seeking, and rewards participation in learning activities (London & Smither, 1999b ). In such an environment, managers support and reward employees who “(1) anticipate learning requirements, by, for instance, identifying areas for future job requirements and implications for needed skill updates, (2) set development goals that reflect needed knowledge and skill structures, (3) participate in learning activities, (4) ask for feedback to test goal relevance, and (5) track progress” (London & Smither, 1999b , p. 11).

Support and resources for learning comes from employers, educational institutions, and readily available resources, such as the Internet. An organizational culture for learning encourages discussing performance requirements, assessing performance, and providing in-the-moment coaching and feedback about performance (DeNisi & Kluger, 2000 ; Hall, 2001 ). Learning organizations are environments that are ripe with continuous change and that support experimentation. Learning organizations support learning at three levels: “(1) individual, through continuous opportunities, inquiry, and dialog; (2) team, through action learning and collaboration; and (3) organization, through systems that capture learning, empower participants, and link to the environment” (Marsick & Watkins, 1996 , p. 18). Formal training options include classroom/in-person training and distance/e-learning, just-in-time on-the-job training, Web-based training delivery, methods that blend Web-based with in-person training and formal training. Informal training is learning from experiences and challenges (career transition points, such as job transfers, exposure to different cultures, and being responsible for visible and difficult job assignments).

Organizational systems that promote learning need to take into account individual, group, and organizational factors (Kozlowski, Chao, & Jensen, 2009 ). At the individual level, required task and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities must be aligned with opportunities for acquiring technical and process knowledge through informal means, such as implicit learning, socialization, and mentoring, and formal means, such as workshops, courses, and on-the-job training, to increase employees’ task-relevant knowledge. At the group level, unit technology and work-flow structures must be aligned with chances to share knowledge through team learning and development, producing team members’ shared mental models, memory of how transactions are conducted, and the production and distribution of knowledge. At the organizational level, the organization’s mission, strategies, technologies, and structure must be aligned with a climate for learning and leadership training.

Focus of This Volume

This introductory section sets the stage by reviewing the scope of the handbook, identifying basic concepts and defining them, and relating continuous learning to environmental conditions, in particular, technological, economic, and organizational changes and individual motivation for learning and development across the life span.

The second section covers developmental theories and research. Chapters examine models of lifelong learning, the neurobiological bases for learning across the life span, developing self-awareness, and the value of experiential learning. Theoretical applications are considered within stages of the life span, including college students’ learning outside the classroom and a paradigm for intergenerational learning.

The third section is an extensive review of learning programs, tools, and technologies with a focus on corporate programs and business education. Chapters examine employee training and development, leadership development, continuing education, professionals as lifelong learners, and ways to foster students’ engagement in learning. One chapter considers the value of learning humanities as a foundation for critical thinking. Other chapters in the section consider tools and technologies such as assessment center applications, 360-degree survey feedback and coaching processes, electronic learning, and emerging wireless applications for access to learning through virtual environments.

The fourth section considers international perspectives on lifelong learning. The chapters in this section consider the implications of national cultures, and include a comparison of Western and Asian perspectives, a discussion of cross-national policy differences in school-to-work transitions, a look at alternative models of career development in Scandinavian countries, and a discussion of the impact of change and economic transformation on lifelong learning in Russia.

The fifth section focuses on emerging issues and challenges. Chapters examine the role of continuous learning in corporate performance management programs, gender-role and career opportunities for women, social entrepreneurship as a learning process, and the learning challenges faced by immigrants. Developmental issues for adults with learning disabilities are also examined.

The final sections address the importance of assessing learning needs and outcomes in lifelong learning support systems, emerging conceptualizations of adult training and learning, and lessons for educating tomorrow’s leaders. I conclude with an overview of trends and directions for lifelong learning programs and research.

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The Power of Lifelong Learning: What is it and Why is it Important?

Bryant & Stratton College Blog Staff

When did you last enjoy the satisfaction of learning something new? If this isn't a daily or weekly phenomenon, you're missing out—and you might be compromising your career. Thankfully, it is possible to integrate learning into your day-to-day life, as we see below.

What Is Lifelong Learning?

Lifelong learning involves ongoing academic pursuits that continue long after young adulthood. Under this approach, learning is entirely voluntary. This obviously differs from high school, where learning—or at least attendance—is required. But it also stands separate from the stereotypical view of college in which students focus exclusively on school in their late teens and early 20s before leaving it behind for good.

Under a lifelong model, learning cannot and should not conclude after graduating with a bachelor's or master's degree, nor should it occur exclusively with the intention of landing a specific type of job. Lifelong learning means that academic discovery is the goal in and of itself.

Why Is Lifelong Learning Important?

Take a close look at the average lifespan and the 'typical' academic trajectory, and you'll see a sharp divide. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports a life expectancy of 78.7 years for U.S. residents, but the majority of students still attend college in their late teens and early 20s. If they follow the 'expected' path, they could spend five or even six decades of their life without any concerted effort at obtaining further education. During that time, the skills and knowledge gained previously may be forgotten or outdated.

The need for lifelong learning may seem obvious from a professional standpoint, but it also holds personal implications. Ongoing mental stimulation is important for cognitive and emotional health. This is true at all ages but is especially evident among seniors. Research suggests that, as we age, a commitment to learning can limit the potential for memory loss and may even help to prevent concerns such as dementia.

What Are the Benefits of Lifelong Learning?

A wide array of benefits can accompany lifelong learning. This pursuit is beneficial for not only your professional development, but your personal development and emotional wellbeing. Top advantages include:

1. Finding New Areas of Passion

Lifelong learners are inquisitive, curious, and open to new ideas. As you take classes or explore new materials, you may be exposed to concepts that you might otherwise have never considered. Take this curiosity and uncover a new area of interest that ignites the passion for life you crave.

2. New Skill Development

A diverse skill set is imperative, especially as you attempt to transition to a new career path or secure a promotion. As a lifelong learner, you can gain a variety of useful abilities, such as mastery of new technology or clinical skills. You can also continue to develop soft skills such as verbal communication or problem-solving. These stand out on a resume and also make you more effective in everything from day-to-day work tasks to your favorite hobbies.

3. Keeping Up with the Latest Trends and Research

Research breakthroughs have shifted our understanding of virtually every field, thereby impacting how we operate across numerous sectors. This is exciting as it promotes a much-needed spirit of innovation as well as greater productivity.

Unfortunately, the fast pace of research means that it's easy to fall behind. If you're committed to continuous learning, however, you will be exposed to information about the latest developments. No matter how long you've been in the workforce, you can feel confident in knowing that you're up to date. This, combined with years of experience, will make you a compelling employee as you continue to climb the career ladder.

4. Improving Cognitive Health

As mentioned previously, a growing body of research suggests that lifelong learning can be helpful for mitigating a variety of concerns in your personal life that often arrive with age. A report from the journal Neurology reveals that intellectual activity across the lifespan can lead to major delays in symptoms for conditions such as Alzheimer's.

Upon reviewing this study and recommending it for publication, Dr. David Knopman explained, "If two people had the same amount of Alzheimer’s pathology, and one...engaged in more cognitively stimulating activities, and one...didn’t participate in as many mentally stimulating activities, then the symptoms [of Alzheimer’s] would appear earlier in the person with less cognitively stimulating activity."

5. Enjoying the Personal Satisfaction of Learning Something New

There's no feeling quite like true mental stimulation. Novel stimuli, in particular, light up the brain's reward centers, leading to the swift release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. After years in the workforce, however, many of us forget the sheer joy of academic discovery. When we commit to lifelong learning, we enjoy more of the special moments when it all clicks—and we are flooded with a sense of understanding and appreciation.

Examples of Lifelong Learning

While lifelong learning has always been attainable, it's even more accessible in today's digital world. Finding the time and motivation can be tough, but the materials and resources themselves are wonderfully abundant. The following are just a few of the many opportunities that allow you to pursue your lifelong learning goals:

1. Academic Journals

These days, the pace of advancement is staggering in nearly every field. Typically, the most important developments are outlined in academic journals, which offer a close look at the latest studies as well as a glimpse at the future. Restriction to some academic journals may be limited, but many are available within college libraries or with open access aggregators such as COnnectng REpositories (CORE) .

Blogs cover the gamut from entertaining to educational. They are published by individuals who are eager to share their thoughts. Many are also produced by businesses, nonprofit organizations, and colleges. Not only are the blog posts themselves packed with information, but they often include links to online resources or lists of books and journals worth referencing.

