Sessions

Exploring a Full-Time Learning Advisor’s Autonomy

In self access, there has been much research on learner autonomy (Benson, 2007; Benson & Voller, 1997; Dam, 1995; Holec, 1981; Little, 1991,1999, 2007; Sinclair, 1999). Nevertheless, to our knowledge, there have been few to no inquiries into learning advisor autonomy (cf. Shirakawa, 2018). Having proposed a model for understanding learning advisor autonomy via teacher autonomy (Warrington & Parsons, 2019) and subsequently applied it to ourselves to test its feasibility (Warrington & Parsons, 2020), this presentation stands as an attempt to further address the aforesaid gap in the research literature. Discussion will first focus on what learning advisor autonomy looks like through the lenses of professional freedom (Pearson & Moomaw, 2005; Vieira, 2006), continuing professional development (Huang, 2005; Smith & Erdoğan, 2008), and the phenomena of the interconnectedness between teacher and learner and their mutual and simultaneous development (Jiménez Raya, Lamb, & Vieira, 2007; Little, 2007). Thereafter, attention will be turned to a case study which examined one full-time learning advisor’s autonomy using these lenses and the implications and future directions of this for his ‘learning advisor self’ and the underlying identities within it.