Target teachers first in autonomy-support interventions to foster student autonomous motivation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 8 claims (5 for, 3 mixed) · 5 studies (2 quant-synthesis, 2 theoretical, 1 review), q1–q4 · 2 of 5 report an effect size · 7 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Autonomy-supportive teaching interventions (training teachers in empathy, providing rationales, and supporting participation) should be directed at teachers rather than parents, because teacher autonomy support predicted need satisfaction and motivation more strongly. The authors state these interventions "will be especially effective if they target teachers in the first place instead of parents", with effects holding regardless of age, school level, nationality, or gender.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Professional development programs have "demonstrated their usefulness in shaping teacher autonomy-supportive practices"

Constraints¶

• "high-stakes testing or pay-by-performance for teachers may put pressure on teachers that could limit their capacity to provide autonomy support"
• "Implementing these programs in a context of high pressure is likely to be a waste of resources"

Target Learners¶

• students from primary school to university

Target Learning Goals¶

• increasing student autonomous motivation and need satisfaction through teacher autonomy support

Affordances¶

• Sdt Motivational Sequence Autonomy Support Needs Motivation

Claims¶

• Teacher autonomy support predicts students' need satisfaction and self-determined motivation more strongly than parental autonomy support [+M]
• Student age and sample gender composition moderate associations between motivation antecedents and motivation types [~W]
• Education context moderates need–motivation links: amotivation is more strongly negatively related to autonomy and relatedness in classroom than physical education samples [~W]
• Competence need satisfaction is the strongest psychological-need predictor of students' self-determined motivation types [+M]
• Need satisfaction and autonomy support did not predict external regulation, and introjected associations did not hold in the full model [~W]
• Psychological needs correlate more strongly with more self-determined motivation types, from intrinsic motivation down to near-zero with external regulation [+M]
• Autonomy-supportive teaching contrasts with controlling teaching, and controlled students do poorly compared to autonomous students [+W]
• Self-determination theory holds that autonomy support raises intrinsic motivation, and a meta-analysis finds expected tangible rewards undermine it [+M]

Related Strategies¶

• Go beyond autonomy support with competence-supporting behaviors such as high-quality feedback

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Bureau, J. S., Howard, J. L., Chong, J. X. Y., & Guay, F. (2022). Pathways to Student Motivation: A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents of Autonomous and Controlled Motivations. Review of Educational Research, 92(1), 46–72. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543211042426