At present, it is necessary to strengthen the competences in educational agents, from a know how to be, know how to do, know how to act and know how to live together, and enhance autonomous learning in students and teachers. The objective of this paper was to analyze the conceptual, methodological contributions and instruments used in autonomous learning within the educational context from 2017 to 2020. This is a documentary review done in databases such as Scopus, Ebsco, Academic One File and Proquest. The Prism diagram was used to define the inclusion and exclusion criteria taking into consideration authors, date of publication, definition, approach, type and design, instrument and conceptual contributions; exclusion criteria were duplication, publication date, language, title and abstract and full text. The population was 1001 documents; and the sample selected for the research, 25 scientific articles. Most authors agree on the conceptualization of autonomous learning. The qualitative approach, with non-experimental, cross-sectional and descriptive designs, is predominant; and the documentary guide and questionnaires are the most frequently used instruments. Autonomous learning is the student´s ability to be the main character of his (her) own action; to achieve it, he (she) has to comply with internal and external demands, and its development will depend on the attitude and commitment of the educational agents.