Two related ideas
Autonomy and agency are often used together. In this article, student autonomy means having real freedom to make decisions about your own learning. Agency means acting on those decisions: taking initiative, carrying out a plan and seeing that your choices affect what happens. A learner can have the freedom but not use it, or can try to act but be blocked by circumstances. Both parts are needed.
Open education can support both, mainly because it widens the choices available and lowers some barriers to making them. Whether this leads to better outcomes depends on the learner and the context, and the research is mixed. What follows describes three areas where choice can be given, then the conditions that make autonomy workable.
Choice over content
The most obvious area is what to study with. Open materials give learners and teachers a wider pool to choose from: textbooks, lectures, exercises, data sets and simulations that are free to access. Where licenses allow, material can also be selected in part, so a learner might use only the chapters that match their goal.
Content choice can take several forms:
- picking between different resources for the same topic
- choosing which topics to study within a broader subject
- choosing the examples or case studies to work from
- selecting the form of material, such as text, audio or video
Not all of these choices carry the same weight. Choosing a topic that matters to you usually shapes the whole study. Choosing between two similar videos matters less. It helps to offer meaningful choices and not just a long menu.
The usual caution applies: free materials vary in quality, and learners who are new to a subject may not be able to judge them. Skills in information literacy help, and a teacher or friend can give guidance early on.
Choice over pace
The second area is when and how fast to study. Open materials can generally be used at any time, which suits people who work or care for others and cannot follow a fixed timetable. Learners can slow down on difficult ideas and move quickly through familiar ones. This kind of self-paced study is one of the most common reasons people turn to open resources.
Pace control comes with a known risk. Without deadlines, many learners find it hard to keep going, and large numbers of people who start flexible online study do not finish. The exact figures vary widely between courses, so no single number should be assumed. Practical supports include:
- a regular study routine with set times
- a weekly target that is small enough to meet
- a simple record of what has been done
- a study partner or group for mutual checking
Self-chosen deadlines can give flexibility and structure together. Choosing your own pace does not mean having no pace.
Choice over assessment
The third area is how learning is checked, and it is the hardest to open up. Assessment often carries weight in grades or qualifications, so schools and institutions tend to control it closely. Even so, there are ways to give learners more say.
In a classroom, a teacher might offer options for showing understanding: a written piece, a presentation, a worked solution or a short portfolio, all marked against the same criteria. Students might help write the criteria, or choose when to attempt a test. Some programs allow repeat attempts so that mistakes become part of learning. Some interest in this area connects with competency-based education, in which progress depends on showing a skill rather than on time spent.
For independent learners using open materials, assessment is mostly informal. You can set your own checks: practice questions, explaining ideas to someone else, or building a small project. These self-assessment tools have value, but self-judgment is often over-generous, so it helps to use clear criteria and, where possible, an outside reader.
Open materials often do not come with recognized certificates. Learners who need formal proof of study should check what is available for their purpose, since an open resource on its own may not provide it.
What helps autonomy work
Autonomy tends to work better when some supports are in place. Common ones include:
- A clear goal. Choices make sense only in relation to something. Goal-setting skills are useful here.
- Reasonable structure. Many learners do better with an outline or default route that they can depart from, rather than a blank page.
- Feedback. Autonomy without information about progress can lead to wasted effort.
- Reflection. Thinking about what is working builds metacognition skills, which let learners make better choices over time.
- Access. Devices, connections, time and a place to study affect whether choices are real. Without them, freedom is nominal.
When autonomy is less helpful
There are good reasons not to treat autonomy as always desirable.
- Beginners may make choices that do not serve them because they do not yet know what they need.
- Some tasks, such as safety training, require specific content and cannot be left to preference.
- Learners facing heavy demands elsewhere may not want more decisions to make.
- Choice can create inequality when some students have more help at home to choose well.
Teachers and course designers need to judge when to offer choice and when to give direction. Supporting autonomy does not mean withdrawing support.
Putting it into practice
For a learner, a sensible starting point is to make one more decision than usual in each of the three areas: choose one of your materials, set your own weekly target, and design one check of your understanding. Then note what happened. For a teacher, the equivalent is to open one choice, observe the effect, and keep what works. Over time, this kind of small experiment builds ownership more reliably than a large change made all at once.