CHAPTER I

Introduction

Students have different goals in school. Some students go to school with the

purpose of developing their skills and competence, while others focus on competing

with their peers. There are those whose main goal is to be with their friends, and there

are also those who want to get external rewards for studying. Decades of research in

goal theory have confirmed that students’ academic engagement in school is

determined, to a large extent, by their goals (Maehr & Zusho, 2009).

Self-determination theory (SDT) assumes that inherent in human nature is the

propensity to be curious about one’s environment and interested in learning and

developing one’s knowledge. A large corpus of empirical evidence based on SDT

suggests that both intrinsic motivation and autonomous types of extrinsic motivation are

conducive to engagement and optimal learning in educational con texts. In addition,

evidence suggests that teachers’ support of students’ basic psychological needs for

autonomy, competence, and relatedness facilitates students’ autonomous self-

regulation for learning, academic performance, and wellbeing. Accordingly, SDT has

strong implications for both classroom practice and educational reform policies.

Self-determination theory is a macro-theory of human motivation, emotion, and

development that takes interest in factors that either facilitate or forestall the assimilative

and growth-oriented processes in people. As such, SDT is of much import in the domain

of education, in which students’ natural tendencies to learn represent perhaps the

greatest resource educators can tap. Yet it is also a domain in which external controls
are regularly imposed, often with the well-intended belief that such contingencies

promote students’ learning.

The self-determination theory of motivation (SDT) postulates qualitatively

different types of motivation that lead to different educational outcomes. Students’

motivation and intention to act is differentiated between autonomous motivation and

controlled motivation. The prototype of autonomous motivation corresponds to intrinsic

motivation, in which students engage in academic activities out of curiosity, pleasure,

and satisfaction, hence valuing the importance of an activity. In contrast, students show

controlled motivation when they engage in an activity due to external forces in order to

obtain something outside the activity (e.g., some form of internal or external reward) or

to avoid a given consequence (e.g., some form of internal or external punishment)

(Walker, 2009).