3. Podcasts

When life gets busy, it can feel tempting to leave learning for later. Thankfully, many easy-to-access opportunities allow you to learn on the go. Podcasts, for example, provide intriguing information in a digestible format. They span every topic imaginable, with many produced by academic and professional leaders who are eager to share their expertise with the public. Many are short enough to enjoy during your daily commute or while running errands, but in-depth episodes and series are also in strong supply.

4. Documentaries

Known as an educational tool, documentaries provide a uniquely engaging means of diving into material that might otherwise not feel particularly compelling or relatable. These should be viewed with caution, however, as many include a clear angle, and some are far more reliable than others. When in doubt, look for documentaries recommended by college instructors, librarians, or other respected individuals who know which resources are the most reliable. You'll find many excellent documentaries at your local library, but you can also stream them on services such as Netflix, Hulu, and even YouTube.

5. Online Courses

Books, journals, and podcasts can be helpful, but they may not always provide the sense of direction that aspiring learners need. These resources may be more effective if integrated into a comprehensive system, such as an online course. The simple act of enrolling in higher education provides a burst of motivation, while a detailed curriculum offers structure and accountability. Most important, however, are the connections formed with instructors and fellow students who bring context to cement newfound knowledge as well as support when the going gets tough.

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Most people associate learning with formal education at school, college, university etc.  We are all told, from an early age, that we should ‘get a good education’.

Generally speaking it is true that a formal education and the resulting qualifications are important. Education may maximise our potential to find better, more satisfying jobs, earn more and, perhaps, become more successful in our chosen career.

However, ‘schooling’ is only one type of learning. There are many other opportunities to further your knowledge and develop the skills you need throughout life.

Knowledge can be acquired and skill-sets developed anywhere – learning is unavoidable and happens all the time. However, lifelong learning is about creating and maintaining a positive attitude to learning both for personal and professional development.

Lifelong learners are motivated to learn and develop because they want to: it is a deliberate and voluntary act.

Lifelong learning can enhance our understanding of the world around us, provide us with more and better opportunities and improve our quality of life.

There are two main reasons for learning throughout life: for personal development and for professional development . These reasons may not necessarily be distinct as personal development can improve your employment opportunities and professional development can enable personal growth.

Learning for its own sake brings its own advantages. For example, learning in whatever context:

• Boosts our confidence and self-esteem
• Makes us less risk averse and more adaptable to change when it happens
• Helps us achieve a more satisfying personal life
• Challenges our ideas and beliefs

Learning for Personal Development

There does not need to be a specific reason for learning since learning for the sake of learning can in itself be a rewarding experience.

There is a common view that continuous learning and having an active mind throughout life may delay or halt the progress of some forms of dementia, although there is actually very little scientific evidence to support these claims. However, keeping the brain active does have advantages since learning can prevent you from becoming bored and thus enable a more fulfilling life at any age.

There are, of course, many reasons why people learn for personal development.

You may want to increase your knowledge or skills around a particular hobby or pastime that you enjoy.

Perhaps you want to develop some entirely new skill that will in some way enhance your life – take a pottery or car mechanic course for example.

Perhaps you want to research a medical condition or your ancestry.

Perhaps you’re planning a trip and want to learn more about the history and culture of your destination.

Maybe you will decide to take a degree course later in life simply because you enjoy your chosen subject and the challenges of academic study.

Learning for Professional Development

Our capacity to earn is directly related to our willingness to learn.

Being well-educated is not necessarily the key to employment.

Although qualifications may get you an interview, actually getting the job can take a lot more.

Employers are looking for well-balanced people with transferable skills . This includes the ability to be able to demonstrate that you are keen to learn and develop.

If you do find yourself unemployed then use the time wisely. Learning something new can pay-off with new opportunities which might not otherwise have arisen.

While you are employed, take advantage of training, coaching or mentoring opportunities and work on your continuous professional development as you will likely become better at what you do and more indispensable to your current or future employer.

Putting the time in for extra learning brings its own rewards.

It means we can get more personal satisfaction from our lives and jobs as we understand more about who we are and what we do. This can lead to better results and a more rewarding working day in turn.  If you choose to learn about another complementary sector, this enables opportunities to specialise and potentially earn more or move to a connected industry. In turn this gives us wider experience on which to build our knowledge and more transferable skills in readiness for your next move.

From a financial point of view, a more highly skilled and knowledgeable worker is an asset to any company and can lead to faster promotion with associated salary increases.

Someone who can offer more expertise will be of more value not just to employers but also to customers. Expertise is also, often, a key quality of an effective leader.

If you are frustrated with your job, continuing to hone your skills will make it easier to find new ways out of a potentially stressful work situation. Keeping an open mind to learning and giving yourself room for flexibility is key to job satisfaction.  Furthermore, potentially staying ahead of competitors for jobs by being more experienced or knowledgeable can give you an edge.

MASTER your Learning

In his book, Master it Faster, Colin Rose uses the mnemonic MASTER to describe the six stages he believes are key to becoming an effective learner. These stages can be applied to any type of learning, either formal or informal.

• M otivation

Lifelong learning requires self-motivation. You need to feel positive about learning and about your ability to learn. If you struggle to see the point of learning what you are learning, you are unlikely to do well.

See our page Self-Motivation for more.

Effective learning requires that you acquire information through reading, listening, observing, practising, experimenting and experience. Information is all around you: the trick is to acquire relevant and meaningful information and develop this into knowledge and skills.

See our Study Skills section for more on effective learning techniques.

Learning is successful when we can search for a personal meaning in the information we’re acquiring. We find it hard to remember facts without understanding them or being able to put them into context.

Learning is about applying what you acquire and asking yourself questions such as: ‘ How does this idea help in my life? ’ or ‘ What has this experience taught me about myself? ’

Human beings are notoriously bad at retaining information. You cannot and will not remember all that you read, hear and experience. You can help to trigger recollection in a variety of ways. For example, you can take notes, practice, discuss and experiment with new ideas and skills to help you learn and develop.

Our pages on Note-Taking may help here.

You should regularly examine your knowledge to help reinforce in your mind what you have learned.  You should always try to keep an open-mind, question your understanding and be open to new information.

Talking to others and seeing their point of view can be a powerful way of examining your own perception and understanding of a subject.

Finally, you should reflect on your learning. Think about how and why you learned, including how you felt about a particular topic or situation, before and after you developed your knowledge.

Learn from your mistakes as well as from your successes and always try to remain positive.

See our page on Reflective Practice for more.

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Learning Gives You Options

The bottom line is that, whatever your life path, there are a number of sometimes unanticipated benefits to continual personal and professional development.

Whatever your age, it's never too late to start.

Successfully changing career path in mid-life and spending time informally developing expertise is more common than ever, especially during rapidly changing market conditions.

Most people still rely on succeeding in employment for their ability to earn a living. The more flexible we can be about our direction, the easier we make our lives.

Our economy is shifting increasingly towards short-term and part-time contracts with more flexible work-patterns whilst old industries are shifting abroad.  We have to adapt to changes going on in the work-world and make more of ourselves by stepping out of our comfort zones and ideas of how we believe our life is going.

Relying on job permanence for earnings and promotion is not as feasible as it once was.

Because of work-life instability, more people of all ages are turning their hobby into a business idea. Continually following one’s passion outside of work hours can lead you to get paid for doing what you love, and typically you will develop business and other transferable skills as you go along until the point that you can delegate your least favourite jobs.

Continue to: Personal Development Continuing Professional Development

See also: Curiosity Learning Styles

Seven essential elements of a lifelong-learning mind-set

Organizations around the world are experiencing rapid, sweeping changes in what they do, how they do it, and even why they do it. Increasing globalization and new technologies demand new modes of working and talent with new and diverse skills. To flourish in this environment, individuals must keep learning new skills. In fact, studies show that workers who maintain their ability to learn outpace other professionals. 1 Barbara Mistick and Karie Willyerd, Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow‘s Workplace, first edition, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016. The people who will thrive in the 21st century will be those who embrace lifelong learning and continually increase their knowledge, skills, and competencies. 2 Hae-du Hwang and Daesung Seo, “Policy implication of lifelong learning program of EU for Korea,” Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012, Volume 46, pp. 4822–9, doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.06.342.

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Building a workforce of such lifelong learners is critical for organizations to respond to a changing business environment. To ensure they have the required skills and talent, companies must create a learning-for-all culture in which people are encouraged and inspired to continue learning new skills.

