Pursuing a definition of self-directed learning in literature from 2000-2012

With the advances of technology providing large amount of informa tion available for learners in the field of medicine, and the fact that it is exceedingly demanding to work on this body of information in the classrooms, a mounting need for training autonomous and self-directed learners who are responsible for their own learning and management of their learning process is felt. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the concept of self -directed learning from different aspects and on the basis of an independent definition leading to an explicit conceptual framework. Although there are many research studies on self-directed learning, there is no explicit definition in the literature which matches the demands of medica l education . This study was an attempt to pursue a consistent, independent and explicit definition of self-directed learning in the literature from 2000-2012.Four data bases of PubMed, Google, Scopus, and Medline with two sets of keywords, self-directed learning and medical education were searched. 36 articles were down loaded, from which letters and review articles were excluded and the articles related to the field of medical education, conducted between 2000 and 2012, were included in the study. The findings showed that although there were many studies about self-directed learning, there was no consistency in the definitions provided and a few of these studies provided an explicit definition and description of the concept. A systematic review is required to bind the former definitions with more recent descriptions of the concept to bring about a thorough definition matching the demands of the new era.