Objective To investigate the status and influencing factors of self-learning ability of higher vocational nursing students. Methods A total of 1 198 nursing students were investigated by the general questionnaire,Autonomic Learning Capacity Scale,General Self-efficacy Scale and Chinese version of Critical Thinking Ability Measurement Table in a Higher Vocational college. Results The score of self-learning ability of the nursing students was 68.02±8.72. Self-efficacy,critical thinking,affection for nursing,knowledge of the future career,the year they entered in the college,and educational level all entered into the regression model,which could account for 40.3% of total variance. Conclusion The self-learning ability of nursing students in the higher vocational college needs to be improved. The school should actively carry out teaching reform to establish a training system centered on the training of self-learning ability and pay attention to the training of self-efficacy and critical thinking ability. Classroom environment of arousing the interest and motivation of learning should be created so as to improve the self-learning ability of the nursing students.