Learning Environments and Motivation: January 2016

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Avi Kaplan & Helen Patrick
Learning Environments and Motivation
Avi Kaplan
Temple University
Helen Patrick
Purdue University
Kaplan, A., & Patrick, H. (2016). Learning environments and motivation. In K. Wentzel & D.
Miele (Eds.) Handbook of motivation at school (2nd Ed., pp. 251-274). New York: Routlege.
Keywords: Motivation, Environment, Learning, Practice
Avi Kaplan, Educational Psychology, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia PA

19122; akaplan@temple.edu
Helen Patrick, Educational Studies, College of Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN
47907; hpatrick@purdue.edu
Learning Environments & Motivation 2
Abstract
In the current chapter, we review central contemporary motivational perspectives that differ in
their theoretical assumptions about the nature of motivation and about the role of the
environment in people’s motivation. We highlight the central assumptions of each perspective
about the source and malleability of motivation, and about mechanisms of motivational change,
and how these undergird recommendations for the design of motivating learning environments.
We end the chapter by pointing to the promise of emerging complexity models of motivation,
and the implications of this new approach for research on and design of motivating learning
environments. (95 words)

Throughout the scientific study of motivation, understanding the processes that underlie people’s
motivation has always involved considering the environment within which those people live and
act. However, different motivation theorists conceive of the environment as having very different
roles in motivation, from the minor role of providing external cues that trigger people’s innate
drives to the all-encompassing role of strongly shaping people’s motivation and action through
systems of rewards and punishments or through cultural scripts for roles and behavior. Such
differences in views of the role of the environment in motivation have meaningful implications
for the questions that researchers ask, the data they collect, the way they interpret those data, and
the recommendations they make for designing motivating learning environments.
In education, the role of the environment in motivation is of utmost importance. Arguably,

education is all about designing learning environments that promote students’ motivation and
learning. Differing conceptions of the environment’s role in student motivation guide educators
to make different curricular and pedagogical decisions, teachers to assign different tasks and
interact differently with students, policymakers to set different goals and to establish different
accountability systems, the public to expect different outcomes from schools and from reform
efforts, and researchers to ask different questions and generate different hypotheses about
teachers’ and students’ motivation, learning, and achievement. For example, conceptions of the
adaptive educational environment as one that shapes students’ malleable motivation is likely to
underlie curricular designs that aim to change diverse students’ motivation. In comparison,
conceptions of the adaptive educational environment as one that matches students’ stable
motivational proclivities is likely to underlie decisions to educate students with different
motivational characteristics in different types of environments.
In the current chapter, we review several central perspectives on the role of the environment with
respect to students’ motivation, and their implications for designing motivating learning
environments. Importantly, we highlight how the environment’s role in each perspective is
embedded in a network of theoretical assumptions concerning the nature of motivation, and

particularly, its source, malleability, and mechanisms of change. The role of the learning
environment in motivation, and principles for environmental design, differ greatly when
motivation is thought to manifest itself as a stable individual characteristic versus as a
changeable environmental event. We begin our review with two dominant motivational
perspectives that ruled the field of motivation in the first half of the 20th century, and that
continue to influence contemporary motivation thought and educational practice: Implicit Needs
theory and Behaviorism. We continue with a review of the humanistic perspective on motivation,
paying particular attention to its most prominent contemporary exemplar, Self-Determination
Theory. We then review the theoretical perspective on interest; follow with the family of social-
cognitive theories that have been prominent in the field of motivation in the past few decades;
and end the review with the social-cultural approach to motivation. We conclude the chapter by
pointing to the emerging influence of the complexity science perspective on motivation theory,
and its implications for motivational theory and research, and to the design of motivating
learning environments.
Motivation as a Stable Individual Characteristic: Implicit Needs Theory

One crucial distinction between motivational theories—particularly when considering the role of
the environment—is between perspectives that view motivation as a stable individual
characteristic and those that view motivation as varying within the individual across contexts and
tasks. The assumption that motivation is malleable implies that environments can be designed to
change students’ motivational processes. In contrast, the assumption that motivation is a stable
individual trait implies that the learning environment should be designed to fit the motivational
characteristics of students; or alternatively, that the environment should be designed to support a
deep and potentially difficult process of personality transformation. Arguably, the most
prominent theory that views motivation as a stable individual trait is Implicit Need theory.
Underlying assumptions of Implicit Needs theory