But the burden does not fall exclusively on businesses; it’s also up to the individual to seize the opportunity to get ahead. Seven distinctive practices can help employees become lifelong learners and remain relevant in today’s business environment (Exhibit 1).

1. Focus on growth

Learning starts and ends with the individual. But is there a limit to how much a person can learn? Is intelligence fixed at birth or can it be developed? In 2008, researchers asked the ten best chess players in the world—people who had spent 10,000 to 50,000 hours mastering the game—to take an IQ test. 3 Nicholas Mackintosh, IQ and Human Intelligence, first edition, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998. They discovered that three out of ten had a below-average IQ. Since playing chess at the top level in the world is associated with extreme intelligence, they wondered how this result was possible.

Many studies have confirmed that it is not intelligence that creates expertise but effort and practice—that is, hard work. 4 Geoffrey Colvin, “What it takes to be great,” Fortune, October 19, 2006, fortune.com. The most successful people devote the most hours to deliberate practice, tackling tasks beyond their current level of competence and comfort, observing the results, and making adjustments. 5 Edward T. Cokely, K. Anders Ericsson, and Michael J. Prietula, “The making of an expert,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2007, hbr.org. Such studies show that intelligence can be developed and that there are no limitations on what we can learn throughout our lives. Indeed, the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use, and learning prompts neurons in the brain to make new connections. 6 Jesper Mogensen, “Cognitive recovery and rehabilitation after brain injury: Mechanisms, challenges and support,” Brain Injury: Functional Aspects, Rehabilitation and Prevention, Copenhagen, Denmark: IntechOpen, March 2, 2012, pp. 121–50, doi.org/10.5772/28242.

Over the past 30 years, Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford University, has intensively studied learners. 7 Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, first edition, New York, NY: Random House, 2006. She has determined that people generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to how they view their ability to learn: a fixed mind-set or a growth mind-set. And she has concluded that mind-set has a significant impact on the effort put forward, perception of criticism, willingness to accept failure, and, ultimately, how much will be learned.

People with a fixed mind-set believe that their learning potential is predetermined by their genes, their socioeconomic background, or the opportunities available to them. They might have thoughts like, “I’m not good at public speaking, so I should avoid it.”

Those with a growth mind-set, however, believe that their true potential is unknown because it is impossible to foresee what might happen as a result of passion, effort, and practice. They appreciate challenges because they see them as opportunities for personal growth. Ultimately, they may achieve more of their potential than someone with a fixed mind-set.

Organizations can encourage employees to tackle new challenges and learn new skills by assigning them new and different tasks. But individuals need to believe that they have unlimited capacity to learn and grow. People can take the following actions to develop a growth mind-set 8 Jim Thompson, Mindset: Powerful Insights from Carol Dweck, Stanford University Athletic Department, Positive Coaching Alliance, 2010, positivecoach.org. :

• Determine if you have a fixed mind-set and, if you do, establish why.
• Recognize that you have a choice in how you approach and interpret new tasks, ideas, or situations.
• Learn to hear and observe the fixed mind-set voice without judgment while continuing to embrace challenges.
• Refocus with a growth mind-set.

2. Become a serial master

Traditionally, workers developed deep expertise in one discipline early in their career and supplemented this knowledge over the years with on-the-job development of integrative competencies. This kind of knowledge can be represented by a T-shape or profile  (Exhibit 2).

Longevity has made this approach obsolete. Since 1840, life expectancy has increased three months for every year, meaning that people are staying, and will continue to stay, in the workforce longer. 9 Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, first edition, London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2016. Because of this trend, they need depth in different areas of expertise, supplemented with targeted on-the-job development, to stay relevant. Today, knowledge should resemble an M-shape or profile (Exhibit 3).

Imagine someone has her master’s degree in journalism and begins her career working at a publication. During her 30s, she finds herself specializing in financial journalism, so she decides to pursue a master’s degree in business economics. As she proceeds into their 40s and 50s, she might continue to grow by taking in-depth master classes on related topics, such as digitization.

Relevant skills have become currency in the workplace. Using the M-profile as a guide and achieving mastery in a few topics will set professionals apart. Organizations, for their part, can support workers in their development by offering stipends for coursework and suggesting master classes and professional development sessions.

Many researchers have suggested that learning takes place only when people stretch outside their comfort zone. 10 Andy Molinsky, “If you’re not outside your comfort zone, you won’t learn anything,” Harvard Business Review, July 29, 2016, hbr.org. When people work on tasks that aren’t entirely comfortable, they are said to be in their learning zone, where they acquire new knowledge and develop and practice new skills. 11 Andy Molinsky, “If you’re not outside your comfort zone, you won’t learn anything,”  Harvard Business Review,  July 29, 2016, hbr.org.

The learning zone exposes people to risk and stress, which can either be helpful or detrimental to their efforts. According to the Yerkes–Dodson Law, a curvilinear relationship exists between an increase of stress (which they term “arousal”) and the enhancement of performance (Exhibit 4). 12 John D. Dodson and Robert M. Yerkes, “The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation,” Journal of Comparative Neurology, November 1908, Volume 18, Number 5, pp. 459–82, doi.org/10.1002/cne.920180503. When people first encounter a new task, they experience “good” stress, leading to a higher level of performance. However, too much stress can cause anxiety (“bad” stress) and have a negative impact on performance. So, while it’s important for people to stretch outside their comfort zone, it’s critical to choose the right tasks and the right pace.

The personal growth and stretching that individuals experience from continued exposure to the learning zone typically follows a standard progression represented as an S-curve. 13 Whitney Johnson, “Throw your life a curve,” Harvard Business Review, September 3, 2012, hbr.org. Developed in the 1960s, the S-curve shows how, why, and at what rate ideas and products spread throughout societies. 14 Whitney Johnson, “Throw your life a curve,”  Harvard Business Review,  September 3, 2012, hbr.org.

When people try something new, such as starting a new job, they are at the beginning of a new S-curve. They experience a steep learning curve in which their knowledge and skills increase rapidly. During this first stage of the S-curve, their progress and the business impact of their performance are limited. After a time, they reach an inflection point where their understanding, competence, and confidence suddenly accelerate very quickly, and they have an increasing impact on the business.

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Continuing in the role for a bit longer, they will reach the upper, flat part of the S-curve. At this stage, the excitement of the new role has worn off, personal learning and development have stalled, tasks and activities have become automatic, boredom has kicked in, and their impact on the business has slowed down significantly.

If people stay in their comfort zone—not seeking out new challenges or new roles—their performance may suffer, and they might even be replaced. Lifelong learners, however, can avoid this pitfall and find new ways to stretch by starting a new S-curve. And organizations can help keep employees on track by providing learning and stretching opportunities at timed intervals.

4. Build a personal brand

Everyone has a professional brand, whether it’s a carefully crafted expression of who they want to be or simply the impression they make on others. A brand communicates a person’s value and provides a focus for personal learning and development. A brand that defines a person’s best elements and differentiates him is essential in achieving career goals—and in demonstrating his accomplishments, both to potential employers and current colleagues. When colleagues understand who a person is and what unique capabilities they bring to the table, that person is more likely to receive interesting new assignments or be considered first for new positions.

Key elements of a personal brand include authenticity, a clear value proposition, a story, expertise, consistency, visibility, and connections. In Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood suggest individuals can build a brand by setting clear goals for the year ahead, acknowledging what they want to be known for, being clear about their identity, and writing and testing a personal brand statement.

Once individuals craft their brand statement, they can use social media tools to help convey that brand and their skill set. For example, it’s possible to earn digital badges for a LinkedIn profile through online learning vendors such as Coursera, edX, Lynda.com, and Udemy. Such badges demonstrate not only a person’s skills but also their commitment to continued growth.

A personal brand is not static—it should evolve over the course of a career. Since most people develop new skills and play different professional roles, they will need to rebrand themselves multiple times. Lifelong learners use the process of building a brand to think through what skills they have and which ones they should develop to make themselves more marketable—both within the company and beyond. L&D professionals can counsel people in this process and provide a way for them to develop the necessary skills.

5. Own your development

Lifelong employment no longer exists, so people today expect to work for many organizations throughout their careers—and maybe even for themselves at times. To maintain forward motion in an environment that lacks continuity, people need to own their development and take charge of their learning through the following actions (Exhibit 5).

Create and execute learning goals. To become and stay successful, people need to ask themselves, “How can I ensure that I’m more valuable at the end of a year than I was at the beginning?” Individuals can create learning goals by assessing their current knowledge and expertise and identifying competency gaps. They should also plan to pursue the most important learning goals relentlessly, a trait that can become a competitive advantage.

