Students' self-education skill development

Abstract

The research topic of this study explores students' self-education skills and higher education activities focussed on the development of students. The purpose of the research is multi-layered and motivated by the importance of self-education in the realization of the concepts of lifelong learning and knowledge society; by the results of earlier researches showing that students are undertrained to undertake self-learning; as well as by the officially reformed higher education which is oriented towards the development of self-reliance and independence in learning. Students were given the opportunity to evaluate numerous aspects of the investigated problem based on their own opinion and judgement. We gathered numerous findings with the help of a non-experimental descriptive research involving 392 students, most of which attended the University of Belgrade. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the findings, we gained an insight into the degree of presence of individual activities supporting the development of self-education skills in higher education; the advancement of students' self-education skills, and students' position on the contribution of higher education to the development of this kind of skills.