Implicit Needs theory focuses on variability in individuals’ dispositional responses to
achievement situations for explaining people’s action and achievement. The central motivational
construct is the “need”: an unconscious network of associations between environmental stimuli
and emotions (McClelland, 1985). Theorists assume that these associations were learned through
connections between environmental events such as parental feedback and emotional experiences
during the early years of development, and were then generalized to similar environmental cues.
The network of associations manifests in a stable pattern of emotional and behavioral reactions
to particular environmental cues, which constitute an individual’s tendency or disposition.
The theory defines three central needs—achievement, affiliation, and power—that are based in
different affective-associative networks (McClelland, 1985). Environmental cues that signal
opportunities for achievement, affiliation, or power elicit positive emotions (e.g., excitement),
which lead in turn to motivated action—approach motivation. People may also associate
environmental cues with negative emotions (e.g., anxiety), which lead to behavioral
disengagement or anxious action—avoidance motivation. These networks are assumed to be
“arranged in a hierarchy of strength or importance within a given individual” (McClelland, 1965,
p. 322), thus shaping people’s typical reactions to the world, and manifesting as their personality.
The associative network studied most concerns achievement. The network that characterizes
positive emotional reactions to cues indicating opportunities for achievement was labeled the
“achievement need”—or nAch, whereas the network that characterizes negative emotional
reactions to achievement cues was labeled “Fear of Failure.”
In concordance with the assumption about their implicit or non-conscious character, researchers
assessed individuals’ achievement needs with a projective measure, labeled the Picture Story
Exercise (PSE; also known as the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT). In this measure, people
write a fictional story about a picture shown to them that includes an achievement cue. The story
is presumed to tap people’s unconscious reactions to the achievement cues portrayed, and is
therefore analyzed for affective and behavioral expressions of achievement (Schultheiss,
Liening, & Schad, 2008).
Some Implicit Needs researchers believe that achievement needs are not unconscious and that
people can report on them directly (e.g., Jackson, 1974). Interestingly, although the projective
measures and the self-report instruments ostensibly measure the same needs, the two measures
are often uncorrelated and are found to be associated with different outcomes (Schultheiss &
Burnstein, 2005). Thus, they appear to assess different motivational processes (McClelland,
Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). Also of note, researchers from these two methodological
traditions developed different approaches to applying their findings to the design of learning
environments; we consider these next.
Motivating learning environments according to the Implicit Needs perspective

