Beyond andragogy: postgraduate students’ experiences of self-determined learning in higher education: a heutagogical perspective

A study conducted in Ghana explored postgraduate students' lived experiences with self-determined learning, utilizing a heutagogical perspective. The research investigated factors enabling and constraining these experiences and their relationship to traditional adult learning assumptions within higher education. The findings contribute to understanding how self-determined learning manifests and is supported or hindered in an academic context.

Why it matters

Understanding self-determined learning (heutagogy) in postgraduate education is crucial for designing effective learning environments that foster autonomy and critical thinking. This research highlights the practical implementation challenges and successes of such approaches, offering insights for educational policy and institutional support systems that aim to cultivate highly capable and independent scholars and professionals.

Key insights

• The study focused on postgraduate students' actual practices of self-determined learning in higher education institutions.
• It investigated the factors that enable and constrain these self-determined learning experiences.
• The research examined how these experiences relate to andragogical assumptions through a heutagogical lens.
• Nine postgraduate students from public universities in Ghana, selected for their engagement in autonomous learning, participated.
• An interpretive phenomenological design was employed to gather data on their lived experiences.

Source

Frontiers in Education — https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2026.1895853