ran a survey study<\/a> with almost 600 students — aged 11 to 18 — in PE classes.<\/p>\nThey asked two sets of questions.<\/p>\n
First<\/strong>: did the teachers\u00a0clarify the goals<\/em> during class? That is, did they…<\/p>\n\n- … tell the students what they were going to learn, or<\/li>\n
- … how they would be evaluated?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Likewise, did they\u00a0offer process feedback<\/em>? That is, did they …<\/p>\n\n- … encourage reflection on how to improve, or<\/li>\n
- … discuss how to use the students’ strengths?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And so forth.<\/p>\n
Second:<\/strong> they asked if the students experienced greater autonomy, relatedness, and\/or competence.<\/p>\nTo be thorough, they also asked if they experienced LESS autonomy, relatedness, and\/or competence.<\/p>\n
Once they crunched all the numbers, what did this research team find?<\/p>\n
Not Surprising, or Surprising?<\/h2>\n
From one perspective, this study seems to be asking rather obvious questions. I mean: OF COURSE students will feel more autonomous<\/em> if we tell them what the goals are, or more related<\/em> if we give them feedback.<\/p>\nWhat other result would we expect?<\/p>\n
Here’s the thing: in the world of research, we don’t just assume; we\u00a0measure<\/em>. And, sure enough, those measurements\u00a0gave us the results we (probably) expected.<\/p>\nYes<\/strong>:\u00a0clear goals<\/em> enhance autonomy, relatedness, and competence.<\/p>\nAnd yes<\/strong>:\u00a0process feedback<\/em> does too.<\/p>\nAt the same time, the number crunching also provided surprising results.<\/p>\n
In some cases,\u00a0process feedback\u00a0reduced <\/strong>two of those classroom experiences: “relatedness” and “competence.”<\/p>\nWhile this result might seem surprising at first, I think it’s easy to understand the chain of emotional events here.<\/p>\n
If I give my students lots of feedback, they might feel like I’m hovering or pestering or interfering.<\/p>\n
Of course, “hovering, pestering, and interfering” could quite easily reduce\u00a0the quality of the teacher\/student relationship. And, they might also reduce my students’ feelings of competence.<\/p>\n
In other words: all that feedback could suggest the students are not doing very well. And that feeling of incompetence could — in turn — reduce the quality of their relationship with the teacher.<\/p>\n
Solving the Conundrum<\/h2>\n
So, which is it? Should teachers give students process feedback because it\u00a0enhances<\/em> autonomy, relatedness, and competence? Or, should we limit process feedback, because it reduces<\/em> relatedness and competence?<\/p>\nAs is so often the case, I think\u00a0we answer that question by\u00a0rethinking the relationship between research and classroom practice<\/em>.<\/p>\nResearch can almost never tell teachers\u00a0what to do<\/strong>. Instead, research is awesome at helping us\u00a0think about what we do<\/strong>.<\/p>\nIn this case, our thought process might sound something like this:<\/p>\n
\n- I want to create autonomous extrinsic motivation<\/em>, so I should enhance my students’ sense of\u00a0competence<\/em>.<\/li>\n
- [Thinking]<\/li>\n
- I wonder if I can promote competence by giving them lots of feedback during\u00a0<\/em>today’s class.<\/li>\n
- [more thinking]<\/li>\n
- Now that I think about it, my feedback could enhance their sense of competence. But if I give too much feedback — or unwanted feedback — students could infer that I don’t have confidence in them.<\/li>\n
- [even more thinking]<\/li>\n
- So, I’ll put a note in my lesson plan to make time for feedback. But first, I need to think about the cues my students give me when the feedback is just too much…<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Of course, those cues will look different depending on context.<\/p>\n
\n- 2nd graders will give different cues than 7th graders.<\/li>\n
- I suspect that — for cultural reasons — students in Japan signal frustration differently than those in New Zealand.<\/li>\n
- Students react differently to the cool, with-it teacher than they do with me. (It’s been a minute since I was the cool, with-it teacher.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And so forth.<\/p>\n
But if\u00a0I consider self-determination theory as a THOUGHT PROCESS, not a TO-DO LIST, I’m much likelier to get the results I want.<\/p>\n
In this case: my feedback is likelier to enhance than reduce competence. It’s therefore likelier to promote autonomous extrinsic motivation.<\/p>\n
And my students are likelier to learn.<\/p>\n
\nKrijgsman, C., Mainhard, T., van Tartwijk, J., Borghouts, L., Vansteenkiste, M., Aelterman, N., & Haerens, L. (2019). Where to go and how to get there: Goal clarification, process feedback and students\u2019 need satisfaction and frustration from lesson to lesson.\u00a0Learning and Instruction<\/i>,\u00a061<\/i>, 1-11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Motivation has been a HOT TOPIC this year in all the schools I’ve visited. Everywhere I go, I get questions about students’ apathy and indifference, and teachers’ frustration. So, what can schools and teachers do? Well, Self-Determination Theory offers a framework to answer that pressing question. In this post, I’m going to\u00a0introduce the theory — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[215,216,24,249],"class_list":["post-8127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-feedback","tag-goals","tag-motivation","tag-self-determination-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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