Motivation and Education: The Self-Determination Perspective Edward L. Deci University of Rochester Robert J. Vallerand University of Quebec at Montreal Lue G. Pell University of Ottawa Richard M. Ryan University of Rochester snd about 15,000 he in izing influence that has enormous impact on the course of people lives and, in turn, on society. eal school systems are ones that succeed in promoting in students a isiasm for learning and accomplishment and a sense of wolve educational enterprise. It is this interest and (9 Edward |. Dee, Deparinvent of Psychology, ester, NY 14627,326 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN problem solving, more efficient knowledge acquisition, and a strong sense of personal worth and social responsibi The central features of optimal tel jons among facts and the ways to fi (comes that we stress. The aca important but are by no means en: ‘or generate facts are and rel for excel apt may even be counterproductive to personal and so ‘These broad learning and adjustment outcomes are what we seck to promote in schools, and althou dependent or even ant termination theory (e ey are complementary wi inds of motivation in its students. tual learning seems to occur under the same motivat promote personal growth and adjustment. largely by st indicated SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY Behavioral Regulation Most current theories of mot of intention (e.g. 1951) at their core. Factors that promote l to promote) people's under jor-outcome instru- ities and engaging in efficacious behaviors to attain those outcomes. This conceptual distinction between motivated and amotivated ac other words, between inte various term jude personal versus impersonal causality (Heider, 1958), voluntary responding versus. helplessness Geligman, 1975), jernal versus external locus of control (Ro 1966). Unlike most other t important additional are intentional or mot cont determined to the extent that they are engaged endorsed by one's sense of self (Deci & Ryan, 1991), where controlled if they are compelled by some interpersonal or however, s determination theory makes an SELE-DETERMINATION THEORY 327 force. When a behavior is set: determined, the regulatory process is choice, determined and controlled behaviors are ir regulatory processes are very different. 8 of their experiential and behavioral focus on goals or outcomes and on the hat lead to these desired outcomes (e.g., Bandura, 1977; hese other theories, self-dletermination theory does address the direction issue, and it does so by postulating needs that are 5: the needs for competence, ion). Competence involves in various external and internal outcomes and performing the requisite actions; relatedness involves secure and satisfying connections with others in one’s social autonomy refers to being self-initiating and self-regulating of ’s own actions. re are several reasons why 1e concept of needs, when employed in a nnate needs, is useful (Deci, in in other words, it addresses human beings. Second, it of phenomena rd, and most lows one to specify the contextual ion, performance, and development, ler there are moti provides a basis for dra328 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN SELFDETERMINATION THEORY 329 their basic psychological needs for competence, Opportuni fy any of these being motivated (as opposed to amot fy the need for autonomy are neces: tegration proceeds effectively is a function tions’ being ful in regul Self-Determination: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation External regulation. External reg is external to the person, for example, the offer of a threat of a punishment, A student who does an assignment hati rewards or cons or promised rewards (e.g., self- though within the person, are s0 behavior regulated by lered self-determined. A student who gets to class on ke a bad person is regulated by introjects. The hhas not become part of 10 be self-determined. More rece! id research have suggested that there are differes that these types differ led respor ‘occurs when the person od with and accepted the person iple would be a studer ies because the student believes it important330 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN in future endeavors, behavior is rela ext process is fully is, the needs, and identities. For jon with being a good studei le, a teenager may have one nd one with being a good athlete. (e possible that these two identifications could seem con the student and thus cause tension, even though both are valued by the fications have become integrated, when tory processes are integ: individual is~of what is valued by and important to Behaviors regulated by integrated processes are Tully self-deter appear primarily in adult stages of development. Integrated regulation bears some rel both are forms of autonomous self-regulation, ‘hat are associated with intrinsically motivated behavior~such as behaving willingly, being creative, and displaying conceptual or standing—can be characterized by interest in red by the activity’s b . various questi we been constet les (e.g., Blais, Sabourin, Boucher, & Valler 1989; Vallerand, lais, Briére, & P. O'Connor, 1991). These ques theoretical underpinnings and have yielded com; ‘The two scales most relevant to education are the Academic Self-Regul SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 931 jon Scale (AMS; Vallerand et al., for students in late elementary It Focuses on 1, it does not assess am i ¢o do school-related activities sn) and asks them to endorse the degree iS are true. Integration was not included in the hese students were too young to have respect to these activities. The scale by several reasons, for example “l do my get in trouble if I don't” (external); “I'l feel bad do it" (introjected); “It’s important to me to do my “1 enjoy doing my homework” (intrinsic). 