Motivation and emotion/Book/2025/Lifelong learning motivation

Imagine that you're in a library What made you come to the library (see Figure 1)? Was it to: grow your career? understand something you're interested in? learn a language or understand why you do something? All these things and more could be seen as motivation for lifelong learning.

Lifelong learning is something that many individuals, schools and workplaces are striving to integrate or continue to grow. This chapter investigates the question of what motivates lifelong learning? It will break down this question by looking into the meaning of lifelong learning and some of the psychological perspectives surrounding it, such as self-determination theory and experiential learning theory that provides insights around motivation and its connection to lifelong learning. Lastly, it explores the reasons for motivating lifelong learning and its wider importance.

Lifelong learning is a continuous process of self-development and typically it's understood to be the ongoing activity which provides learning opportunities from when we are born to the end of our life (Matos et al., 2024). This drive for personal development typically involves the drive of acquiring knowledge for multiple reasons satisfying intrinsic or extrinsic motivations (Matos et al., 2024).

For instance, Matos et al. (2024) analysed the relationship between lifelong learning and life satisfaction in people aged above 55 and has a primary focus on the intrinsic motivational drives. In this instance a major reason for lifelong learning wasn’t necessarily to obtain more formal education, but to allow these older individuals to gain fulfilment, purpose and social connection. The article also explains that there are multiple possible ways to define lifelong learning; it could be a child going to school, or an adult wanting to go to university to improve their career prospects, or it could be as simple as someone wanting to learn a skill so that they can be part of a social group as a way of building friendship and social connection Matos et al. (2024).

But for someone to pursue lifelong learning they will need motivation. As defined by the American Psychological Association, motivation is “a person’s willingness to exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome” (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.). What this means is for someone to pursue lifelong learning, they need to use physical and mental effort to be able to achieve it. For instance, in the research article by Matos et al one of the major barriers for lifelong learning in people above 55 was illness and physical capabilities. 

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are categorizations that help us understand potentially what is driving lifelong learning. An example of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation being utilized for lifelong learning can be seen in article by Crow (2001) which analyzes what motivates people to become lifelong learners, but from the perspective of a library media specialist with the aspiration to help children become lifelong learners. Some of the extrinsic motivations, external motivation sources, that motivate in this instance, children, could be academic grades, rewards, and avoiding punishment. While intrinsic motivations are usually caused by internal satisfaction of achieving or something. The research article explains that for children this could be engaging in activities such as doing art, playing games, or solving puzzles, with the primary idea that it is something the person is interested in. What this research article found out was that intrinsic motivation does produce better outcomes for children and would more likely result in them pursuing lifelong learning. Figure 4 shows an example of what intrinsic and extrinsic may look like.

There are key psychological perspectives around motivation and lifelong learning. They are there to help deepen our understanding but also can be utilized as tools to either help individuals strengthen the pursuit for lifelong learning or even help organizations and schools foster an environment where lifelong learning can develop. Two of the main psychological perspectives are self-determination theory and experimental learning theory.

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a psychological approach that advances understanding in the areas of personality and motivation, it proposes three innate psychological needs:

• Competence: Feeling effective and capable in their abilities and actions.
• Autonomy: Being in control and making choices that are important to them.
• Relatedness: Belongingness and have supported social connection (this could be friends, family and/or community).

SDT suggests that by having these three psychological needs met people are more likely to feel happy, fulfilled and motivated (Filipe et al., 2024), (Crow etal.,2006).

This is also where we get intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from, but the theory has an additional third type of motivation called amotivation, when an individual has lack or no interest or motivation in the activity or task. This is important to the topic of lifelong learning and motivation because this can make it a lot easier for the individual or the organisation to understand what key factors need to be met to achieve intrinsic motivation fostering a higher chance of lifelong learning.

Experiential learning theory (ELT) is an approach that states that people learn by doing and then critically reflecting on their learning experience (Richards, 2018). A common example of this approach being used would be apprenticeships. In Australia if you are training to become a builder, you might do this under an apprenticeship where you would learn through a practical learning experience, and then at an allocated time, you'll have the opportunity to critically reflect on your work in a classroom environment.

