Maurice Gibbons of Self-Directed Learning defines self-directed learning as learning in which the learner takes initiative and responsibility regarding what happens in their education. In this learning method, students evaluate their own success and pick and direct what learning activities they do. Gibbons reports that students may engage in self-directed learning anywhere and at any time or age.
Mardziah Hayati Abdullah, author of Self-Directed Learning, Eric Digest #169, claims that self-directed learning benefits include students becoming more aware of their responsibilities in learning and the meaningfulness of keeping track of one's education. Abdullah also claims that self-directed learners are more effective learners and social beings who can develop their own rules of leadership, and that self-directed learners are confident, goal-oriented, motivated, persistent and independent.
In self-directed learning, teachers are less at the forefront of the educational process. They assist the student through the education process by collaboratively helping students make decisions, according to Abdullah. This means that the teacher aids the learner in figuring out what to study, how to study it and how to assess the learner's own progress.
Self-directed learning is contradictory to traditional methods of education in which the teacher decides what will be studied and when, has complete control over how they assess the student's success and determines when students are ready for educational subjects. Because of this, self-directed learning is much more suitable for home schooling, opening schooling and experimental education systems, according to Gibbons.
Self-directed learning is controversial precisely because it does not conform to forms of education upon which teachers have relied in the past. Educators sometimes argue that self-directed learning is not structured enough to give students a well-rounded education that will allow students to be competitive later in life. On the other hand, some former students such as Kurt Johmann go so far as to claim that traditional American schools have "hidden agendas" such as making the student emotionally and intellectually dependent on the teacher, and that self-directed learning via home schooling is the best way to break free from these agendas and make education meaningful.