R3 2.15 September 20, 2024 Requiring Effort, or Supporting Autonomy? New Research Shows How to Do Both
Self-determination theory meets choice architecture in a powerful new study on student motivation.
This issue features another study on the topic of student motivation, which has been a running theme over the last year or so of R3. There’s useful new research on motivating students to adopt better study strategies, promoting growth mindset, and even on one of the longest-standing approaches to motivation, self-determination theory. This theory, which has steadily gained momentum over the last several decades, posits that people are more motivated in environments that support three key elements: autonomy, relatedness, and competence (sometimes also termed mastery). In other words, people are more inclined to exert effort when they feel empowered to make their own choices, when their efforts are valued and recognized by a community of others, and when they feel that they have the ability to be successful at what they are doing.
This has been an enormously influential idea, not just because of the three specific factors themselves, but because taken together they point to a major truth about motivation: that it arises as much from situational factors as from personal characteristics. In other words, motivation isn’t something a person has or doesn’t have, but rather, is sparked by a given environment and setting – music to the ears of any growth-minded educator.
Motivation-by-situation is also at the center of another influential framework: choice architecture. Similar to the idea of nudges in behavioral economics, choice architecture is about deliberately structuring how options are presented to decision-makers, usually in an attempt to promote better long-term choices. Like school cafeteria managers tasked with arranging food items so that more fruits and vegetables end up on kids’ lunch trays, teachers too may wonder what they can do to help students make the best long-term choices about learning, especially in those domains where directly supervising and controlling student work isn’t an option.
Conceptual frameworks like SDT, mindset, and choice architecture are only going to become more and more valuable, because student motivation is shaping up to become one (and perhaps the) key issue in higher education pedagogy. To paraphrase something I heard Dave Cormier say recently in a (phenomenal) conference talk, students now have to want to do the work we assign them to do outside of our direct supervision. AI tools now offer an ever-present and virtually undetectable alternative to putting in the effort yourself, a fact that I do think is going to require deep changes to course pedagogy and design. The old trading-work-for-points, trap-cheaters-and-slackers mentality wasn’t working before ChatGPT burst onto the scene, and it definitely isn’t going to work from here on out.
This brings us to this issue’s focus article, a revealing and deeply researched article on the impacts of course design features built specifically to increase student autonomy. It introduces an approach to one issue in particular that will immediately intrigue anyone who’s agonized over attendance policies: optional-mandatory attendance. As a longtime advocate of requiring and tracking class attendance, this concept both challenged my assumptions and got me interested in (maybe) doing something different in the future.
Citation:
Cullen, S., & Oppenheimer, D. (2024). Choosing to learn: The importance of student autonomy in higher education. Science Advances, 10(29), eado6759.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ado6759
Paywall or Open:
Open
Summary:
Using self-determination theory as a framework, this study investigated the impacts of course policies that allow students to choose mandatory aspects of their course grade, including whether attendance would be a required component of the grade and high-effort versus low-effort forms of required homework. Researchers randomly assigned participants to either control or experimental groups where the latter could make certain course requirements mandatory. Results indicate that students who opted for mandatory attendance and more rigorous homework demonstrated higher engagement and improved performance. The study provides empirical support for integrating autonomy-supportive practices to enhance student motivation and success.
Research Questions:
Study 1: What impact does offering the option to make attendance mandatory have on students' attendance, both overall and toward the end of the semester?
Study 2: What impact does offering high- or low-effort homework options have on time spent on problem sets and quality of work?
Sample:
104 students (Study 1) and 114 students (Study 2) who were enrolled in a large introductory-level philosophy course at Carnegie Mellon University.
Method/Design:
Different recitation sections of the same course, all taught by the same faculty member, were randomly assigned to offer different course policies. In the mandatory-optional experimental group for Study 1, students could choose at the beginning of the semester whether they wanted to have 3% of their final grade depend on missing no more than three recitation meetings, or whether attendance would not count at all. In the control group, all students were told that 3% of their final grade would depend on missing no more than 3 meetings (i.e., the identical opt-in policy offered in the experimental group). Researchers tracked and measured actual attendance over the semester, comparing both overall attendance and trends over the course of the semester.
For Study 2, the experimental group had the option to choose either highly effort-demanding problem sets or less-demanding essay answers as their homework, and could switch out of the problem set option and into the essay option at any time up until the midterm. In the control group, all students were required to do problem sets as homework, with no options offered. Researchers measured the time that students reported spending on each homework assignment as well as performance, and also trends over the duration of the semester.
Key Findings:
Substantial majorities of students (>85%) opted into the more rigorous options at the outset of the semester, choosing mandatory attendance and more difficult homework. When given the option, most students also chose not to switch out of their initial choices as the semester progressed.
In the control sections in which attendance was mandatory for everyone, attendance dropped off over the semester. In contrast, when students opted in to mandatory attendance, it remained high throughout the semester.
Students spent more time on homework and the quality of their work improved more consistently over time when they opted into more demanding homework, as opposed to being assigned more demanding homework with no option.
