Measuring Life-long Learning in the Malaysian Institute of Higher Learning Context

The world around us is constantly changing, evolving, and most belief that it is changing in an unprecedented speed caused by globalization. As part of this ever changing society, we must also be able to adapt and learn new skills to keep up with these changes. Therefore, modern universities can no longer be contented in imparting well established and current knowledge and skills to their students, but must be able to equip students with the generic skills and ability to guide their own learning as throughout their lives and in the wide variety of situations they will encounter after leaving formal education. This paper described effective life-long learners as having the ability to 1) set goals, 2) apply appropriate knowledge and skills, 3) engage in self-direction, 4) locate required information, and 5) adapt their learning strategies to different conditions. However, measuring life-long learning is as difficult as defining life-long learning. There are not many instrument able to measure life-long learning in the construct mentioned earlier, although there are instruments measuring parts of the constructs, for example self-directed learning and need for cognition. This paper aims to explore the validity and reliability of this questionnaire in the Malaysian context.