The effects of autonomy-supportive vs. controlling guidance on learners' motivational and cognitive achievement in a structured field trip
Field trips can provide unique opportunities for authentic, meaningful, and self-determined learning. Capitalizing on these opportunities requires that field trips be structured. A common way to do this is through the use of educational materials such as worksheets. The extent to which the guide...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
7 October 2014
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| In: |
Science education
Year: 2014, Volume: 98, Issue: 6, Pages: 1033-1053 |
| ISSN: | 1098-237X |
| DOI: | 10.1002/sce.21125 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21125 Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sce.21125 
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| Author Notes: | Melanie Basten, Inga Meyer‐Ahrens, Stefan Fries, Matthias Wilde |
| Summary: | Field trips can provide unique opportunities for authentic, meaningful, and self-determined learning. Capitalizing on these opportunities requires that field trips be structured. A common way to do this is through the use of educational materials such as worksheets. The extent to which the guide's or teacher's autonomy-supportive or controlling motivating style influences learning structured by worksheets has not yet been investigated. We conducted two studies focusing on this specific issue. We hypothesized that autonomy-support is beneficial to intrinsic motivation and cognitive achievement. The setting for our research involved a field trip to the local zoo. The participants were 100 fifth graders (medium achievers) for Study 1 and 106 fifth and sixth graders (high achievers) for Study 2. The classes were divided into two groups for each study. While completing worksheets, some classes were given autonomy-supportive guidance and the others controlling guidance. We assessed the pupils’ intrinsic motivation and knowledge using a pre-, post-, follow-up test design. Our research found that autonomy-support appears to be beneficial to motivation and does not seem to impair cognitive achievement. The beneficial effect of autonomy-support was found to be higher for the high-achieving pupils than for the medium achievers. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 04.01.2021 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1098-237X |
| DOI: | 10.1002/sce.21125 |