One approach to designing motivating learning environments in the Implicit Needs perspective
relies heavily on the assumption that these needs constitute stable, individual-difference
characteristics. Because this assumption provides little hope for changing students’ motivational
patterns, the approach emphasizes the role of different environmental cues in eliciting different
emotional and behavioral reactions among students with different levels of achievement needs.
For example, in research that assessed need for achievement using self-report scales,
Harackiewicz and her colleagues found that students who reported high need for achievement
(i.e., High Achievement Motivation students, or HAMs) felt more energized and manifested
more adaptive motivation in learning environments that emphasize competition and evaluation
and provide opportunities to pursue goals of demonstrating high competence, particularly
relative to others. In contrast, students who reported low need for achievement (Low
Achievement Motivation students, or LAMs) felt more comfortable and manifested more
adaptive motivation in learning environments that emphasize collaboration or individualized
learning, and provide opportunities to pursue goals of developing competence, learning, and
understanding (Durik & Harackiewicz, 2003; Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993). These research
findings imply that learning environments that highlight different cues about opportunities and
goals for engagement would be motivating to students with different motivational characteristics.
More specifically, competitive-evaluative environments suit students with high need for
achievement, and collaborative-individualized environments are best for students with low need
for achievement.
A second, quite different, approach to designing motivating learning environments within the
Implicit Needs perspective aims at changing individuals’ deep-seated motivation. Remarkably,
it was David McClelland—the person most associated with the Implicit Needs perspective—who
suggested and engaged in interventions to change people’s motivational processes (McClelland,
1972). He theorized that the relative stability of the affective-associative network that provides
the basis for the achievement need is not an inherent impediment to changing the person’s
motivation. Along with the assumption that this cluster of affective associations is one among
other hierarchically organized clusters, McClelland (1965) argued that “the problem becomes
one of moving its position up on the hierarchy by increasing its salience compared to other
clusters” (p. 322). To do this, he incorporated theoretical understandings and research findings
from multiple frameworks—ranging from radical behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis,
through cognitive processes, to humanistic psychology—into motivational training programs that
promote the self-transformation of one’s motivational system.
In what may seem an extraordinary precursor to later motivational models, McClelland (1965)
suggested designing motivational workshops that utilize the following principles: (1) persuade
individuals that their “behavior should change and that it can change” (p. 324); (2) take people
out of their day-to-day context; (3) teach the tenets of the theory; (4) enhance people’s
understanding of motivation through interpreting data—especially data about themselves!; (5)
have people explore the relations of thought patterns and actions through hands-on simulations
of real-world situations; (6) provide feedback on personal processes and encourage thinking
about implications for their “self-concept” (p. 327) and for their actions in the world; (7)
encourage people to explore and integrate their view of themselves as achievement-oriented with
other aspects of their self-image; (8) use discussion and role-playing to highlight and facilitate
people’s exploration of the meaning of possible conflicts between their desired achievement-
orientation and prevailing cultural values and norms; (9) request writing a tentative but realistic
personal life-plan for the near future; (10) encourage the formation of support groups and follow
up periodically; and, importantly, (11) conduct the motivational workshops while creating
facilitator-participant relationships that are “warm, honest, and nonevaluative” (p. 328). These
principles and practices were theorized to promote motivation by guiding workshop participants
through a transformation of their implicit achievement associative networks.
It is noteworthy that the environmental intervention focused explicitly on the power of self-
transformation. McClelland explicitly called the process that the participants were going through
“self-study” (1965, p. 329), and asserted that “the only kind of change that can last or mean
anything is what the person decides on and works out by himself” (p. 329). Hence, in order to
create a motivating learning environment for each participant, the workshop facilitator was “not
to criticize his past behavior or direct his future choices, but to provide him with all sorts of
information and emotional support that will help him in his self-confrontation” (p. 329).
McClelland first implemented his achievement motivation interventions with business people
(1965), but later applied the same principles in schools (Alschuler, 1973; McClelland, 1972,
1987). Elementary and middle school students received motivational (re-)training, in either
specialized workshops run by experts during a few weekends, or as an integrated curriculum
administered by the students’ teachers. In both programs, “children were taught the scoring
system for n Achievement and practiced various goal-setting games so that they could learn to
think, talk, and act like a person high in n Achievement” (McClelland, 1985, p. 567). McClelland
(1985) reported that despite some effects in quantifiable subject domains such as math and
science mostly among boys, the effects of the short-term programs on eighth-grade students’
grades were less than desirable. The longer-term program administered by teachers to sixth
graders was somewhat more successful. It led to students having greater performance in seventh-
grade compared to students who did not receive the achievement motivation training.
Importantly, McClelland (1965) also recognized the limits of this approach. Highlighting the
complexity of human motivation, the variability of motivational situations, the multiple paths
that motivation may take, and the difficulty of affecting deep motivational change, he cautioned
against setting too grandiose expectations for the process and against “developing ‘all purpose’
treatments, good for any person and any purpose” (1965, p. 333). Instead, he used “contextual”
language to advocate for “specific treatments or educational programs built on laboriously
accumulated detailed knowledge of the characteristic to be changed” (p. 333).
Motivation as Shaped by the Environment: Behaviorism

In contrast to the Implicit Needs perspective on motivation, the behaviorist approach views the
environment, rather than the person, as the primary source of motivational phenomena. The two
perspectives do share some assumptions—for example, in relation to certain basic motivational
mechanisms: associative links between events in the environment and individuals’ patterned
responses. However, the perspectives differ in several important ways, including their emphasis
on the meaningful motivational unit, their assumptions about the malleability of associative
networks, and, hence, of course, their recommendations for creating environments that promote
motivation.
Underlying assumptions of the Behaviorist perspective

