Self-Directed Education
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Ponton presents an agentive perspective of self-directed learning (SDL), as contrasted to autonomous learning, in order to provide a research position. He suggests that whereas autonomous learning can be manifest in all three modes of agency (i.e., individual, proxy, or collective) in the activation of learning activities, Self-Directed Learning represents the degree to which personal agency is exercised individually. Ponton concludes that both the process and personality perspectives are important to defining SDL and that SDL activities are those in which the learner individually directs the creation of associated self-regulatory processes. Even though a great deal of SDL research and theorizing rests within the domain of adult learning, this article argues that the agentive perspective posited by Ponton is equally applicable to children.