Student perceptions of their autonomy at University

Henri, Dom.; Morrell, Lesley.; Scott, G. W..; Henri, D. C..; Morrell, L. J..

doi:10.1007/s10734-017-0152-y

Authors

Dr Dom Henri D.Henri@hull.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer

Dr Lesley Morrell L.Morrell@hull.ac.uk
Associate Dean (Education)

Dr Dom Henri D.Henri@hull.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer

Dr Lesley Morrell L.Morrell@hull.ac.uk
Associate Dean (Education)

Professor Graham Scott G.Scott@hull.ac.uk
Director, Teaching Excellence Academy

Abstract

© 2017, The Author(s). Learner autonomy is a primary learning outcome of Higher Education in many countries. However, empirical evaluation of how student autonomy progresses during undergraduate degrees is limited. We surveyed a total of 636 students’ self-perceived autonomy during a period of two academic years using the Autonomous Learning Scale. Our analysis suggests that students do not perceive themselves as being any more autonomous as they progress through University. Given the relativity of self-perception metrics, we suggest that our results evince a “red queen” effect. In essence, as course expectations increase with each year, each student’s self-perceived autonomy relative to their ideal remains constant; we term this the “moving goalpost” hypothesis. This article corroborates pedagogical literature suggesting that providing students with opportunities to act autonomously and develop confidence is key to developing graduates who have the independence that they need in order to be successful in the workplace.

Publication Date	2018-03
Journal	Higher education
Print ISSN	0018-1560
Electronic ISSN	1573-174X
Publisher	Springer Verlag
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	75
Issue	3
Pages	507-516
Institution Citation	Henri, D. C., Morrell, L. J., & Scott, G. W. (2018). Student perceptions of their autonomy at University. Higher Education, 75(3), 507-516. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0152-y
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0152-y
Keywords	Autonomy; Self-efficacy; Independent learning; Employability; Student-led learning; Autonomous learning scale
Publisher URL	https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-017-0152-y
Copyright Statement	© The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Additional Information	This is a copy of an open access article published in: Higher education.

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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2017
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.