Similar to the Implicit Needs perspective, the behaviorist approach views motivated behavior as
based in a relationship, or association, between an environmental stimulus and a response by the
individual (Skinner, 1953; Thompson, 1986). However, whereas the Implicit Needs perspective
focuses primarily on the emotional responses elicited by environmental cues, the behaviorist
perspective emphasizes the behavioral responses in this association. Indeed, one of the tenets of
the behaviorist approach is its focus on observable and measurable specific phenomena, namely
observed behavioral episodes (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007).
Two primary mechanisms constitute the building blocks of motivated behavior according to the
behaviorist approach: classical conditioning and operant conditioning (Skinner, 1953). In
classical conditioning, a primary association between a natural behavioral response to an
environmental stimulus is used to create a secondary association between that response and a
different, neutral, stimulus (Pavlov, 1927). The theoretical assumption is that, primarily, classical
conditioning operates on fundamental biological responses (e.g., autonomic bodily reflexes of
salivation, blood pressure, heart rate, sweating) and basic emotions (e.g., happiness, fear).
Conditioned stimuli may also become themselves sources for additional conditioning.
Whereas classical conditioning is based on an association between an environmental stimulus

and a consequent response, operant conditioning is based on the association between a particular
behavior and a consequent environmental event (Skinner, 1935). Importantly, the operant
conditioning mechanism also begins with an environmental cue that signals to the individual that
certain types of responses may be called for. Once a behavioral response is emitted, however, it
is the environmental consequence of that response that shapes future patterns of behaviors: if the
environmental consequence is experienced by the individual as positive and desirable, it will
reinforce the behavior and increase its likelihood in future occasions in which the environmental
cue is present. In contrast, when the consequence is not positive, and particularly when the
consequence is undesirable (i.e., punishment), the likelihood of the behavior to appear in the
future under such environmental circumstances will decrease. This sequence of Environmental
Stimulus—Behavioral Response—Environmental Consequence constitutes the primary unit of
analysis and is labeled the Three-Term-Contingency (Sidman, 1986; Vargas & Vargas, 1991).
The behaviorist assumption is that after experiencing contingent consequences, a particular
behavior is shaped to appear frequently or be extinguished under particular, discriminating,
environmental cues.
Behaviorists assume that, over time, the two conditioning mechanisms integrate in complex ways
to shape individuals’ habitual response patterns under different environmental circumstances.
Some behaviorist conceptualizations include additional sets of contingent associations among
environmental stimuli that render the primary three-term-contingency unit as contingent itself on
other sets of environmental stimuli (Sidman, 1986). In that way, behavioral responses can
become more context sensitive. However, behaviorists are also concerned with the generalization
of behavioral responses to other contexts and environmental cues that are different from those
eliciting the original behavior. This is of particular interest in educational settings, in which the
goal is for students to acquire behavioral responses that they can then manifest in new, albeit
relevant, situations (Codding & Poncy, 2010). For this purpose, behaviorists deliberately control
and vary the stimuli that elicit behavioral responses and the reinforcement of behaviors (Shahan
& Chase, 2002).
Importantly, the behaviorist approach is diverse. In addition to a radical strand, which only
considers observable behavior, behaviorism includes various strands that manifest influences
from such psychological fields as Freudian psychoanalysis, Gestalt, cognitive information
processing, and ecological system theory (Meazzini & Ricci, 1986). Different behaviorist
psychologists also focus on behavior of different scales, ranging from a particular, short-term,
and discrete act (e.g., responding with “4” to the stimulus “2+2”) to very long-term and
asynchronous behavioral patterns that can be viewed as personality traits (e.g., behaving like a
good student; Thompson & Zeiler, 1986). Nevertheless, despite such differences, behaviorist
psychologists all share the concern with the coherent and systematic relationship between the
manifested behavior and “specific discriminative, eliciting, evocative, and reinforcing events” in
the environment (Thompson, 1986, p. 15).
Motivating learning environments according to the Behaviorist perspective