Measure progress. People should periodically reflect and assess their progress. Learning journals or logs in which people can track what they learn have proved to be extremely valuable.

Work with mentors and seek feedback. Lifelong learners can forge a relationship with a mentor by letting different stakeholders know that they are open to feedback and by setting up formal check-ins to review their work and collect feedback. Feedback from supervisors, peers, direct reports, customers, and clients is a critical component of professional development.

Make personal investments. The level of learning required for individuals who want to retain a market-relevant skill set exceeds the amount of formal and informal learning hours that most organizations offer their employees. Therefore, people need to make more personal time and financial investments in their growth and development.

The following questions can help guide people as they endeavor to own their development 15 Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, Immunity to change: How to overcome it and unlock the potential in yourself and your organization, first edition, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2009. :

• What is one thing you are working on that will require that you grow to accomplish it?
• How are you working on it?
• Who else knows and cares about it?
• Why does this matter to you?

6. Do what you love

Most people are in the workforce for 40 to 50 years, and they spend a lot of their waking hours at work. As such, work has a huge impact on a person’s health and well-being, so it’s imperative that people do what they love.

Elevating Learning & Development: Insights and Practical Guidance from the Field

A sense of purpose is essential for a well-lived life. In Japan, the term ikigai means “reason for being,” and it encompasses all elements of life—including career, hobbies, relationships, and spirituality. The discovery of one’s ikigai brings satisfaction and imbues life with meaning. 16 Gordon Mathews, What Makes Life Worth Living?: How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds, first edition, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1996. A study of more than 43,000 Japanese adults showed that the risk of mortality was significantly higher among subjects who did not find a sense of ikigai than among those who did. 17 Toshimasa Sone et al., “Sense of life worth living (ikigai) and mortality in Japan: Ohsaki study,” Psychosomatic Medicine, August 2008, Volume 70, Number 6, pp. 709–15, doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e31817e7e64.

To find ikigai, start by answering four questions (Exhibit 6) 18 Alyjuma, “Ikigai: The reason you get up in the morning,” blog entry by Aly Juma, alyjuma.com. :

• What do you love?
• What does the world need?
• What can you be paid for?
• What are you good at?

Ikigai lives at the intersection of these questions. Of course, everyone’s journey of discovery will be different. What’s more, the meaning of work depends on how we view our work—our motivation as well as the objective of the work. There are there common different ways to look at the meaning of work (Exhibit 7).

Although organizations have a great responsibility to provide a context for meaning, individuals can do much to create a calling for themselves.

Exploring career purpose, meaning, and passion is not easy. It takes intentional reflection and planning. Individuals can also seek guidance from a career counselor or explore life design. Life design is a concept emerging from career choice and development theories as a method to help people explore and develop their identity and deliberately design a life that will give them meaning. 19 Mark L. Savickas et al., “Life designing: A paradigm for career construction in the 21st century,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2009, Volume 75, Number 3, pp. 239–50, doi. org.

Today, academic institutions are also helping set people up to craft a life they can love. For example, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans created a popular “Designing Your Life” program at Stanford University. Intended for juniors and seniors looking for career guidance, the course teaches learners to apply design principles to life and career planning. Participants learn about five mind-sets: be curious, try stuff, reframe the problem, know it’s a process, and ask for help. They learn about a range of different tools, from design thinking and a daily gratitude journal to decks of cards featuring problem-solving techniques and life-design interviews. Instead of taking a final exam, learners present three radically different five-year “odyssey” plans to their peers. Alumni of the program report that they repeatedly refer back to the tools and their odyssey plans as they evaluate and redesign their lives. Burnett and Evans have made their philosophy and tools available to everyone in their book, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. 20 Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, first edition, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.

7. Stay vital

The ability to stay vital can contribute significantly to a person’s development. This goal demands that individuals make health and well-being a priority—paying attention to exercise, nutrition, sleep, and relaxation (for example, mindfulness and yoga) and developing good, sustainable habits. The impact of such personal care and self-nurturing can be far-reaching: sufficient sleep has a huge impact on our ability to acquire, retain, and retrieve knowledge. Sleep also affects attention and concentration, creativity, development of insight, pattern recognition, decision-making, emotional reactivity, socioemotional processing, development of trusted relationships, and more. 21 Nick van Dam and Els van der Helm, “ The organizational cost of insufficient sleep ,” McKinsey Quarterly, February 2016.

Longevity in the workforce requires reinvention and growth. A reservoir of energy to support this hard work will help set individuals on the path to lifelong learning and provide the resilience needed to sustain these efforts.

While current circumstances demand that workers today be lifelong learners, many education systems and organizations are not set up to support this kind of learning. Individuals, then, must take responsibility for their continued development and growth. These seven elements can serve as a guide to those who wish to stay relevant and grow into new and different roles throughout their career.

For a free survey on lifelong learning, go to www.reachingyourpotential.org .

A version of this chapter was published in Nick van Dam, Learn or Lose , Breukelen, Netherlands: Nyenrode Publishing, November 2016. It is also included in Elevating Learning & Development: Insights and Practical Guidance from the Field , August 2018.

Jacqueline Brassey is director of Enduring Priorities Learning in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office, where Nick van Dam is an alumnus and senior adviser to the firm as well as professor and chief of the IE University (Madrid) Center for Learning Innovation;  Katie Coates is a senior learning manager in the Philadelphia office.

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Adapt and thrive: Lifelong learning as a key to success

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Successful individuals and startups leverage lifelong learning as their secret weapon, staying ahead, embracing innovation, and building resilience in a dynamic and competitive market.

Adapting to new environmental and social conditions has always been a defining challenge for humanity. However, in the 21st century, the rapid development of technology, the rise of automation, and the prevalence of artificial intelligence are radically transforming the labor market and the way work is performed. 

Adapting to such rapid changes and acquiring new skills becomes crucial for the success of individuals and companies. Therefore, companies are not seeking "perfect professionals" but individuals capable of learning and mastering the necessary knowledge and skills for their work. Employers are looking for graduates willing and able to adapt to the changing conditions of their work and become experts during their job-related learning. 

Lifelong learning has become one of the most important factors in the modern labor market, where constantly changing environmental conditions and technological developments determine the situation of workers and the success of businesses. Individuals who are committed to lifelong learning and adapt flexibly to changes are much more likely to find and retain good jobs and advance in their careers. 

Therefore, lifelong learning enables individuals to find effective and flexible ways to meet the demands of new job roles and challenges. As technology and industries evolve, new types of jobs emerge, requiring skills that were not previously considered. A report by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) suggests that employers believe that in 10 years, they will be hiring for positions that do not currently exist . Through lifelong learning, people can adapt and acquire new skills, allowing them to remain competitive in the labor market. 

Learning does NOT end with school

Adaptability: The startup's secret weapon 

In the startup ecosystem, adaptability is not just a desirable trait; it is a survival strategy. Lifelong learning becomes the secret weapon that allows entrepreneurs to pivot in response to market shifts, technological advancements, and unforeseen challenges. Lifelong learning includes the principle that learning and training do not only take place at school or during a specific period, but continuously throughout our lives. This means that for employees, there is an opportunity to acquire new knowledge , develop skills and adapt to the current labor market requirements.  

Adaptability is the most important attribute in the current business climate

Lifelong learning: The cornerstone of startup success 

Lifelong learning becomes crucial for success in the (labor) market, and this is the driving force behind adaptability, enabling startups to: 

• Stay ahead of the curve : By constantly expanding their knowledge base, startups can identify emerging trends, adapt their strategies, and capitalize on new opportunities before their competitors. 
• Embrace innovation : A commitment to lifelong learning fosters a mindset of experimentation and risk-taking, encouraging startups to explore new ideas, develop disruptive technologies, and redefine their industry. 
• Build resilience : Adaptability allows startups to weather unforeseen challenges, such as economic downturns or technological disruptions. By continuously learning and evolving, they can find new solutions, pivot their business models, and emerge stronger from setbacks. 

The importance of adaptability in leadership is further emphasized by a recent survey conducted by Harvard Business School, indicating that 70% of 1500 leaders from 90 countries consider adaptability to be one of the most important attributes in the current business climate. 

Startups as learning organizations 

Successful startups often function as learning organizations, where the entire team is committed to continuous improvement. This organizational culture emphasizes the value of ongoing education and skill development.  