1989) also assesses external, introjected, and but’ also measures as well as other methods relevant to self-determination. MOTIVATION AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES studies, self-determined motivation has been linked to vari 1al outcomes across the age span, from early elementary school to college students, Some of these studies (¢.g., Daoust, Valierand, 1988; Vallerand, 19% students who press) found that elementary school is motivation for doing schoolwork, iced greater conceptual learning and better memory than ldren who reported less autonomous motivation, An experiment by 984), lar results with college students. order to put it to use reported more id showed greater conceptual under-932 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN standing than did students who learned the mater Similarly, Groln we tested. 1 week) gains in rote recall that had dissipated 1 week Gottfried (1985, 1990) measured intrinsic motivation for specific subjects such as mathematics and reading for eatly-elementars ment tests and by teachers’ ratings of a intrinsic motivation and academic perfor comple- mentary studies by Lloycl and Barenblatt (1984) and Haywood and Burke «as77),. Other studies have focused on personal adjustment — that 1989) found that students who had greater ied regulation showed more positive emot work, and more satisfaction with school than did ional profiles were less autonomous. Ryan and Connell (1989) also found posit regu: -y found the more sreater anxiety and controlling regulatory styles to be associated wi poorer coping with failures. Finally, Deci, Schwari (1981) found a positive link between student’ self-esteem, It appears from these and other studies (e.g... C¢ that students who are intrinsi A great deal of research in the last two decades has explored, aspects of the social environment affect people's int autonomous self-regulation and, in tu competent, related, intentional (i.e., motivated) action, SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 333 e that motivated action’s being self- te, supports for terpersonal involvement of parents and general but will enhance intrinsic ve (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). To the extent that social »w satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs for ice, relatedness, and autonomy, they will diminish motivation, impair the natural developmental process, and lead to alienation and poorer performance. Rescarc these hypotheses has been done in the laboratory, as well homes. In some studies the effects of structural factors. ituational events, such as rewards and deadiines, have been explored, whereas in others the influence of general interpersonal climates has been red. In the majority of studies, intrinsic motivation has been the in more recent research internalization has ied or integrated regulati variables. Support for Competence and Relatedness According to self-determination theory, supports for competence (e-8-, nges and performance feedback) and for relatedness (¢.8., jement and peer acceptance) fa intrinsic motivation and integrated internaliza- 3 they are accompanied by autonomy-supportive 3g interpersonal contexts. Although considerable work ns 10 be done, several studies that we will now review provide some jedness on mot jety of studies. For positive feedback has generally been found to increase intrinsic mn because it enhances perceived competence (e.g., Blanck, Reis, & Jackson, 1984; Harackiewicz & Larson, 1986; Vallerand, 1983), although wwe shown that this enhancement accurs only when the feedback is sd by support for autonomy (Fisher, 1978; Ryan, 1982). When ely to result (Deci, Eghari, Patrick, & Leone, 1991). Th congratulating students for having done well at a self-i934° DECI, VALLERAND, PELL motivation, whereas praising ( which in turn would reduce int nonautonomous forms of extrinsic motivati Negative feedback, wh 1973), and some tence can leave people fee 1985), _ __ Yallerand and Reid (1984, 1988) found tion after positive than after negative feedback, and path ai that per lowered perceived c helptess (Boggia npetence regular special ress; Valler education students (Deci, Hodges, Pierson, & Tomassone, The effects of adul children’s intrinsic motivat ion (Anderson, Manoogian, & Reznick, 1976). Field involvement, using interview and q ted that parents and teachers their children have cl autonomy supportive and which ones show that the interpersonal context, as operat might be different, depending on whether administers them with an autonomy-supportive or a cos intent. A second set of studies was done in schools se DETERMINATION THEORY 335 jon between general interpersonal contexts (as assessed with es or interviews) and the motivation or internalization s in those settings. Let us briefly consider each set of studies. Etfects of external events. nes and Rewards such as prizes and money are hools as a means of motivating desired effects 1 wve been explored in studies. ‘These studies students receivect rewards as monetary payments (Deci, 1971), good-player awards (Lepper, 1973), or prizes (Harackiewicz, 1979) for participating in they tended to lose ter the rewards were (erminated, relative activity i students who absence of rewards. Similar results were people performed an interesting activity in order to avoid a ice (Deci & Cascio, 1972), ised rewards or threatened punishment is an ubiquitous Research on intrinsic motiva id n (e.g., Ryan, Mims, jernalization (e.g., Freedman, 1965) has consis- hat although these contingencies may serve to control behavior while they are operative, they also tend to undermine for interesting tasks and to impede the internalization, of regulations for uninteresting tasks (Deci et al., 1991). srformance evaluations are common in school systems and may take the verbal feedback, or written app & Koestner, 1983) tently shown, how 1974), conceptual learning. nd creativity (Amabile, 1979). The same has been ¢ (e.g., Lepper & Greene, 1975). 