Utilizing the 3 Main Psychological Needs Under Self Determination Theory

Under self determination theory, in order to promote students' intrinsic motivation in the classroom, we first need to promote students' senses of competency, autonomy, and belonging within the classroom. Only when students needs in these three components are met in the classroom can they have the intrinsic motivation necessary to succeed.

Promoting Students' Sense of Competency

What It Is: A student's sense of competency is how they evaluate their ability to perform in any given task; whether they expect themselves to be capable or incapable of succeeding (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Why It's Important: For a student to succeed in any given task, they need to first believe they are capable of completing it. If students believe a task to be impossible for them, they will likely lack the motivation to even attempt the task.

How to Promote It:

• Provide Students with Genuine and Positive Praise. This means giving students specific feedback on their work, input, and ideas in class. It also must be genuine praise for it to register in any meaningful and impactful way for them. No matter how much adults underestimate kids, they can often tell when you are exaggerating. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

• Give Students Tasks that are Challenging but Do-Able. These tasks lie right in a student's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), in which they can learn through challenge that does not exceed their abilities but strengthens them. It is here where the most meaningful learning happens. Also, the greater the amount of challenging tasks students end up being successful in, the greater their sense of competency. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

• Foster Positive Attribution Patterns. Attribution patterns are how we attribute our successes and failures and what we attribute them to. For example, some students attribute some of their successes and failures to luck, whereas others to hard work (or lack thereof in the case of failure). In order for students to develop their self competency, they need to be able to healthily evaluate what led to their successes and failures. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?" Powerpoint, date and author unkown).

• Focus the Attention on Learning. Often times students can fall into the trap of social comparison or devaluing themselves when they fail. Instead, learners need to have a positive sense of self and re-frame their thinking into a growth mindset. This way actual growth is able to be achieved in learning rather than students blaming or comparing themselves. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

Promoting Students' Autonomy

What It Is: Autonomy is the ability of a person to make their own choices (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Why It's Important: For a person to have intrinsic motivation, they need to have the sense they are choosing to do what they are doing. To promote this, students need to have actual choice and autonomy in the classroom (Reeve et al., 1999).

How to Promote It:

• Provide Choice in the Classroom.  This is the simplest application. In this, you allow students to make choices throughout the day, both academically and non-academically. This can mean providing different options for worksheets, asking students if they would like to write in marker or pencil, or allowing students to choose what they read, for example. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

• Provide Exploratory Experiences. These activities allow students to learn by exploration, and can take a Constructivist or Montessori approach often times. In these activities, students are able to learn and answer their questions by interacting with the material in meaningful ways. Examples of this include going to the zoo or aquarium to learn about animals, making different shapes out of math manipulatives through play, and taking samples of leaves during the fall and comparing them to pictures of leaves from the summer. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

• Provide Open Ended Projects. This allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a way that is meaningful to them. Since they get to choose how and what they do, they have autonomy, and therefore, personal buy-in with the project. Teachers can also set parameters around the projects if certain standards need to be met. For example, if a math standard needs to be met, the teacher explains what students need to show in their projects to meet the standard, but leaves all else open ended. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?" Powerpoint).

• Step Back and Let Students Have Ownership of Their Learning. If teachers are controlling and micromanaging students, the students no longer feel like they are in charge of their own learning, which greatly decreases their motivation. This means that teachers need to take a step back and be less micromanaging of students, accepting that the work will not be done exactly how they want it all the time. But, this means students will feel more in control and responsible for their learning, fostering intrinsic motivation. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?" Powerpoint).

• Use Classroom Democracy and Meetings. This method allows students to have classroom autonomy as a whole and work in cooperation with each other to make decisions. This not only promotes student choice within the classroom, but also begins to help students develop a sense of belonging, another psychological need (Kohn, 1993).

Promoting Students' Sense of Belonging

What it is: A sense of belonging is a sense of purpose and connection within a group or community, such as a classroom (Ryan & Deci, 2000). It can also be referred to as "relatedness."

