Are colleges and universities placing graduates in the workforce whose functionality quickly diminishes, or are they developing graduates who continue to learn and upgrade their skills in accord with the evolution of their respective occupations? Curiosity likely is one piece in a complex puzzle of dispositions that are necessary for lifelong learning.
Which dispositions contribute most to lifelong learning is the subject of debate. Nevertheless, some dispositions—in particular, curiosity—are mentioned more than others. For this reason, I have focused on curiosity as a foot-in-the-door approach to assessing lifelong learning, contending that institutions of higher education can, to some degree, evaluate how well they are developing lifelong learners by assessing students’ curiosity.
Learning Research Methods 