1991)—have similarly been found to decrease intrinsic mé 1e common to all of these findings is that each of the mentioned events pically used to pressure a target person to think, feel, or behave in a ic way. Not target person that he or she is being controlled. aan external contingency tends to diminish an individual sense of auton- ‘omy. It fosters an external perceived locus of causality and thus decreases or forestalls internalization. isk whether there are any specifiable contextual events that936 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN been identified. Zuckerman, Porac, Li that when college students were and how much time to allot to ea who were assigns ldren by Sw: study of internalization, rather than using a contr the regi feelings of not ing the task or not liking the requested way -m (0 feel self determined. This resulted in m vation (Koestner, Ryan, Bernieri, & Holt, 1984) and increased internalization (Deci et 1991). These studies suggest that in educational sei tend to encourage the self-detern turn is likely Co produce benefi those activities, whi adjustment outcomes. Interpersonal contexts. For people involved in 1 ess, it is undoubtedly disconces educat autonomous self-regulation. Accor these motivationally relevant events and structures the widely replicated negative effects. ‘The answer to this question, we believe, lies in the fact tat si events such as rewards and feedback istered by people witl general interpersonal ambience. Several laboratory studs have sh the interpersonal style @ person uses in influences the events’ effects, In these laboratory studies, events such as posi 1982), performance-contingent rewards (Ryan ct al (Koestner et int wonder low to use ways that do not have tering events greatly implied choice. The results consistently showed that the manner of presen- tation was important. For example, even though positive feedback tends to enhanc Presented in a controlling manner, and even thougl they maintained or et if language or style of presentation was nonpressuring and signified compe- SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 937 many however, requires that administrators of such nts’ frame of reference and present the na way that does not leave the cecipients feeling like pawns rns, 1968). Classroom climates. Results that complement these laboratory ex- periments hhave been found in classroom contexts. For example, in one study, Deci 1981) used an instrument to assess teachers’ styles, reasoning that some teachers are oriented toward supporting stu- jereas others are oriented toward controlling students’ n did students in classrooms with controlling (1986) assessed elementary school teachers were Students who per reported higher levels of self-esteem than did students who perceived ived competence, ar their teachers to be cot Vallerand (1991) had 100! students complete the AMS (Vallerand et al., 1989) along with ratings of the teachers’ autonomy supportiveness ns of the autonomy ively associated with the self- ions of the teachers! contollingness were tion self-regulation), and positively associated with the non-self-determined forms of mot (Wiz., external regulation and amotivation). a study by deCharms (1976), some teachers were taught to be enhanced intrinsic motiva- weir inner-city students compared with hhad not received the training the students of teachers Home contexts. Children’s motivation toward school activities is enced not only by their school experiences but also by their home lives. interview and ques id that parental styles concerning autonomy support versus control (as well as involvement) e students’ autonomous self-regulation of schoolwork and in turn938 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 339 their school achievement ‘more autonomy support iren who were more ir self-regul supportive and involved parents also performed better children whose parents were more control lerand (1991) conducted a study wi lar to the Grolnick et al. (in press) study with elementary hhe found that the more autonomy supportive the students perceived theit parents to be, the more self-determined were t contrast, ling the students perceived their parents to be, less self-determined were their m nal profiles. Thus, home contexts parallel those of the school context, ferent degrees of self-determi ical work thus far, we have treated these concepts as ie degree to which each person ave done very little work on the mergence of these styles. Its unclear, for example, whether ively invariant sequence in the emergence of these regulatory styles or whether one style predominates over the others at particular ages. is surely the case that in older children and adults, internalization of a n need mot pass from one type (o another. A person can Student Motivation: Future Direct From the outline of self-determination research on intrinsic motivation and directions for future research are appa Valuing. For students to be deavor, they must value learning, with respect to topic tion and integrat most theorists, we assume people are m of uninteresting behaviors that are valuable for effect initial laboratory experiment (Deci et a (Groinick & Ryan, 1989) effectively toward sel understand / (b) they an about the activity with a minimum of pressure, perspective are acknowledged. These factors deter bbe autonomous or self-determined. the words of deCharms (1976), an (1989) reported that je elemen- introjection and the level of ilarly with children’s reporis of Iso with their parents’ ratings of how ed they are. However, the two styles had other very different jection also expressed more ren who expressed more yment of school and more positive lures. This points to the importance of looking beyond competence and control over outcomes to the sources of initiati regulation the impor re intrinsically motivated to do it, but they do become willing to do it because of its personal value, ‘We suggest that the issue of valuing educational activities cannot be fully understood in terms of providing information about expectancies ‘outcomes because the key to acquiring values is feeling free ‘accept them as one’s own. Valuing results from internalization at tion, which requite that students are able to feel competent, rel autonomous while doing the activities. nce of autonomy (Ryan, 1982). Relatedness and autonomy. Ryan (1991; Ryan & Belmont, 1991; Ryan & Lynch, 1989) has suggested that autonomy develops most effec- lively in situations where children and teenagers feel a sense