Experiential learning theory has been developed over time by number of academics, but David Kolb is the one that has built the theory into a more practical approach through development of the four-stage model of the experimental learning, and identification of associated preferential learning styles (Richards, 2018), these are:

• Concrete Experience (CE): this is the process in which a person undertakes a practical learning opportunity themselves with little to no prior experience (Richards, 2018). This can be considered as the ‘feeling’ stage.
• Reflective Observation (RO): At this stage a person would step back from what they are doing to review and reflect, either through visual instruction or comparison to a correctly completed task (Richards, 2018). This could be seen as the ‘watching’ stage.
• Abstract Conceptualization (AC): This stage is when a person appends the new knowledge to their existing skillset (Richards, 2018). This could be considered the ‘thinking’ stage.
• Active Experimentation (AE): At this stage the person will consider how they will put what they have learnt into practice (Richards, 2018). This could be considered the ‘doing’ stage.

This learning cycle also provides 4 learning styles which are:

• Accommodating: this typically benefits those who most effectively learn between CE and AE, the ‘feeling’ and ‘doing’ stages. For example, a person that worked best in the accommodating learning style would prefer learning by doing or just using their intuition rather than a detailed instructions or analysis (Richards, 2018).
• Diverging: this style would be for those who learn most effectively between CE and RO, the ‘feeling’ and ‘watching’ stages. For example, a person that worked best in the diverging learning style would typically prefer watching how things are done and working in a group to be able to learn (Richards, 2018).
• Assimilating: This is typically for those who learn most effectively between RO and AC, the ‘watching’ and ‘thinking’ stages. For example, a person that learns best in the assimilating style would be more interested in ideas, but not necessarily in people or practical applications (Richards, 2018).
• Converging: This is typically for those who most effectively learn between AC and AE, the ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ stages. For example, people that learn best in the converging learning style are people that enjoy theories, ideas and solving practical problems (Richards, 2018).

Some of the major strengths to experiential learning theory are that it engages in relevant and real-life situations and can be structured in a more personalised learning style, which can increase motivation in learners and promote the habit of lifelong learning.

When reviewing what motivates lifelong learning it can be a useful strategy to understand why we would want to motivate lifelong learning. Reasons to do so can be broken down into a few category examples, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everything must be categorized in the below categories or that the categories are mutually exclusive. These example categories below are educational industries (schools, universities, etc), workplaces & businesses, and health & wellbeing.  

Education institutions are always striving to support people to become lifelong learners. In Crow (2001) research article on what motivates lifelong learners from a librarian’s perspective, was focussed on investigating methods to support school children in becoming lifelong learners. The article focussed on this demographic as it indicated better outcomes for the children if they were pursuing lifelong learning. In addition to this in places like universities having students that are pursuing lifelong learning could lead to more people attending university, which greatly benefits them both as an institution and financially. Cendon (2018) explained that lifelong learning has reshaped higher education and has changed the focus from the university to the student with a particular emphasis around ongoing learning paths. It also shows that they've had to adapt to a more flexible digital educational environment which has allowed people at different life stages have increased access to participate and be more motivated to attend university (Cendon, 2018).

In workplaces, businesses and even government there is a significant interest in how lifelong learning can increase productivity and employability. Corrales-Herrero and Rodríguez-Prado (2018) provided an example using Spanish data from the European audit education survey and comparing the data patterns before and during the Great Recession. They primarily used the data to find out what economic conditions motivate or influences participation in non-formal lifelong learning and understanding how that may affect employability. Within that study they were able to understand that economic conditions do affect motivation of employees or potential employees in engaging in lifelong learning . In addition to this, they were able to understand that it does depend on the condition of the labour market as well, for instance they were able to see a more significant benefit for those who were unemployed during the recession, while workers that had employment gained more from lifelong learning before the recession. In summary, both employed and unemployed people benefited from participating in lifelong learning habits.

There has been a significant amount of research around the connection between lifelong learning and health & wellbeing especially for ageing adults and those who are retired. It has been indicated in several studies that there is a link to those who engage in lifelong learning at an older age resulting in improvement or maintenance to psychological and physical health. For the elderly this can provide an opportunity for them to engage in their community or maintain social connections (Matos et al., 2024).

In summary what motivates lifelong learning is very individualised and person-centred. It's based off what intrinsic and extrinsic motivations make you want to pursue lifelong learning. It's also something that individuals or institutions can use with different approaches such as SDT and ELT to foster motivation to become more interested in lifelong learning. It's important to note that the connection between motivation and lifelong learning is an ongoing area of research and its benefits to education, community, and wellbeing are yet to be fully understood.

• Motivation
• Lifelong learning
• Self-determination theory
• Experiential learning theory

• 3 Basic Needs That Drive Your Behavior [Self-Determination Theory] (YouTube)
• The New Fountain of Youth: Lifelong Learning | Ingrid Bianca Byerly | TEDxStGeorgeSalon (YouTube)
• Module 1 - Part 1 What is Lifelong Learning? (YouTube)