Wat CACE Lifelong Learning Measure

Increasingly, post-secondary education (PSE) institutions are pressured to prepare graduates for success in the workplace. Given the rate of change in today’s knowledge economy a knowledge-transfer paradigm is no longer sufficient. Instead, PSE may develop students into lifelong learners. While this notion is not new, our understanding of the characteristics of lifelong learners and our ability to assess these characteristics is somewhat limited. Further, whether work-integrated learning (WIL) programs contribute to students’ lifelong learning characteristics remains unexplored. The purpose of this study is to improve our ability to conceptualize and measure cooperative education (co-op) students’ lifelong learning characteristics and to explore potential differences in these characteristics between co-op and non-co-op students. Data collected at a Canadian university and at a French university were used to test the validity of a new instrument. Results support the instrument, providing researchers and program administrators with a tool for assessing students’ lifelong learning characteristics. Results also reveal some differences in lifelong learning scores between co-op and non-co-op students.