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Here's a list of definitions from the literature for 'learner agency'. (Click on the arrow to the right).
Learner agency refers to the kind of capability that an individual possesses to take control, as well as to perceive and act upon certain affordances. (Liu & Chao, 2018, p. 70).
Agency is the capacity and propensity to take purposeful action, (Bandura, 2001, p. 2)
Enabling eLearning, a ministry website, puts it like this: "A future focused, personalised approach in the classroom allows akonga / students to take control of their own learning." (Enabling eLearning)
Agency is the student’s capacity to take up learning opportunities in the classroom; engaging the disposition to learn. (Charteris, 2013)
The word agentic is described as an individual’s power to control his or her own goals actions and destiny. (Bjerede, 2017)
Agency is about the power to control how one’s self, identity, relationships, and activities are made and remade on a daily basis (Lewis & Moje, 2003).
Students have a sense of ‘agency’ when they feel in control of things that happen around them; when they feel that they can influence events. (MOE, 2017)
Agency is defined broadly as a capacity to take action, an aspect integral to assessment for learning. (Charteris, 2017)
Student agency is the ability to manage one’s learning (Zeiser 2018)
Simply stated; to have agency is to possess the ability to exercise influence over one’s circumstances (Crowhurst, 2018).
Capacity for autonomous intentional social action… (Klemenčič, 2015)
Barad (2007) argues that “agency is an enactment, not something that someone or something has” (p. 235).
Proactive, intentional, and constructive contribution to the flow of the learning activity. (Reeve & Tseng, 2011)
Actively participating in the construction of their own social situations. (Danby & Farrell, 2004, in Charteris, 2017)
The temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environments—the temporal-relational contexts of action—which, through the interplay of habit, imagination and judgement, both reproduces and transforms those structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations. (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998, p. 970)
Learner agency refers to the kind of capability that an individual possesses to take control, as well as to perceive and act upon certain affordances, often involving a community of practice. (Flowerdew & Miller, 2008; Gao, 2010; Hall, 2008; Mercer, 2011 as cited in Liu, 2018).
Agentic learning is defined by self-directed actions aimed at personal growth and development based on self-chosen goals. (Klemenčič, 2015)
Agency implies a sense of responsibility to participate in the world and, in so doing, to influence people, events and circumstances for the better. (OECD, 2018)
Agency is a hypothetical construct like motivation and intelligence. (Mercer, 2012)
In simple terms, the notion of ‘agency’ may be understood as having the ‘power or capacity to act and make choices’. (MOE, 2014)
Ahearn (2001, p. 112) defines agency as “the sociocultural mediated capacity to act”.
Agency is conceptualised as a personal and social quality that is negotiated among students and adults (SECKA, 2018)
We can define agency as “the capability of individual human beings to make choices and act on these choices in a way that makes a difference in their lives” (Martin, 2004, p. 135).
Agency is the power of the individual to choose what happens next. (Lindgren 2012)
When someone has agency in their learning they have the power to act. (Wenmoth, 2014)
Agency is the capacity and propensity to take purposeful initiative—the opposite of helplessness. Young people with high levels of agency do not respond passively to their circumstances; they tend to seek meaning and act with purpose to achieve the conditions they desire in their own and others’ lives. (Van der Ark, 2015) from (Ferguson, 2015)
From scanning through the list, two types of definitions seem to emerge:
Dispositional definitions
Expressive definitions
Dispositional definitions emphasise agency as a relatively stable trait intrinsic to the learner. They promote agency as an ability or capacity which a student possesses. These definitions favour the ‘sense of agency’ dimension of a learner’s agentic system and emphasise the student's sense of self efficacy .
Expressive definitions highlight the enactment of agency in a classroom and consequently emphasise the self-directed actions of students and their participation in learning (Klemenčič, 2015). These definitions emphasise action (the 'expression of agency' dimension) and the role of the teacher to facilitate student participation.
Simply stated, to have agency is to possess the ability to exercise influence over one’s circumstances (Crowhurst, 2018, p. 6).
Student agency is the ability to manage one’s learning (Zeiser et al., 2018, p. 1)
Agency is the student’s capacity to take up learning opportunities in the classroom; engaging the disposition to learn. (Charteris, 2013, p. 20)
Agency is defined broadly as a capacity to take action, an aspect integral to assessment for learning. (Charteris and Thomas, 2017, p . 162)
Agency implies a sense of responsibility to participate in the world and, in so doing, to influence people, events and circumstances for the better. (OECD, 2018, p. 4)
Agency is the… proactive, intentional, and constructive contribution to the flow of the learning activity. (Reeve & Tseng, 2011, p. 263)
Agency is… actively participating in the construction of their own social situations. (Danby & Farrell, 2004, as cited in Charteris & Thomas, 2017, p. 163)
With this in mind, it makes sense that a good working definition of learner agency needs to incorporate both these dimensions.
Towards a well-balanced and practical working definition
Furthermore, there are four predominant keywords which occur in teaching blogs, ministry websites and the existing literature in relation to learner agency. These common words are: power, control, choice and voice. These descriptors correspond well to the dimensions of agency mentioned above. That is:
dispositional definitions (a sense of agency) are about power and control and
expressive definitions (the expression of agency) emphasise choice and voice.
*Hitlin & Elder (2007, p. 170)
With this in
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