Choice Quote from the Article:
Self-determination theory (SDT), one of the most prominent psychological models of motivation, posits that intrinsic motivation is founded on three core elements: connectedness, mastery, and autonomy (4, 5). Ample evidence demonstrates that policies informed by SDT can improve student motivation (6). Many classroom interventions target connectedness, emphasizing inclusive teaching, group work, and fostering a sense of belonging (7–9). Others focus on mastery, emphasizing the importance of scaffolding and calibrating difficulty to build confidence (10–12). However, despite a large literature on the importance of autonomy to motivation and achievement, many policies recommended by university teaching and learning centers—such as mandatory attendance, mandatory drafts, syllabus quizzes, and so on—serve to undermine feelings of autonomy.
Why it Matters:
The first major news to come out of this research is the high level of student opt-in for more demanding academic options. Astonishingly, 90% of participants chose mandatory attendance and a similarly robust percentage chose more rigorous homework requirements, sticking with that choice even when they knew they could switch over to the easier track. This finding alone deals a satisfying blow to the cynical notion that students just want the easiest path to a good grade, doing anything they can to learn as little as possible along the way. I haven’t believed in that negative perspective for a while, and in my experience most faculty don’t really believe it either. But it’s an attitude that occasionally does rear its head, and this article provides a powerful counterpoint.
The work also demonstrates the impressive power of precommitment devices—a concept borrowed from economics where individuals commit to future actions to lock in more beneficial behaviors and choices. Precommitment devices, in context of college courses, offer a way to tap into the energy and enthusiasm students bring at the start of the semester, extending that energy to help sustain them through more challenging stretches of time. Instead of (again, cynically) lamenting the drop in motivation over the semester, perhaps we should instead be looking for ways to celebrate, leverage, and otherwise make the most of the motivation present on Day 1.
Does the optional-mandatory concept totally resolve the tension between letting students choose options and pushing them to use the approaches that we know (as learning and disciplinary experts) will be the most beneficial in the long run? No, not entirely. But it represents a novel way to get on the same side as students as you tackle the demands of a semester-long college course.
Lastly, the authors are dead right when they point out how educational applications of self-determination theory over-emphasize belongingness and competence at the expense of autonomy. I like how their findings challenge faculty to go beyond baby steps like “choose your own paper topic” or “you can pick your own lab partner” and begin examining how deeper aspects of course design and assessment could incorporate meaningful self-determination.
Most Relevant For:
Faculty professional development leadership and staff; leaders involved with student success initiatives; faculty across disciplines teaching required foundational courses; faculty in general
Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:
I did wonder about the logistical aspects of optional-mandatory policies and the effort involved in setting up separate grading algorithms for sub-groups of students within the same course. It is true that the classes in the study were part of a large, foundational course rather than, say, a seminar - so the authors must have grappled with this aspect of the intervention. Still, instructors wanting to put something similar into practice might hesitate at the extra work involved in tracking and separately calculating grades. Maybe if such approaches become common (as I hope they do), faculty will be able to share their practical tips and tricks for making optional-mandatory grading systems work smoothly in different types of courses.
I also wondered what would happen when optional-mandatory policies meet the institutional processes involved in grade disputes and similar issues. If a student retroactively wanted to change how their grades were calculated, completely after the fact, would the syllabus policy stand up to the challenge? How would the typical academic grievance committee react to the optional-mandatory idea?
Let me stress: I don’t think that there’s anything especially confusing or problematic about autonomy-supporting policies, especially compared to typical syllabus verbiage, which we all know is not a paragon of clarity or student-friendliness. But especially for instructors without tenure protection or seniority, it’s yet another case where going out on a limb to do something innovative might not be worth the professional risk, even if the benefits to students are clearly apparent.
In the article, the authors include a detailed discussion of the educational characteristics of their student population, undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon University, and acknowledge that these might have a big effect on how the intervention played out. I agree with them that student characteristics are an important limitation; we might not see the same results at, say, the sort of comprehensive state university like the one where I teach. That said, this work opens the door for followup studies that take student characteristics into account and test just how robust this approach is for populations that aren’t as academically skilled or perhaps as academically motivated as those at ultra-selective private universities.
One last caveat is that the statistical analyses in this article are on the complex side - which is not to say that they’re impossible to understand or are a poor fit to the research questions. To my eye, they’re appropriate, but brace yourself before diving in, as that aspect of the article struck me as a bit challenging to get through.
If you liked this article, you might also appreciate:
Mertens, S., Herberz, M., Hahnel, U. J. J., & Brosch, T. (2022). The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(1), e2107346118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107346118
Oh, H., Patrick, H., Kilday, J., & Ryan, A. (2023). The need for relatedness in college engineering: A self-determination lens on academic help seeking. Journal of Educational Psychology, 116(3), 426–447. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000831
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
Ryan, R.M., &Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61(3), Article 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860
Shen, L., & Hsee, C. K. (2017). Numerical nudging: Using an accelerating score to enhance performance. Psychological Science, 28(5), 630–639. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617700497
Thaler, R. H., Sunstein, C. R., & Balz, J. P. (2010). Choice architecture. Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1583509
File under:
Motivation, course policies, syllabi, faculty-student communication, faculty professional development, self-determination theory
Special Postscript:
For this piece, even more than most that I talk about in this newsletter, I’d encourage you to take a look at the original work. I’ve tried to capture and convey the top-level findings, but there are even more packed into the full publication. It’s also meticulously researched, clearly argued, and compellingly written, so if student motivation is on your mind in any shape or form - add it to your queue.