of relatedness340 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 341 loseness to, rat deal remains to be done to sort out the involved with and related (o children, on the on autonomy and self source of influence on teachers’ behavior is the students (who were actually 28) were somewhat fidgety and inattentive during a became more controlling than when the appears that students who are highly ‘motivated and autonomous in school may elicit more autonomy support from their teachers, whereas students who are more distracted and less motivated may elicit jors from the teachers. ‘A recent experiment by Pel \d (1989) took this reasoning ing prophecy effect (e.g., Rosenthal & -gard to motivation. Pelletier and ink some students are intrinsically il self-dletermined, the teachers will be more autonomy sup- (hose students, presumably believing the students will regulate nselves. On the other hand, if the teachers think other students are motivated and less self-determined, they will be more control bly believing they have to make the students perform. In the experiment, some “teacher-subjects” were told i the students they were about fo teach how to solve puzzles were extrinsically motivated, whereas others were told that their students were intrinisically x's who had been led to believe that the students were ated were very controlling toward the students, which in ts to display low levels of intrinsic motivation toward the her hand, teachers who thought that they were interacting. nicinsically motivated students were more autonomy supportive, and heir students showed high levels of intrinsic mot . Thus, the teachers? beliefs about the student’s motivation (which had been randomly assigned) actually created their own reality. wder- edness and autonomy to the determination will require considera determination, Therefore itis important to u (other than teacher individual differences) they will act in autonomy-supportive versus contr wve been done to investigate th of influence have been identified. The 1c relates to pressures are placed on teachers by demands in the school organization, and the second source relates to influences, whether real or imagined, from students, Deci, Spiegel, Ryan, Koestner, and Kauffman (1982) argued that whet teachers are pressured or controlled by their superiors or by Beneral, they are likely to respond by being more students. These researchers performed a study in were pressured (by being reminded that it was t their students performed up to high standards indicated that teachers who had been pressured were dri students thi Educational Policy: Future Directions Classrooms are: and society. As pressures fron nbedded in schools; schools are embedded in communities ned research by Deci et al. (1982) suggests, 5» and society for teachers to be more it can lead teachers to be more and thus can be counterproductive for the goals of conceptual ling and personal growth. Maehr (1991) made the complemen- tary point that classroom practices are dictated to a large degree by school policies, From our perspect school context is ‘more autonomy supportive, rather than controlling, will directly affect the extent (o which teachers support the autonomy of their students. This issue, ications, needs much further work, because the school problem-solving acti quently. Pressure from administrators to make sure students. perforn standards is just one kind of pressure that teachers experience. Gove parent groups, and other forces outside the school system 10 bear on school administrators and teachers al s, both during the teaching session and subse- lead them to be more controlling wi negative effects on the students’ self-determination, conceptui ‘and personal adjustment,942 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN reform. This is igton continues to advocate sreater discipline, and increased use of standardized testing, all of which are means of exerting greater pressure and control the educational process and therefore are likely to have at least some negative consequences. CONCLUSIONS Promoting greater self-determination, that is, a greater sense of choice, more self-initiation of behavior, and greater personal responsi important developmental go: promoting self creativity (Amabile, 1979), 79), and self-esteem (Deci, Schwartz, et al hhas become ever more apparent that self-determin insie motivation and autonomou: ‘outcomes that are benef to We be be given high priority in educati Of this article on the important elements for doi are what we refer to as autonomy support and ‘When significant adults most notably, teachers with students in an autonomy-suppor ly to retain their natural curiosity ( autonomous forms of self-reg: Process of internalization and integration. Autonomy support by adults begins with ta reference. By understanding a chi point, we can relate to him or ‘motivation for engagement in the education en born, 1990). The specific supports for self-determi offering choice, avolved be more for forming the target task. With a general attitude of v autonomy and by providing the type of autonomy support just we stand the greatest chance of bringing about tl Personal adjustmer analysis focuses on the classroom, the scitool system, or society. SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 343 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS article was supported in part by a research grant from jute of Child Health and Human Development (HD19914) ion Program in the Department of Psychology at the nd by research grants from Le Fonds pour REFERENCES IM, (1979). Elfets of enteral evalustions on artistic creativity. Journal of $Y and Socal Prychology, 37, 21-233 MR, (1978). Efecs of externally impoted desdines ian, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, nS. T., Reznck, J. S. (196). The underminiog and enhancing of preschool chilies. Journal of Personality and Socal Psychology, 34, 915-822, Bandura, A. (197). Self-efficacy: Toward a unitying theory of behevios opco! Review, 84, 191-215, Benware, CA Ded, EL. ange, Paycho- -R.(1996). 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