The current perspective of autonomous learning defines it as the agentive exhibition of resourcefulness, initiative, and persistence in self‐directed learning. As a form of human agency, it has been argued in the literature that this perspective should be consistent with Bandura's (1986) Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). The purpose of this article is to present an alignment between salient aspects of autonomous learning theory and SCT, thereby providing a heuristic position that guides future research in adult learning. Topics such as self‐efficacy, cognitive motivation, and conation will be addressed. In addition, current research from the literature in autonomous learning will be discussed.
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