Abstract
Advancements in technology allow the education sector to explore various educational applications in the classroom. Integrating these tools creates new opportunities and challenges, empowering students in higher education institutions to become more self- directed.
The Economic Forum identifies the skills that the workforce requires. Students must be adequately equipped with these critical skills, including collaboration, problem solving, and digital literacy. Critical skills, collaboration, and problem solving are key components of self-directed learning. Despite the acknowledged benefits of blended learning and the ability to support the growth of self-directed learning skills, relatively few studies, have examined the degree of SDL skills during their transfer to higher education in a blended learning strategy. Several researchers claim that the development of SDL skills is not given priority in a blended learning setting, as such, SDL skills like independence, self-discipline, self-confidence, goal orientation, tenacity, and high self-responsibility are implicitly learnt in various ways in order for students to flourish in blended learning contexts. This study examines how 81 first-year education students participated in completing the self-directed learning readiness scale. The results show that the students increased their self-directedness in a blended learning environment.
The study reports that during the course in a blended learning environment, students become more responsible and are better positioned to identify and apply different learning strategies. They showed an eagerness to work independently, set learning goals, identify resources, and reflect on their learning progress. Students showed a keen interest in working with technology, using online resources and digital tools to achieve learning objectives.
The findings declare that blended learning environments are effective in promoting self-directed learning among educational students. Encourages more independence for students in managing their learning and will equip them to excel in academics and be successful in the workplace. The researcher suggests that, for future research purposes, more studies should be done on how digital technology can be leveraged in the development of self-directed learning skills through deep learning. This could help teachers/lecturers improve their knowledge of pedagogical content.