Today’s society is compelled to expedited transformation continuum because of swift and incessant changes (Manea, 2014). Change initiatives have been taken shape so snappy that learning cycle throughout life can switch many times, so established perspicacity turn out to be futile in a short period of time (Hart, 2006). Thus, education should maintain that citizens are provident for new situations that are not familiar. Actually, the concept of lifelong learning which emerged at this point has been considered for a long time. The requisition of lifelong learning is connected with a depiction of keeping pace with changes and supplying requisite competencies (Gogunskii, Kolesnikov, Kolesnikova & Lukianov, 2016). The notion of lifelong learning, which is proverbial in the education policy reports, is examined in diversified demeanors, such as “lifelong education as a second chance” or “continuing learning in all stages of life” (Bryce & Withers, 2003). Lifelong learning that is regarded as a remarkable manner for Europe is employed in close relation with some concepts such as liberal education, adult education, vocational training, and professional training (Beycioğlu & Konan, 2008). Lifelong learning also contributes realization of self-actualization that is an opportunity to grasp and enhance qualifications throughout life. (Osborne, 2018). Citizens require lifelong learning for incessantly improving their abilities to realize self-actualization and make them well-prepared for the exigencies of the today’s circumstances (Blaschke, 2018). The prestige of lifelong learning that take into account distinguish talents of individuals will proceed to increase in future (Smyrnova-Trybulska, 2013). The significance of lifelong learning that has been mentioned more frequently in Turkey since 2009 has increased. For instance, Ministry of National Education was founded General Directorate of Lifelong Learning. In addition, National Agency of Turkey that directs Erasmus, adult education, youth education, and vocational education projects on abroad was establish. Peters (2009) attested that lifelong learning will elicit itself swiftly in all educational areas and so traditional corporations will have to keep up with it. The comprehension of lifelong learning is a requirement for permanence of the societies and substantial intent of education systems is to cultivate individuals who can learn lifelong independently. 

In fact, there is no systematic review study in Turkey inquiring peer reviewed academic articles by considering lifelong learning tendency. Therefore, this systematic review will be useful to investigate the present state of lifelong learning studies in education context. This systematic review engages to operate a systematic method to analyze the findings of the existing studies on lifelong learning. The results of lifelong learning tendency studies can be evaluated useful ways for policy making in Turkish Educational System. The existing literature on lifelong learning showed that there are manifold studies that are conducted by different disciplines like nursing, medicine, and psychology. Essentially, this systematic review only focuses on the studies which are conducted in education discipline with a geographical context. Besides, related literature indicates that lifelong learning studies include various themes such as lifelong learning competencies, perceptions about lifelong learning, and literature review about it. Indeed, this systematic review consider on lifelong learning tendency concept. The purpose of this study is to run a systematic review process to examine the lifelong learning tendency of teacher candidates. The first research question of this study is “What is the level of lifelong learning tendency of teacher candidates?”. The second research question is “Do the lifelong learning tendency of teacher candidates significantly differ according to the demographic variables?”. 

This study was designed as a systematic review that synthesize the results of previous research studies within the scope of specific research question. The lifelong learning literature search was carried out particular electronic databases that contain most publications concerning educational research. The term “lifelong learning” and “lifelong learning tendency” were utilized in both English and Turkish languages. The inclusion criteria are a significant issue that limits range of studies when systematic review process was managed. The first criterion was that this systematic review was conducted in the educational context. The second criterion was that studies about lifelong learning were performed in Turkey. The third criterion was that studies about lifelong learning tendency were reviewed. Actually, literature review search was directed in 47 years period from 1972-2019 due to the date of the emergence of lifelong learning notion. After that, it was noticed that lifelong learning studies were governed since 2009 in Turkey. Hence, the peer reviewed academic articles that have full-text version on the electronic databases from 2009 to 2019 years were reviewed. It was assigned 4143 articles in EBSCOhost, 778 in ERIC, 681 in Web of Science, 238 in PsycINFO, and 71 in ULAKBİM. Then, some of the articles was eliminated with the help of unique advanced search of METU Library electronic data bases and others were included to Mendeley reference manager to begin scanning. To begin with, all publications were auditing for duplicate articles, resulting in 1768 articles being extracted and 2375 articles were included. Then, researchers started to check for lifelong learning studies in Turkey context and 2233 studies which were not related with local were removed by examining the geographical inclusion criteria. Hence, 142 articles that are associated with Turkey context were included after other checking operation. After that, 98 articles were eliminated on the basis of title and abstract that contains irrelevant topics to lifelong learning tendency such as perceptions or attitudes toward lifelong learning and lifelong learning skills or competencies. Therefore, 44 articles that are considered on lifelong learning were include. Then, it was to begin to read full text articles by considering inclusion criteria again and 20 articles that are unrelated to lifelong learning tendency were excluded. Finally, 24 articles were chosen by considering the inclusion criteria that mainly contain Turkish educational context and the concept of lifelong learning tendency.

Consequently, totally 24 included peer reviewed articles were acquired from 21 different academic journals. According to methodology of these academic articles, 12 were survey design study (50%), 11 were correlational design study (46%), and 1 was causal-comparative design study (4%). In other words, all included studies was conducted according to quantitative paradigm. That is to say, there was not any qualitative or mix-method study which was added this systematic review because of research questions and aim of the study. As a result, respectively, the citation, design, purpose, sample, instrumentation, and primary results from all 24 articles that provided the criteria of this systematic review were reported with the tables. According the results of 24 studies, the level of lifelong learning tendency of teacher candidates differ significantly in terms of demographic variables such as university, department, grade level, age, and gender. (Aksoy, Erbay, Kör & Engin, 2017; Akyol, 2016; Akyol, Başaran & Yeşilbaş, 2018; Beytekin & Kadı, 2014; Boztepe & Demirtaş, 2018; Coşkun & Demirel, 2012; Çam & Saltan, 2019; Deveci, 2018; Ekşioğlu, Tarhan & Çetin-Gündüz, 2017; Gökyer & Karakaya-Cirit, 2018; Gökyer & Türkoğlu, 2018; Gökyer, 2019; Güzel, 2017; Karaman & Aydoğmuş, 2018; Kozikoğlu & Altunova, 2018; Kuzu, Demir & Canpolat, 2015; Seyhan & Kadı, 2015; Tezer & Aynas, 2018; Tunca, Alkın-Şahin & Aydın, 2015; Ürün-Karahan, 2017; Ürün-Karahan, 2018; Yaman & Yazar, 2015; Yenice & Alpak-Tunç, 2018; Yılmaz, 2016). Moreover, most of the studies used “Lifelong Learning Tendency” scale which was developed by Diker-Coşkun and Demirel (2010). This scale includes four dimensions as motivation, perseverance, lack of self-regulation, and lack of curiosity. Furthermore, self-efficacy is the most preferred variable for the correlational design studies in order to investigate structural equation modelling between lifelong learning tendency.

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