Why it's important: In order for students to have the intrinsic motivation necessary under this theory, they need to have personal buy-in. For them to feel like they have any peers. How to promote buy-in within a classroom, they need to have a sense of belonging and community in their classroom (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

How to Promote It: 

• Foster a Classroom Community. This can be done through regular classroom meetings and allowing students to have collaboratively make decisions in a classroom. When students are able to collaborate and communicate with each other on a regular basis and in a genuine way, a sense of community in the classroom will grow. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

• Intervene with Alienated Students. Students can be alienated for a number of reasons in the classroom, including physical appearance, cultural or ethnic bias, religious bias, perceived intelligence, receiving special ed services, or any number of reasons. This is why it is important to intervene through effective social and emotional instruction in your classroom, teaching and reinforcing concepts and behaviors such as empathy, kindness, and respect. ("Why Are My Students So Apathetic?").

How These Basic Psychological Needs Connect to the 3 Main Categories of Motivation and 4 Subcategories of Extrinsic Motivation

Amotivation: 

Under amotivation, the learner's 3 main needs (autonomy, competency, and sense of belonging) are not being met. Individuals need all three of these needs to be met, so if these needs are not met, the learner will find themselves in a state of amotivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). 

Extrinsic Motivation: 

1) Competency. Sometimes, teachers can use the extrinsic reward of praise/positive feedback to extrinsically motivate students. In this way, an extrinsic reward of genuine and positive feedback is able to boost students competency, and therefore their overall motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008). 

• This also relates to the subcategory of external regulation, the stage in which learners begin to be more motivated by a reward. So, in the stage of external regulation, you will likely see students seeking out praise or exhibiting a sense of accomplishment when positive feedback is received because the extrinsic reward is working.

  • • (External Regulation is the first subcategory within extrinsic motivation)

2) Autonomy. Because autonomy and intrinsic motivation are so closely related, it is difficult to classify students being extrinsically motivated as having much autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2008). However, building up a students' senses of competency and belonging will lead to a higher sense of autonomy for them (Deci & Ryan, 2008). So, building these up under the framework of extrinsic motivation will ultimately increase a students' autonomy, guiding them closer to intrinsic motivation.

• As students begin to develop autonomy as their senses of competency and belonging are increased, they will move on to the third and fourth stages of extrinsic motivation: identification and integration, respectively. During identification, students feel more autonomy, but not a complete sense of it. This is when autonomy is being developed and it is most critical to support it while continuing to build the student's senses of competency and belonging.

  • • (Identification is the third subcategory within extrinsic motivation)

• As students move from identification to integration, their autonomy will be more fully fledged. This will progress naturally as momentum builds for the student (think back to the swing example) and the student is more self driven. As students progress from this phase to complete intrinsic motivation, you can tell that their need for autonomy is being satisfied.

  • • (Integration is the final subcategory within extrinsic motivation)

3) Sense of Belonging. If students find interactions with others to be rewarding, then this can be used as an extrinsic motivator during this phase. To promote this as an extrinsic reward, it is recommended that teachers foster a positive social environment and learning community within their classroom (Deci & Ryan, 2008). As students begin to feel rewarded by positive interactions with their peers within the classroom, this will serve as an extrinsic reward for them to participate in the classroom, increasing their extrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008). 

• The subcategory in which sense of belonging will be most critical is during introjection. In this phase, students are motivated by pressures and a desire to please. If they are seeking to please those in their classroom community and be perceived positively by them, this student is likely in the subcategory of introjection. 

  • • (Introjection is the second subcategory within extrinsic motivation)

Intrinsic Motivation: 

Once students begin to establish firm senses of competency and belonging/relatedness, they will begin to feel a greater sense of autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Competency and relatedness set the foundation for students to have autonomy. Students will only make decisions for themselves if they feel competent to do so and if they feel they exist within a community that will have their back and support (Deci & Ryan, 2008). So, during the intrinsic motivation phase, you will notice a student's sense of autonomy increasing (Deci & Ryan, 2008).