Sung Hyeon Cheon

The Teacher Benefits From Giving Autonomy Support During Physical Education Instruction

Recognizing that students benefit when they receive autonomy-supportive teaching, the current study tested the parallel hypothesis that teachers themselves would benefit from giving autonomy support. Twenty-seven elementary, middle, and high school physical education teachers (20 males, 7 females) were randomly assigned either to participate in an autonomy-supportive intervention program (experimental group) or to teach their physical education course with their existing style (control group) within a three-wave longitudinal research design. Manipulation checks showed that the intervention was successful, as students perceived and raters scored teachers in the experimental group as displaying a more autonomy-supportive and less controlling motivating style. In the main analyses, ANCOVA-based repeated-measures analyses showed large and consistent benefits for teachers in the experimental group, including greater teaching motivation (psychological need satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and intrinsic goals), teaching skill (teaching efficacy), and teaching well-being (vitality, job satisfaction, and lesser emotional and physical exhaustion). These findings show that giving autonomy support benefits teachers in much the same way that receiving it benefits their students.

An Intervention-Based Program of Research on Teachers’ Motivating Styles

Abstract Purpose Our ongoing program of research works with teachers to help them become more autonomy supportive during instruction and hence more able to promote students’ classroom motivation and engagement. Design/methodology/approach We have published five experimentally based, longitudinally designed, teacher-focused intervention studies that have tested the effectiveness and educational benefits of an autonomy-supportive intervention program (ASIP). Findings Findings show that (1) teachers can learn how to become more autonomy supportive and less controlling toward students, (2) students of the teachers who participate in ASIP report greater psychological need satisfaction and lesser need frustration, (3) these same students report and behaviorally display a wide range of important educational benefits, such as greater classroom engagement, (4) teachers benefit as much from giving autonomy support as their students do from receiving it as teachers show large postintervention gains in outcomes such as teaching efficacy and job satisfaction, and (5) these ASIP-induced benefits are long lasting as teachers use the ASIP experience as a professional developmental opportunity to upgrade the quality of their motivating style. Originality/value Our ASIP helps teachers learn how to better support their students’ autonomy during instruction. The value of this teaching skill can be seen in teachers’ and students’ enhanced classroom experience and functioning.

Expanding autonomy psychological need states from two (satisfaction, frustration) to three (dissatisfaction): A classroom-based intervention study.

We propose that students experience “autonomy dissatisfaction” when the learning environment is indifferent to their psychological need for autonomy. We hypothesized that (a) students could distinguish this newly proposed need state from both autonomy satisfaction and autonomy frustration, (b) autonomy dissatisfaction would explain unique and rather substantial variance in students’ classroom disengagement, and (c) a full understanding of the psychological need for autonomy necessitates expanding the current emphasis from two need states (satisfaction, frustration) to three (dissatisfaction). In the experimental condition, 20 secondary-school physical education (PE) teachers learned how to teach in an autonomy-supportive way; in the control condition, 17 PE teachers taught using “practice as usual.” Their 2,669 students (1,180 females, 1,489 males) self-reported their autonomy satisfaction, autonomy dissatisfaction, autonomy frustration, engagement, and disengagement throughout a semester. Objective raters scored the manipulation check (teachers’ autonomy-supportive instructional behaviors) and the engagement-disengagement outcome measure. Autonomy dissatisfaction longitudinally increased in the control group and longitudinally decreased in the experimental group. Most importantly, intervention-enabled decreases in autonomy dissatisfaction decreased students’ end-of-semester disengagement, even after controlling for midsemester changes in autonomy satisfaction and autonomy frustration. We discuss the theoretical and practical benefits of adding autonomy dissatisfaction to the self-determination theory explanatory framework.

The Effects of Controlling Coaching Behavior on Athletes’ Psychological Need Satisfaction, Moral Decision-Making and Burnout in Sport Context

Objective: The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether the relationships between coaching behavior and basic psychological needs were related to burnout and moral behavior (i.e., moral decision-making) in sport context. Method: To this end, we asked students to complete questionnaires to assess the controlling coaching behavior (CCB), psychological need satisfaction (PNS), moral decision-making and burnout in athlete-students (n=337) in the sport context. Results: The primary findings indicated that negative conditional regard within CCB had meaningful direct relations with burnout. PNS also was directly related with burnout but indirectly related with moral behavior. These findings reflected that coach autonomy support was an important environmental factor for need satisfaction, and moral behavior, whereas coach controlling coaching behavior (less controlling toward their athletes) was an important social factor for burnout and antisocial behavior. Conclusion: Overall, the results suggest that the social factor (i.e., coach autonomy-support) and PNS will influence the degree the which an individual engages in positive behaviors, whereas the CCB and need frustration will influence the degree to which an individual engages in burnout and negative behaviors in the sport context.