Many of history’s greatest scientists, inventors and artists were self-taught. Leonardo da Vinci taught himself engineering. The Wright brothers never graduated high school. Henry Ford never attended college.

There is plenty of evidence of the benefits of self-directed learning in the workplace too. It makes staff feel autonomous and corresponds with every adult’s desire for self-fulfillment. No wonder that many companies see self-directed learning as the way forward.

Self-directed learning has many positives. But we also need to acknowledge its drawbacks too.

What is self-directed learning?

Self-directed learning can be defined as: a learning strategy which allows learners take charge of their own learning process (diagnose learning needs, identify learning goals, select learning strategies, and evaluate learning performances and outcomes).

It is about handing over power to the learner to decide what they need to learn. Rather than your organization sending its employees on courses which are often irrelevant to their day-to-day activities, it assumes that they have the capacity to decide what they should learn and how much time they should spend on it. It is about treating your staff as responsible adults who can manage their own time.

Most organizations provide self-directed learning in one of two ways:

1. They deploy a learning management system (LMS) where staff read training documents, watch videos or complete quizzes
2. They encourage staff to seek out solutions to their problems online

At VisualSP, we believe that self-directed learning is, in many workplaces, an excellent way to transmit knowledge. Nevertheless, it is important to consider the drawbacks too.

Training issues: 10 paint points of employee training

5 disadvantages of self-directed learning

Here are some of the key problems with self-directed learning:

If you are new to a subject it is often very challenging to decide what to begin learning.

Which documents should I read? Which course should I complete? What is going to be relevant to my job, and what is simply noise?

Many self-directed training courses put the onus on the individual to figure out what they need to learn. But this means that they could potentially spend a lot of time learning irrelevant information while missing the most important concepts.

2. Lack of time

Research shows that a lack of time is by far and away the greatest obstacle to self-directed learning. If you've got deadlines, meetings, and projects to complete, how many people are going to set aside time each day to learn new things?

3. Self-motivation and interest

As any learning and development professional will know, there are different personality types in your organization. Some people are highly engaged and are continually seeking out ways to improve their skill sets. However, others are less motivated or ambitious - they are good at what they do, but lack the drive to continually learn new techniques.

In many ways self-directed learning is a little idealistic! The fact is that many employees just aren't going to go out of their way to do extra training when they don't have to.

4. Too much choice

An LMS that is packed with interesting and useful resources would be highly beneficial to the organization. However sometimes there is just too much choice. If an employee logs into your LMS and is faced with hundreds of courses, videos and training documents it can simply be overwhelming. This can be mentally frustrating and leave people demotivated too. It is as if they are being shown all the things that they don't know!

Learn more: Strengths and weaknesses of microtraining

5. The easy way out

A final drawback of self-directed learning is that, psychologically speaking, most people opt for the path of least resistance. Even people who are motivated to learn will generally be drawn to topics that they personally find interesting or engaging.

By way of analogy, someone who has a personal interest in sport will spend their free time outside of work reading about sports. Few of them will dedicate their spare time to reading about gardening just for the sake of it!

And the same goes for self-directed learning at work. If you are interested in management topics, you will naturally gravitate towards learning management techniques. This is fine, but it means you won’t actively seek out information about how to use the new IT system if you’re not personally interested in tech.

Self-directed learning where it's needed

Despite its drawbacks, self-directed learning should not be written off. Instead, we need to think of better ways to apply the concept.

At VisualSP, our approach is to deliver learning in context. Whenever someone is uncertain about how to use business tools, complete a process or perform a task in compliance with the rules, they get a relevant training module open in a pop-up window which shows them how to do the task. This retains the benefit of self-directed learning, while avoiding the risks:

• They remain in control of what they learn and can read whenever they want
• They don't get overwhelmed with information they don't need
• If they lack knowledge in one area, it is easy for them to find a solution
• It takes very little time to consume the information
• It encourages them to learn important things even if they’re not naturally drawn to them

By putting self-directed learning in context, you give your employees the autonomy to choose what they want to learn, when they want to learn it. And, at the same time, you overcome many of the key obstacles that self-directed learning produces.

To find out more contact us for a VisualSP demo today.