Keynote sessions

Randomized Controlled Field Trials in Education

Experimental interventions (randomized controlled field trials) in real school settings are increasingly being called for and sometimes referred to as the golden standard of research on education and teaching. In this presentation, central characteristics of the approach will be presented, followed by an analysis of why randomized controlled field trials are still rare in research on education. Finally, the opportunities and limitations of the approach as a contribution to evidence-based education will be discussed. Throughout the presentation, the speaker will illustrate his arguments with research studies conducted by the speaker’s research group at the University of Tübingen on oral history interviews in history lessons, short value interventions to foster motivation in mathematics, and the development of standardized enrichment offers for gifted primary school children.

From Mustivation to Wantivation to Learn: The Critical Role of a Need-Supportive Teaching Style

Several motivational frameworks (e.g., expectancy-valence accounts) consider motivation from a quantitative viewpoint, suggesting that being more strongly motivated will yield more positive outcomes. From the perspective of Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste, Niemiec, & Soenens, 2010), however, quality of motivation matters as well. Within SDT, two broader types of motivation are distinguished, that is, autonomous motivation (i.e., “wantivation”) which refers to a willing and psychologically free engagement in a learning activity and controlled motivation (“mustivation”) which refers to a pressured and conflicted engagement in a learning activity. Furthermore, recent research indicates that several reasons can underlie learners’ lack of motivation as well, with some learners displaying amotivation, which involves a sense of helplessness and discouragement, and others displaying controlled non-participation, which involves feeling pressured to not partake in the learning activity (e.g., to save face; out of peer pressure). Correlational and experimental research will be reviewed suggesting that dynamics of autonomy versus control are paramount and critical for learners’ performance, persistence, and well-being across ages and cultures. Further, it is maintained that a need-supportive teaching style, involving the combination of high autonomy support and structure, is critical to foster high quality motivation, while a need-thwarting style, involving the combination of control with chaos, can better be avoided as it relates to poor motivation and disengagement. Specifically, a newly developed circumplex model will be introduced, which differentiates the teaching styles of autonomy support, structure, control and chaos into two subareas each and orders these eight subareas along a circumplex. The circumplex provides more nuanced and richer insights in the teaching practices that are most motivating and demotivating.