Informal Learning

Informal learning is a late-20th-century term referring to widespread practices of knowledge and skill acquisition undertaken by individuals and groups studying and experimenting outside formal settings and instruction. Also known by other terms such as experiential, transactional, or life-long, these learning practices have prevailed throughout human history. Apprenticeships have fostered the individual talents of hunters, blacksmiths, illustrators, printers, ironworkers, mechanics, and medical technicians. Stories of autodidacts and self-taught geniuses populate the annals of religion, science, and the arts. The creative productions of self-taught craftsmen and artists fill museums and theaters of the world. Common household conveniences as well as technologies behind power supply, communication, and transportation have resulted from the independent experimentation of individuals who took their curiosity and drive beyond what they had learned in formal schooling.

Diverse methods, models, motives, and outcomes characterize voluntary or informal learning. No gender, age, race, ethnic group, organization, or period of history has more claim than another on informal learning. The valuation of such learning depends on context, need, agency, will, and access to opportunities to practice, experiment, find guides and critics, and reflect on one's mistakes and accidental discoveries as well as advances and achievements.

This entry uses the terms informal, voluntary, and self-directed interchangeably throughout all sections. The entry's first section explores theories of voluntary learning. Following this review is a history of voluntary learning that illustrates its evolution, particularly in relation to the rise and spread of formal schooling and more recently of digital media. The entry closes with a brief look at methods for the study of informal learning and prospects for such learning in the future.