Enhancing General Education Writing through Heutagogy: A Preliminary Study on Realizing Self-Determined Learning

This study investigates the applicability of heutagogy to general education writing instruction, with the aim of enhancing its pedagogical quality and identifying practical challenges to its implementation. Heutagogy, a learner-centered approach grounded in the principle of self-determined learning, is based on four core principles: learner agency, self-efficacy and capability, metacognition, and reflection. These principles are particularly relevant to the improvement of general education writing, where learners are required to develop their own perspectives, engage in critical reflection, and navigate non-linear learning trajectories.</br>Within this framework, learners are redefined as autonomous agents who actively construct and revise their own learning goals and pathways. Through self-determined learning, students explore their writing processes and patterns of thinking, fostering trust in their own abilities and developing transferable authorship—an adaptable capacity for writing across diverse contexts. Instructors function as facilitators, designers, observers, and co-learners who support learners’ self-directed growth while engaging in ongoing reflective practice.</br>To fully implement self-determined learning in general education writing courses, several pedagogical challenges must be addressed: clarifying classroom power dynamics between instructors and students, restructuring systems of assessment and feedback, embedding core heutagogical values into instructional design, and reinterpreting existing writing theories. Most critically, course structures must respect individual learning trajectories and growth while fostering metacognitive awareness and reflective engagement.