An Empirical Study On The Self-directed Learning Ability Of Knowledge-oriented Staff In Smes

China's transition needs the growth of knowledge-oriented staff. According to the statistics, there are many problems in the employment and training of knowledge-oriented staff in the SMEs. Self-directed learning is the core theoretical basis of adult education, and has been researched for decades in the developed countries. And more particularly, individual learning factors is the key issue and at the center of research on self-directed learning. In view of this, an investigation has been conducted in the knowledge-oriented staff based on the summary of individual learning factors in the self-directed learning theoretical framework. Results show that individual learning factors of self-directed learners has severely affected the outcomes of self-directed learning, and that self-directed learning ability of knowledge-oriented staff is urgently needed to improve. As far as the features of SMEs are concerned, the Self-directed learning ability of knowledge-oriented staff is more and more important and crucial. With the help of the structural equation modeling, this paper studies the crucial influencing factors and its relationship from five aspects, respectively learning hindering factors, self-efficacy, Metacognition, goal setting and Learning Strategy, and hope to do some contributions to the improve of the knowledge-oriented staff in SMEs.At the end, according to the results of theoretical framework and empirical study, we discuss the strategy and tactics of nurturing the knowledge-oriented staff in the SMEs.