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Understanding student autonomy to enhance student achievement

Perceived autonomy-support, expectancy, value, metacognitive strategies and performance in chemistry: A structural equation model in undergraduates

“However, in the present study, the positive effects from autonomy support to expectancy and value variables were higher for perceived importance and utility, and lower for expectancy and interest.” (p.648) “…Perceived autonomy support positively predicted expectancy, importance, utility, interest, planning, monitoring, evaluation and performance in chemistry; motivational variables positively predicted metacognitive strategies and performance; and […]

Enhancing students’ motivation by increasing teachers’ autonomy support

“We also found that the more teachers used autonomy-supportive instructional behaviours, the more engagement their students showed.” (p.165) Reeve, J., Jang, H., Carrell, D., Jeon, S., & Barch, J. (2004). Enhancing students’ motivation by increasing teachers’ autonomy support. Motivation and Emotion, 28(2), 147–169.

The effectiveness and relative importance of choice in the classroom

“Overall and in line with self-determination theory, results suggested that providing students with choices among homework tasks effectively enhanced motivational and performance outcomes and that choice is an important component to creating a classroom environment supportive of autonomy and intrinsic motivation…Consistent with self-determination theory, we found that students reported feeling more interested in and enjoying […]

Constructing motivation through choice, interest, and interestingness

“These are the first studies to demonstrate that offering an individual the opportunity to choose aspects of a task may be most beneficial when the individual feels some initial interest for the activity at hand or when the task is such that it can benefit from opportunities to build interest…Thus overall, the results of this […]

Overchoice and assortment type: when and why variety backfires

“In particular, we find the overchoice effect is driven both by “cognitive overload” (Study 2) and the “anticipation of regret” (Study 3). In turn, we find that simplifying the information presentation and reducing the potential for regret moderate the negative impact of nonalignability.” (p.393) Gourville, J. T., & Soman, D. (2005). Overchoice and assortment type: […]

When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?

“Studies 1, 2, and 3 provide compelling empirical evidence that the provision of extensive choices, though initially appealing to choice-makers, may nonetheless undermine choosers’ subsequent satisfaction and motivation…Indeed, participants in the extensive-choice condition reported experiencing the decision-making process as being simultaneously more enjoyable, more difficult, and more frustrating. (p.1003) Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, R. […]

The Role of Choice and Interest in Reader Engagement

“The authors examined the effects of choice, topic interest, and situational interest on reading engagement, attitude, and learning. Students in the control group, who were not given choice, wrote higher quality content essays…These findings support the claim that situational interest, rather than choice or optic interest, promotes engagement.” (p.93) Flowerday, T., Schraw, G., & Stevens, […]

Optimizing the Power of Choice: Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning

“Giving students access to meaningful choice by providing options that are culturally relevant, age‐relevant, and personalized and contextualized to students’ lives will promote intrinsic motivation (Rose & Meyer, 2002)…To be intrinsically motivated to engage in a learning task, especially one that requires prolonged effort and focus, a student must feel that they are capable of […]