Lifelong learning and adaptability go hand in hand, as individual personal and professional development heavily depends on the willingness to expand knowledge and adapt to changing environmental demands. Entrepreneurs who foster a learning-centric environment empower their teams to embrace creativity and innovation , enabling adaptation to emerging technologies and customer expectations. This way, they become more competitive in the market, as they can respond more effectively to changing circumstances and gain an edge over competitors 

Global collaboration and cultural competence 

In today's interconnected world, the ability to collaborate across borders and understand diverse cultures is becoming increasingly important. Lifelong learning emphasizes the development of global collaboration skills and cultural competence, recognizing them as key components of the 8 competences of lifelong learning . Startups that prioritize these aspects not only create a more inclusive work environment but also position themselves to thrive in a global marketplace, where diverse perspectives drive innovation and market expansion . 

Postdoctoral Researcher at Esade Entrepreneurship Institute

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Importance of Education — Education: The Key to Success

Education: The Key to Success

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Empowering individuals, fostering innovation and progress, contributing to societal betterment.

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Lifelong Learning in the Educational Setting: A Systematic Literature Review

Win phyu thwe.

1 Doctoral School of Education, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Anikó Kálmán

2 Department of Technical Education, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Műegyetem rkp.3, H-1111, Budapest, Hungary

This systematic literature review aimed to provide updated information on lifelong learning in educational research by examining theoretical documents and empirical papers from 2000 to 2022. This review sought to identify concepts, theories, and research trends and methods linked to lifelong learning in educational research in different countries. Our review findings showed that theoretical papers, such as reports, policies, and concepts of lifelong learning, are generally much more extensive than empirical studies. Word cloud analysis revealed that the most prominent concepts were lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and the three types of lifelong learning (formal, nonformal, and informal). Following the inductive analysis, this study investigated three common research trends: conceptual framework or policies of lifelong learning, lifelong learning abilities, and influencing factors of lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities. Regarding methodology, this study identified only three studies that used mixed methods, which is insufficient in the field. In addition, heterogeneity was also observed between research instruments in lifelong learning. Different data analysis techniques can be applied in this field, including content analysis, descriptive analysis, and inferential analysis. Finally, the participants involved in the examined studies were students, primary and secondary school teachers, undergraduates, postgraduates, student teachers, European Union Lifelong Learning experts, young adults, teacher educators, administrators, and academic staff.

Introduction

Lifelong learning is a broad term whose definitions have common meanings and which has been explained by organizations such as the European Commission, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The European Commission ( 2001 ) defines lifelong learning as any intentional learning activities conducted throughout a person’s lifetime to improve their knowledge, skills, and competencies from an individual, municipal, societal, and/or career standpoint. From this conventional definition, a more robust definition of lifelong learning emerged—that is, lifelong learning refers to all processes that transform a person’s body, mind, and social experiences intellectually, emotionally, and practically before they are integrated into their life story, resulting in a more experienced individual (Jarvis, 2009 ).

Meanwhile, the UNESCO definition of lifelong learning includes all intentional learning from birth to death that attempts to advance knowledge and skills for anyone who intends to engage in learning activities. Part of the broad definition of lifelong learning refers to both informal learning in settings such as the workplace, at home, or in the community and formal education in institutions such as schools, universities, and alternative education centers (Tuijnman et al., 1996 ). According to the European Lifelong Learning Initiative, lifelong learning is a consistently supportive process that stimulates and empowers individuals in acquiring all the awareness, values, skills, and comprehension they would require throughout their lifetime and apply them with self-belief, innovation, and pleasure in all positions, contexts, and climates (Watson, 2003 ). Therefore, lifelong learning can be generally defined as learning that one seeks throughout their life and that is flexible, varied, and accessible at diverse times and locations.

According to John Dewey, education is the process of giving a person the skills necessary to take charge of their world and fulfill their obligations. The ideas of education and lifelong learning endure over the life of an individual's existence. Lifelong learning transcends the limits of education and goes beyond traditional education (Edwards & Usher, 1998 ). In this regard, it is vital to assess how education settings can support lifelong learning. This literature review is the groundwork for the future implementation of educational institutions as lifelong learning centers.

Importance of a Systematic Literature Review of Lifelong Learning

A review of educational research in lifelong learning is the initial step to understanding relevant concepts and conducting empirical research. Both narrative and systematic reviews help identify research gaps and develop research questions, respectively. Meanwhile, systematic reviews include not only information obtained from the literature but also the adopted approach and where and how the literature was found. The significance of a systematic literature review (Cronin, 2011 ; Mallett et al., 2012 ) can be seen in the criteria used to assess whether to include or exclude a study from the review, reducing article selection bias.

Do et al. ( 2021 ) conducted the first systematic scientific investigation of the literature on lifelong learning although the selected studies focused only on the Southeast Asia context. Because the researchers used bibliometric analysis, it was not possible to study the intricacies of a lifelong learning issue, evaluate the quality of each scientific paper, or accurately highlight its effects on the topic. To overcome these limitations and provide a more general overview of the research topic, another systematic review of lifelong learning literature must be conducted. Therefore, our research will contain policy document, theoretical and empirical papers from 2000 to 2022 to provide updated information on lifelong learning in educational research. This literature review aims to identify concepts and theories, research areas, research trends, and research methods associated with lifelong learning in educational research in different countries. These intentions have guided the following research questions for this literature review:

• What concepts and theories have been applied to explain lifelong learning in education research?
• What research problems have been examined in lifelong learning in education research?
• What research methodologies have been adopted to evaluate lifelong learning in education?

Methodology

Lifelong learning in the educational setting is assessed using a systematic review of literature instead of a narrative review or bibliometric analysis. A systematic literature review is considered as a scientific, unambiguous, and repeatable process for locating, analyzing, and summarizing every available published and registered research article to address a clearly articulated question (Dewey & Drahota, 2016 ). To ensure the effectiveness of the document search strategy, this study used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) as suggested by Page et al. ( 2021 ).

This study employed the largest multidisciplinary databases, such as Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and ProQuest, to search for studies in lifelong learning. It also investigated two institution-based websites focusing on lifelong learning, the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning and the European Commission, and gathered their policy documents, publications, and reports. Throughout the period 2000–2022, all lifelong learning studies were considered to ensure that all up-to-date information is captured. Our keywords were “lifelong learning” and “education,” and we set our filters to include open-access articles and journals related to education, social science, and the English language. Based on the publication of hundreds of articles, we developed our inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Included and Excluded Studies

We selected articles based on the following criteria: published in educational science and social science publications, employed both theoretical and empirical research (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), and open access. The decision was made to exclude lifelong learning articles that did not focus on the education field, such as medicine, engineering, and labor studies, and those with unsuitable titles and abstracts. Duplicate articles were removed after the articles that met these criteria were assessed using R Studio software.

The screening stage involved an evaluation of titles and abstracts to determine their suitability for the research question and literature review methodology. Through this method, we discovered irrelevant articles and removed them. The remaining policy documents, theoretical and empirical studies were reviewed and analyzed in the last screening round, producing a total of 55 eligible articles. Figure  1 shows the procedure of finding and selecting relevant literature according to the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram (Page et al., 2021 ).

Selection procedure of studies for analysis according to PRISMA 2020

Data Extraction and Analysis

To answer the research questions, we categorized lifelong learning concepts and theories, research trends, and methods. We extracted the concepts and theories from both policy documents, theoretical and empirical publications and then gathered information on research trends and methods based on empirical studies. We then conceptually coded and categorized the data and used R Studio software to analyze the articles both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Lifelong Learning Concepts and Theories

Our analysis of 55 studies covering the period 2000–2022 showed that lifelong learning was explained using different concepts based on the research area and trends. An overview of concepts related to lifelong learning can be found in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Meanwhile, the results of the word cloud analysis in R Studio (Fig.  2 ) revealed that the most prominent concepts were lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and the three types of lifelong learning (formal, nonformal, and informal).

Analysis of concepts related with lifelong learning

Word cloud analysis of lifelong learning concepts

Many publications included in our review lack a clear theory of lifelong learning. Our analysis of the 55 studies, however, revealed an attempt by scholars to apply comprehensive theory (Bagnall, 2017 ), theory of transformative learning (Eschenbacher & Fleming, 2020 ), theories of societal learning (Osborne & Borkowska, 2017 ) to lifelong learning.

Research Areas in Lifelong Learning

We inductively analyzed 21 of the 55 empirical studies in our review to examine the common research problems that the researchers presented and addressed. From this analysis, three common research areas emerged: problems associated with the conceptual framework or policies of lifelong learning, issues surrounding lifelong learning abilities, and challenges linked to factors that influence lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities. Table ​ Table2 2 presents a detailed analysis of these research problems in the 21 studies.

