Self-Directed Learning: Building Skills and Confidence for Lifelong Growth

Ryan Niehaus

lundi 4 août 2025

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The ability to take ownership of learning is more than a nice-to-have. —It’s essential. Self-directed learning empowers employees to choose what, how, and when they learn, making it a powerful method for developing skills, building personal autonomy, and driving career success.

With Degreed, organizations can support and scale the self-directed learning process by offering tools that provide guidance and resources, foster independence, and drive meaningful outcomes.

What is self-directed learning?

While learning teams and mentors guide the learning process, self-directed employees take the lead.

At its core, self-directed learning is about individuals setting their own learning goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies, engaging with mentors, using material resources, and evaluating learning outcomes at their own pace. This approach helps people to build critical thinking and problem-solving skills and to expand their self-awareness as part of their personal and professional growth.

Why Self-Directed Learning Matters for Organizations

In a corporate setting, self-directed growth is designed to develop more agile, motivated individuals. We created Degreed to support this goal.

With Degreed, your organization can:

• Identify and connect people with the resources they need to reach their objectives
• Use AI-powered assessment tools to track and support skill-building
• Encourage intrinsic motivation by linking development to personal and business outcomes

This is especially important for employees learning in the flow of work. With Degreed, companies can support their people in developing self-directed learning skills that are critical to everyday life in the workplace.

Supporting the Self-Directed Learning Environment

Creating a strong self-directed learning environment means providing structure while maintaining flexibility. It includes:

• Helping employees with formulating learning goals
• Offering a wide range of material resources and learning strategies
• Enabling access to tools for assessing self-directed learning progress

Degreed gives L&D leaders the tools to foster independence among their people and to maintain learning alignment with business objectives. Degreed empowers employees to:

• Set and pursue their own learning goals
• Reflect on learning styles and preferences
• Access colleagues for mentorship and material resources for projects

Examples and Use Cases

For example, a team member starting a self-directed learning project to improve data literacy might:

• Define learning goals using built-in, AI-powered, and skills-first planning tools
• Access on-demand courses through content provider integrations, as well as AI-powered learning experiences such as coaching and role-play
• Track progress using AI-powered assessment tools and receive feedback from mentors

Facilitating Adult Learning and Self-Direction

As they build competitive advantage, one of the biggest responsibilities for organizations today is facilitating personalized employee learning.

Degreed supports:

• Personalized pathways for unique learning needs and multiple learning styles
• Scalable, AI-powered tools for supporting self-regulated learning
• Skill assessments to help employees  understand their self-directed learning outcomes in real-time

The goal is to create space where employees work toward mastery at their own pace, gaining knowledge through personalized and adaptable learning experiences.

Final Thoughts

Self-direction isn’t a luxury. It’s a foundation for growth.

Degreed enables employees and organizations to fully engage with the self-directed learning model, turning learning situations into powerful moments of discovery and advancement.

Whether you’re designing a leadership program, supporting a coding curriculum, or encouraging other types of professional education at your company, Degreed can help your people develop skills, embrace lifelong learning, and succeed on the journey to becoming self-directed.