Abstract:

Awakened by the lifelong learning agenda, teachers and learning became synonymous entities. Drastic and dynamic changes in, and not limited to, economic, social development, educational transformation, reinforce professional, particularly those in education service, namely teachers or teacher-educators to update their knowledge, skills or competencies. It is in this regards that teachers’ continuous professional development in the form of formal learning activities seems inevitable. Nevertheless, as teachers or these adults flocking to enroll, little do we understand of their learning or learner identity, unlike other categories of students. Is there any particular construct to understand the formation of their learner identity? Are there any factors conditioning this construct? This paper reports on one of the constructs argued to be able to feed into their learning identity composite, namely the Learning Capacity. For this purpose a scale was developed by adapting and adopting the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI). In light of the findings, issues conditioning their learning capacity were further unburied using interviews. Lessons from comparative views were then explored to further understand their formation of learning identity. The implication to government’s learning policy and reforms are also discussed.