Analysis of research areas

We also found that researchers described lifelong learning abilities using terms such as “lifelong learning skills,” “lifelong learning competencies,” and “lifelong learning tendencies.” Some studies also investigated the impacts of demographic data to address their research problems (e.g., Buza et al., 2010 ; Nacaroglu et al., 2021 ; Sen & Durak, 2022 ; Shin & Jun, 2019 ).

Research Methodologies in Lifelong Learning

Of the 21 studies, 11 conducted quantitative research, seven qualitative researches, and three mixed-method research. Differences were observed in their research instruments, analysis, and participants based on their research design and methods. We will discuss these research methodologies based on the aforementioned three common research problems.

Table ​ Table3 3 summarizes the main research instruments used by lifelong learning studies. The researchers also adopted several other research tools, including the Competences Scale for Educational Technology Standards, the Teaching–Learning Conceptions Scale, the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale, the Perceived Self-Regulation Scale, the Dimension Learning Organization Questionnaire, learning agility, knowledge sharing, learning approaches, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Openness to Experience Scale, change readiness, the Epistemic Beliefs Inventory, general intelligence, self-assessment of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity, reflexive skills, the questionnaire of implicit theories, a diagnosis of motivational structure, and the teaching and assessment strategies for pedagogical practice instrument, to investigate the relation between lifelong learning abilities and other variables or their impacts.

Analysis of research instruments based on their research problems

In some cases, some researchers developed these instruments, while in others, they modified existing tools (e.g., Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (Crick et al., 2004 ), Lifelong Learning Competencies Scale (Sahin et al., 2010 ), and Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale (Coşkuna & Demirel, 2010 )). These researchers also performed many types of data analysis based on their data collection tools and data distribution methods, including descriptive and diagnostic analyses, hierarchical linear modeling, reliability, principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, regression, multivariate regression, correlation, comparative analyses ( t -test or Mann–Whitney U test), and content analysis.

These studies also involved several types of participants, such as students, primary and secondary school teachers, undergraduates, postgraduates, student teachers, EU Lifelong Learning experts, young adults, teacher educators, administrators, and academic staffs, which all represent different contexts. Table ​ Table4 4 shows that Asia, the Middle East, and Europe can be regarded as the general contexts of these studies. Notably, however, fewer studies have been conducted in Asia than in the Middle East and Europe, which may pose a challenge to the generalization of the findings of some studies in these contexts.

Analysis of participants based on research problems

The results of our review showed that theoretical papers, such as reports, policy document, and lifelong learning concepts were generally much more extensive than empirical studies. Despite attempts to formulate new lifelong learning theories and apply existing ones, researchers have yet to develop a strong theory of lifelong learning. Consistent with the results of our systematic review is Steffens ( 2015 ) assertion that no single theory of learning can adequately account for all types of lifelong learning.

The prior studies' use of lifelong learning concepts can be the basis for further studies to build comprehensive theoretical frameworks in line with the current situation. This study’s concept analysis identified lifelong learning skills; lifelong learning competencies; and formal, nonformal, and informal learning as the most salient concepts.

Meanwhile, the analysis of each empirical study’s research problems generated three shared research trends in lifelong learning. Additionally, these studies were found to have investigated the relation between lifelong learning abilities and other variables, such as professional competencies, self-efficacy, and teaching–learning approaches. Moreover, they examined the factors affecting lifelong learning, lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and lifelong learning tendencies; the hierarchical effects of individual and organizational variables; external barriers; professional learning environment; metacognitions; and personality determinants. Alongside these factors, demographic components such as gender, age, subjects, and educational level can also significantly influence lifelong learning. Furthermore, this review also found research gaps in lifelong learning in educational research, which offers the potential to explore lifelong learning using variables such as new learning communities, advanced teaching–learning techniques, learning styles, learning strategies and motivation in addition to self-directed learning, personal learning environments, and educational technology.

With regard to research methods, this study identified only three studies that used mixed methods, indicating an inadequacy in the field. Hence, all future research of lifelong learning should be conducted using mixed methods. Our examination of instruments revealed different tools that were used to assess the three common research problems. Such an effort may require the application of different data analysis techniques, including content analysis, descriptive analysis, and inferential analysis.

The prior studies, as a result of our review, only interviewed lifelong learning specialists, young adults, and secondary teachers to address their research issues, such as concepts and policies. Indeed, the development of lifelong learning policies or conceptual frameworks would benefit from the involvement of teachers from basic education schools, teacher education institutions, and universities.

Several research problems associated with lifelong learning capabilities involved university students, students and teacher educators. In light of this, it is still important to examine the lifelong learning skills, competencies, and tendencies of all stakeholders in the educational setting. The previous studies analyzed different factors that may shape lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities with all possible participants. Considering the geographical context, more research must be conducted on the three research trends in lifelong learning in Asia as opposed to Europe. This will strengthen the generalizability of findings to specific target groups such as students, teachers, and teacher trainers in the specific area.

Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that our study is not without limitations. Our review may have overlooked several empirical studies that were not in Scopus, WoS, or ProQuest because we selected only open-access articles indexed in these databases. Additional research may have a different effect on the results. Neither the details of the research instruments nor the findings of each study can be examined in detail.

Therefore, we recommend that subsequent systematic reviews and meta-analyses in lifelong learning incorporate articles indexed in other databases. Researchers may also conduct future reviews examining the history and psychometrics of research instruments used in lifelong learning and considers the results of each empirical study. However, a comparison of study findings in the Asian context continues to be a challenge because not enough research has been conducted in all possible lifelong learning research areas. Considering the impact of COVID-19, lifelong learning research in new learning communities, environments, or organizations may be conducted to capture updated information.

This literature review aimed to identify concepts, theories, issues, trends, and research methodologies associated with lifelong learning in educational research. Our findings addressed concepts, lifelong learning policies, lifelong learning competencies, and formal, nonformal, and informal. The studies included in this review highlighted that a strong theory of lifelong learning has yet to be developed and applied. In addition, we deductively examined three common research trends: issues with basic concepts or guiding principles of lifelong learning, problems surrounding lifelong learning capacities, and challenges regarding variables that affect lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning capacities. Regarding methodology, we examined the techniques, tools, data analysis, and participants included in lifelong learning studies. Overall, educational researchers must continue to conduct more mixed methods studies, focusing on the Asian context.

Acknowledgements

The first author is the Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship holder. This paper would have been impossible without the financial support of the Hungarian government’s Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship in collaboration with the Myanmar government.

Open access funding provided by University of Szeged.

Declarations

There are no competing interests to declare.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Win Phyu Thwe, Email: moc.liamg@ewhtuyhpnniw .

Anikó Kálmán, Email: moc.liamg@okinanamlakrd .

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What Motivates You to Learn?

Is it grades? Getting into a specific college or career? Genuine curiosity? Or something else?

By Shannon Doyne

Do you have goals, hopes and dreams for your education? If so, what are they? For example, do you strive to get all A’s? Do you hope to go to a specific college or go into a particular career? Are you trying to make your family proud? Do you just want to be an educated person? Are you simply curious about the world around you? Or something else?

Do these goals make school and learning enjoyable and meaningful for you? Or do they make it stressful?

In the guest essay “ The Key to Success in College Is So Simple, It’s Almost Never Mentioned ,” Jonathan Malesic, who teaches writing at the University of Texas at Dallas, shares one way that students can get the most out of their education:

For Emily Zurek Small, college did what it’s supposed to do. Growing up in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania, she had career and intellectual ambitions for which college is the clearest pathway. “I just kind of always wanted to learn,” she told me recently. “I wanted to be able to have intelligent conversations with people and know about the world.” She enrolled at a small nearby Catholic college, majored in neuroscience and in 2016 became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree — and later, a master’s. She now works as a school psychologist in Virginia. I saw Ms. Zurek Small’s education up close, in two theology classes I taught during my 11 years as a professor at the college she attended. She was a good student, but what struck me more than her ability was the fact that she cared. Being in class, asking questions and exploring ideas meant something to her. One reason she cared was that she was paying her own way and was thus amply aware of her education’s cost. “If I was not engaging, I was just throwing money out the window,” she said. That engagement helped her realize that her “thoughts and opinions matter.” As universities in much of the country suffer declining enrollment , they need to make the broader case for going to college even as they debate how best to help students learn after Covid disruptions. How should universities carry out remote learning ? How should they teach writing in the age of artificial intelligence ? How difficult should it be to pass organic chemistry ? But there’s an equally important question that only students can answer: What will they do to get the most out of college? It’s their education, after all. One of the most important factors in Ms. Zurek Small’s success seems almost too obvious to mention but, in fact, deserves far more attention and discussion: a simple willingness to learn. In more than 20 years of college teaching, I have seen that students who are open to new knowledge will learn. Students who aren’t won’t. But this attitude is not fixed. The paradoxical union of intellectual humility and ambition is something that every student can (with help from teachers, counselors and parents) and should cultivate. It’s what makes learning possible. The willingness to learn is related to the growth mind-set — the belief that your abilities are not fixed but can improve. But there is a key difference: This willingness is a belief not primarily about the self but about the world. It’s a belief that every class offers something worthwhile, even if you don’t know in advance what that something is.

