Heutagogy

Heutagogy is a theory of self-determined learning introduced by education researchers Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon in a 2000 paper, extending andragogy's focus on adult self-direction a further step by placing the learner, rather than the teacher, in control of not only how they learn but also what is worth learning and how their own learning should be assessed. Hase and Kenyon argued that heutagogy suits environments of rapid, unpredictable change, where the specific knowledge a person will need in the future cannot be fully specified in advance, so the more durable goal of instruction becomes building a learner's capability, their confidence in applying competencies to unfamiliar situations, rather than only their present competence in a fixed body of content. The theory has been applied mainly in adult, vocational and open education, where learners often set their own paths through material with limited direct instructor oversight, and it is frequently discussed alongside self-directed and lifelong learning research as a further extension of learner autonomy.