Students, read the entire essay, and then tell us:

What do you think of Mr. Malesic’s argument that “a simple willingness to learn” is the key to success in school? Have you experienced this in your own life? If so, share an example.

Take a moment to think back on your schooling. When have you been most engaged in a class? What do you think excited you about it?

Does it ever feel difficult to keep your interest and attention on what you’re learning? How do you motivate yourself in such situations?

Mr. Malesic writes that “school should cultivate students’ curiosity and let them feel the thrill of finding something out.” To what degree do you agree with this statement? Have your teachers tried to cultivate students’ curiosity and the thrill of learning? Do you think young people are open to this?

He also includes challenges that keep more students from being like Emily Zurek Small: careerism and knowingness. Have these things ever gotten in the way of your learning? If so, tell us how.

If you go to college, you’ll probably have to take classes that are not related to your major. What do you think about that? Do you have classes now that you don’t feel are relevant to your future? Do any of Mr. Malesic’s points change your mind about these sorts of classes?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

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Life-long learning is the key to success

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• 5.5 band Currently, more and more students go overseas to study. In your opinion, why is this the case? Is it a positive or negative trend? It is an undeniable fact that an escalating number of pupils have a desire to study overseas. The causes of this trend are subject of social concern. Furthermore, whether this trend bears positive or negative impacts upon pupils themselves in particular and their home country in general is a controv ...
• 5.5 band People these days watched TV, films and other programs alone rather than other people's. What is advantage and disadvantage There is no doubt that, due to the advancement of the technology there are ample of movies and television serials are available related to study, history and real life based which improves humans lifestyle. Nowadays, individuals spend numerous hours on TV programs by themselves. This essay will disc ...
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• 5.5 band Parents often believe it is better to be safe than sorry. Do you consider young people to be too protected? The idea of having children for young couples is frequently thought of as having little versions of themselves running around. As much as it pleasantly sounds like a perfect family, responsibility always comes after. It is what causes most parents to shield their children from hard knocks in life. N ...
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Lifelong Learning in the Educational Setting: A Systematic Literature Review

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• Published: 13 May 2023
• Volume 33 , pages 407–417, ( 2024 )

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• Win Phyu Thwe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7461-2892 1 &
• Anikó Kálmán 2  

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This systematic literature review aimed to provide updated information on lifelong learning in educational research by examining theoretical documents and empirical papers from 2000 to 2022. This review sought to identify concepts, theories, and research trends and methods linked to lifelong learning in educational research in different countries. Our review findings showed that theoretical papers, such as reports, policies, and concepts of lifelong learning, are generally much more extensive than empirical studies. Word cloud analysis revealed that the most prominent concepts were lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and the three types of lifelong learning (formal, nonformal, and informal). Following the inductive analysis, this study investigated three common research trends: conceptual framework or policies of lifelong learning, lifelong learning abilities, and influencing factors of lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities. Regarding methodology, this study identified only three studies that used mixed methods, which is insufficient in the field. In addition, heterogeneity was also observed between research instruments in lifelong learning. Different data analysis techniques can be applied in this field, including content analysis, descriptive analysis, and inferential analysis. Finally, the participants involved in the examined studies were students, primary and secondary school teachers, undergraduates, postgraduates, student teachers, European Union Lifelong Learning experts, young adults, teacher educators, administrators, and academic staff.

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Lifelong Learning: Researching a Contested Concept in the Twenty-First Century

Advancing Research and Collecting Evidence on Lifelong Learning Globally

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Introduction

Lifelong learning is a broad term whose definitions have common meanings and which has been explained by organizations such as the European Commission, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The European Commission ( 2001 ) defines lifelong learning as any intentional learning activities conducted throughout a person’s lifetime to improve their knowledge, skills, and competencies from an individual, municipal, societal, and/or career standpoint. From this conventional definition, a more robust definition of lifelong learning emerged—that is, lifelong learning refers to all processes that transform a person’s body, mind, and social experiences intellectually, emotionally, and practically before they are integrated into their life story, resulting in a more experienced individual (Jarvis, 2009 ).

Meanwhile, the UNESCO definition of lifelong learning includes all intentional learning from birth to death that attempts to advance knowledge and skills for anyone who intends to engage in learning activities. Part of the broad definition of lifelong learning refers to both informal learning in settings such as the workplace, at home, or in the community and formal education in institutions such as schools, universities, and alternative education centers (Tuijnman et al., 1996 ). According to the European Lifelong Learning Initiative, lifelong learning is a consistently supportive process that stimulates and empowers individuals in acquiring all the awareness, values, skills, and comprehension they would require throughout their lifetime and apply them with self-belief, innovation, and pleasure in all positions, contexts, and climates (Watson, 2003 ). Therefore, lifelong learning can be generally defined as learning that one seeks throughout their life and that is flexible, varied, and accessible at diverse times and locations.

According to John Dewey, education is the process of giving a person the skills necessary to take charge of their world and fulfill their obligations. The ideas of education and lifelong learning endure over the life of an individual's existence. Lifelong learning transcends the limits of education and goes beyond traditional education (Edwards & Usher, 1998 ). In this regard, it is vital to assess how education settings can support lifelong learning. This literature review is the groundwork for the future implementation of educational institutions as lifelong learning centers.

Importance of a Systematic Literature Review of Lifelong Learning

A review of educational research in lifelong learning is the initial step to understanding relevant concepts and conducting empirical research. Both narrative and systematic reviews help identify research gaps and develop research questions, respectively. Meanwhile, systematic reviews include not only information obtained from the literature but also the adopted approach and where and how the literature was found. The significance of a systematic literature review (Cronin, 2011 ; Mallett et al., 2012 ) can be seen in the criteria used to assess whether to include or exclude a study from the review, reducing article selection bias.

Do et al. ( 2021 ) conducted the first systematic scientific investigation of the literature on lifelong learning although the selected studies focused only on the Southeast Asia context. Because the researchers used bibliometric analysis, it was not possible to study the intricacies of a lifelong learning issue, evaluate the quality of each scientific paper, or accurately highlight its effects on the topic. To overcome these limitations and provide a more general overview of the research topic, another systematic review of lifelong learning literature must be conducted. Therefore, our research will contain policy document, theoretical and empirical papers from 2000 to 2022 to provide updated information on lifelong learning in educational research. This literature review aims to identify concepts and theories, research areas, research trends, and research methods associated with lifelong learning in educational research in different countries. These intentions have guided the following research questions for this literature review:

What concepts and theories have been applied to explain lifelong learning in education research?

What research problems have been examined in lifelong learning in education research?

What research methodologies have been adopted to evaluate lifelong learning in education?

Methodology

Lifelong learning in the educational setting is assessed using a systematic review of literature instead of a narrative review or bibliometric analysis. A systematic literature review is considered as a scientific, unambiguous, and repeatable process for locating, analyzing, and summarizing every available published and registered research article to address a clearly articulated question (Dewey & Drahota, 2016 ). To ensure the effectiveness of the document search strategy, this study used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) as suggested by Page et al. ( 2021 ).

This study employed the largest multidisciplinary databases, such as Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and ProQuest, to search for studies in lifelong learning. It also investigated two institution-based websites focusing on lifelong learning, the UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning and the European Commission, and gathered their policy documents, publications, and reports. Throughout the period 2000–2022, all lifelong learning studies were considered to ensure that all up-to-date information is captured. Our keywords were “lifelong learning” and “education,” and we set our filters to include open-access articles and journals related to education, social science, and the English language. Based on the publication of hundreds of articles, we developed our inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Included and Excluded Studies

We selected articles based on the following criteria: published in educational science and social science publications, employed both theoretical and empirical research (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods), and open access. The decision was made to exclude lifelong learning articles that did not focus on the education field, such as medicine, engineering, and labor studies, and those with unsuitable titles and abstracts. Duplicate articles were removed after the articles that met these criteria were assessed using R Studio software.

The screening stage involved an evaluation of titles and abstracts to determine their suitability for the research question and literature review methodology. Through this method, we discovered irrelevant articles and removed them. The remaining policy documents, theoretical and empirical studies were reviewed and analyzed in the last screening round, producing a total of 55 eligible articles. Figure  1 shows the procedure of finding and selecting relevant literature according to the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram (Page et al., 2021 ).

Selection procedure of studies for analysis according to PRISMA 2020

Data Extraction and Analysis

To answer the research questions, we categorized lifelong learning concepts and theories, research trends, and methods. We extracted the concepts and theories from both policy documents, theoretical and empirical publications and then gathered information on research trends and methods based on empirical studies. We then conceptually coded and categorized the data and used R Studio software to analyze the articles both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Lifelong Learning Concepts and Theories

Our analysis of 55 studies covering the period 2000–2022 showed that lifelong learning was explained using different concepts based on the research area and trends. An overview of concepts related to lifelong learning can be found in Table 1 . Meanwhile, the results of the word cloud analysis in R Studio (Fig.  2 ) revealed that the most prominent concepts were lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and the three types of lifelong learning (formal, nonformal, and informal).

Word cloud analysis of lifelong learning concepts

Many publications included in our review lack a clear theory of lifelong learning. Our analysis of the 55 studies, however, revealed an attempt by scholars to apply comprehensive theory (Bagnall, 2017 ), theory of transformative learning (Eschenbacher & Fleming, 2020 ), theories of societal learning (Osborne & Borkowska, 2017 ) to lifelong learning.

Research Areas in Lifelong Learning

We inductively analyzed 21 of the 55 empirical studies in our review to examine the common research problems that the researchers presented and addressed. From this analysis, three common research areas emerged: problems associated with the conceptual framework or policies of lifelong learning, issues surrounding lifelong learning abilities, and challenges linked to factors that influence lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities. Table 2 presents a detailed analysis of these research problems in the 21 studies.

We also found that researchers described lifelong learning abilities using terms such as “lifelong learning skills,” “lifelong learning competencies,” and “lifelong learning tendencies.” Some studies also investigated the impacts of demographic data to address their research problems (e.g., Buza et al., 2010 ; Nacaroglu et al., 2021 ; Sen & Durak, 2022 ; Shin & Jun, 2019 ).

Research Methodologies in Lifelong Learning

Of the 21 studies, 11 conducted quantitative research, seven qualitative researches, and three mixed-method research. Differences were observed in their research instruments, analysis, and participants based on their research design and methods. We will discuss these research methodologies based on the aforementioned three common research problems.

Table 3 summarizes the main research instruments used by lifelong learning studies. The researchers also adopted several other research tools, including the Competences Scale for Educational Technology Standards, the Teaching–Learning Conceptions Scale, the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale, the Perceived Self-Regulation Scale, the Dimension Learning Organization Questionnaire, learning agility, knowledge sharing, learning approaches, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Openness to Experience Scale, change readiness, the Epistemic Beliefs Inventory, general intelligence, self-assessment of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity, reflexive skills, the questionnaire of implicit theories, a diagnosis of motivational structure, and the teaching and assessment strategies for pedagogical practice instrument, to investigate the relation between lifelong learning abilities and other variables or their impacts.

In some cases, some researchers developed these instruments, while in others, they modified existing tools (e.g., Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (Crick et al., 2004 ), Lifelong Learning Competencies Scale (Sahin et al., 2010 ), and Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale (Coşkuna & Demirel, 2010 )). These researchers also performed many types of data analysis based on their data collection tools and data distribution methods, including descriptive and diagnostic analyses, hierarchical linear modeling, reliability, principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, regression, multivariate regression, correlation, comparative analyses ( t -test or Mann–Whitney U test), and content analysis.

These studies also involved several types of participants, such as students, primary and secondary school teachers, undergraduates, postgraduates, student teachers, EU Lifelong Learning experts, young adults, teacher educators, administrators, and academic staffs, which all represent different contexts. Table 4 shows that Asia, the Middle East, and Europe can be regarded as the general contexts of these studies. Notably, however, fewer studies have been conducted in Asia than in the Middle East and Europe, which may pose a challenge to the generalization of the findings of some studies in these contexts.

The results of our review showed that theoretical papers, such as reports, policy document, and lifelong learning concepts were generally much more extensive than empirical studies. Despite attempts to formulate new lifelong learning theories and apply existing ones, researchers have yet to develop a strong theory of lifelong learning. Consistent with the results of our systematic review is Steffens ( 2015 ) assertion that no single theory of learning can adequately account for all types of lifelong learning.

The prior studies' use of lifelong learning concepts can be the basis for further studies to build comprehensive theoretical frameworks in line with the current situation. This study’s concept analysis identified lifelong learning skills; lifelong learning competencies; and formal, nonformal, and informal learning as the most salient concepts.

Meanwhile, the analysis of each empirical study’s research problems generated three shared research trends in lifelong learning. Additionally, these studies were found to have investigated the relation between lifelong learning abilities and other variables, such as professional competencies, self-efficacy, and teaching–learning approaches. Moreover, they examined the factors affecting lifelong learning, lifelong learning skills, lifelong learning competencies, and lifelong learning tendencies; the hierarchical effects of individual and organizational variables; external barriers; professional learning environment; metacognitions; and personality determinants. Alongside these factors, demographic components such as gender, age, subjects, and educational level can also significantly influence lifelong learning. Furthermore, this review also found research gaps in lifelong learning in educational research, which offers the potential to explore lifelong learning using variables such as new learning communities, advanced teaching–learning techniques, learning styles, learning strategies and motivation in addition to self-directed learning, personal learning environments, and educational technology.

With regard to research methods, this study identified only three studies that used mixed methods, indicating an inadequacy in the field. Hence, all future research of lifelong learning should be conducted using mixed methods. Our examination of instruments revealed different tools that were used to assess the three common research problems. Such an effort may require the application of different data analysis techniques, including content analysis, descriptive analysis, and inferential analysis.

The prior studies, as a result of our review, only interviewed lifelong learning specialists, young adults, and secondary teachers to address their research issues, such as concepts and policies. Indeed, the development of lifelong learning policies or conceptual frameworks would benefit from the involvement of teachers from basic education schools, teacher education institutions, and universities.

Several research problems associated with lifelong learning capabilities involved university students, students and teacher educators. In light of this, it is still important to examine the lifelong learning skills, competencies, and tendencies of all stakeholders in the educational setting. The previous studies analyzed different factors that may shape lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning abilities with all possible participants. Considering the geographical context, more research must be conducted on the three research trends in lifelong learning in Asia as opposed to Europe. This will strengthen the generalizability of findings to specific target groups such as students, teachers, and teacher trainers in the specific area.

Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that our study is not without limitations. Our review may have overlooked several empirical studies that were not in Scopus, WoS, or ProQuest because we selected only open-access articles indexed in these databases. Additional research may have a different effect on the results. Neither the details of the research instruments nor the findings of each study can be examined in detail.

Therefore, we recommend that subsequent systematic reviews and meta-analyses in lifelong learning incorporate articles indexed in other databases. Researchers may also conduct future reviews examining the history and psychometrics of research instruments used in lifelong learning and considers the results of each empirical study. However, a comparison of study findings in the Asian context continues to be a challenge because not enough research has been conducted in all possible lifelong learning research areas. Considering the impact of COVID-19, lifelong learning research in new learning communities, environments, or organizations may be conducted to capture updated information.

This literature review aimed to identify concepts, theories, issues, trends, and research methodologies associated with lifelong learning in educational research. Our findings addressed concepts, lifelong learning policies, lifelong learning competencies, and formal, nonformal, and informal. The studies included in this review highlighted that a strong theory of lifelong learning has yet to be developed and applied. In addition, we deductively examined three common research trends: issues with basic concepts or guiding principles of lifelong learning, problems surrounding lifelong learning capacities, and challenges regarding variables that affect lifelong learning and/or lifelong learning capacities. Regarding methodology, we examined the techniques, tools, data analysis, and participants included in lifelong learning studies. Overall, educational researchers must continue to conduct more mixed methods studies, focusing on the Asian context.

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Thwe, W.P., Kálmán, A. Lifelong Learning in the Educational Setting: A Systematic Literature Review. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 33 , 407–417 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00738-w

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