The behaviorist approach is applied extensively in educational settings (Connell, Pellecchia &
Vorndran, 2014; Rehfeldt, 2011; Vargas & Vargas, 1991). The principles guiding its application
to designing learning environments include: (1) careful attention to the specific and
discriminating environmental cues that call for emitting a behavioral response; (2) a systematic
and analytical emphasis on observable and measurable behavior and its change; (3) the careful
and discriminating use of reinforcements and punishments to increase the likelihood of desired
behavior and diminish the likelihood of undesired behavior; and (4) an emphasis on building
blocks—beginning with mastery of early steps before progressing to more complex behaviors
(Ertmer & Newby, 1993).
In educational settings, behaviorist principles for designing environments that motivate desired
behavior among students include, first, defining the specific behavioral objectives that are
desired. This is followed by careful consideration, selection, planning, and use of particular
environmental stimuli that elicit the defined set of desired responses. A crucial third step is
establishing systems of reinforcements and punishments that are relevant to the students in the
particular setting and that can be provided discriminatively when desired and undesired
behavioral responses are emitted. Fourth is reinforcing behaviors that successively approximate
the desired end-behavior, and fifth is transitioning to a new set of stimuli and behaviors only
once students mastered completely the previous set (Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Vargas & Vargas,
1991). Finally, after mastery of the desired end-behavior is achieved, environmental stimuli and
reinforcements are carefully varied, resulting in generalization of the desired responses to other
relevant environmental circumstances (Codding & Poncy, 2010).
The requirement for very systematic and specific definition of the behavioral objectives and the
programmatic application of the reinforcement protocols in the environment called for the use of
technology (Rehfeldt, 2011). During the past two decades, researchers have developed an
increasing number of computer-based instructional programs that employ behaviorist principles
in teaching and shaping students’ behavior (e.g., Connell & Witt, 2004). Much of the application
of behaviorism to educational environments involves individualized interventions, however
behavioral analysts also apply their theoretical understandings to whole classrooms with
practices such as mastery learning and token economies (Fantuzzo & Atkins, 1992).
Behaviorism provides an analytical, empirically-driven, systematic set of principles for applying

theoretical understandings to the design of learning environments. However, its application
involves several significant challenges. One challenge, shared by other motivational theories, is
the need to cater the system of contingencies to a diverse group of students with different
personal histories and with other life domains where contingencies sometimes conflict (Moore,
2001). Another challenge is that, despite vast empirical evidence in the past half a century,
behaviorists still commonly disregard mental processes (e.g., perceptions, beliefs, intentions,
goals) when accounting for people’s motivation. Perhaps the most serious contemporary
challenge to the behaviorist approach is its underlying mechanical metaphor of the person. Many
theorists, researchers, and practitioners consider the portrayal of people as machines manipulated
by the environment without any subjectivity or agency to be highly problematic (Bruner, 1990;
Teo, 2009; Weiner, 1990). The dominant perspectives in motivation theory today criticize the
behaviorist atomistic-reductionistic assumption of human behavior, and argue for theoretical
understandings of the complexity of human experience and action that begin with the subjective
experience rather than with its parts (Teo, 2009).
Motivation as Based in Organismic Human Needs: Self-Determination Theory

Unconscious processes and Behaviorism constituted the two grand psychological perspectives
that dominated the field of motivation during the first half of the 20th century. In the second half,
however, a “third force” arose: humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1962; Rogers, 1980).
Compared to theories that assume motivation to be based in stable, unconscious processes or to
result from environmental control of behavior, the fundamental premise of humanistic
psychology is that people are inherently motivated to grow, develop, and fulfill their potential.
The most prominent humanistic perspective currently is self-determination theory (SDT; Deci &
Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000, this volume).
Underlying assumptions of Self-Determination Theory

SDT holds that people have the “inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend
and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn” (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 70). This
propensity is considered the core of adaptive development and personality integration and to
manifest in engagement in an activity out of the sheer satisfaction of engagement itself:
enjoyment, engrossment, and sense of fulfillment. Such engagement is called intrinsic
motivation, because it is assumed to emanate from the authentic core of the person. Although
intrinsic motivation is an inherent human tendency, it only manifests when the three basic
psychological needs—for relatedness, competence, and autonomy or self-determination—are
satisfied.
SDT acknowledges that people are sometimes required to engage in behaviors for reasons other
than enjoyment or interest; in which case, people are said to be extrinsically motivated. There are
four types of extrinsic motivation—external, introjected, identified, or integrated—spanning a
continuum ranging from least to most autonomous, respectively. External and introjected
motivations are accompanied by a sense of coercion and negative emotions, typically lead to low
quality engagement, and are considered controlled forms of motivation. Identified and integrated
motivations reflect engagement that, even if not enjoyable or interesting, involves a sense of
value or importance (in the case of identified regulation) or a sense that it represents an authentic
aspect of oneself. Such engagement is autonomous, is accompanied by positive emotions, and is
of high quality (see further elaboration in Ryan & Deci, this volume).
SDT assumes that people have the natural tendency to internalize and integrate behaviors that are
not intrinsically motivating to them. Through the process of internalization, behaviors that may
have been experienced as controlled can be internalized and carried out from more internal
regulatory motivations. Such internalization is considered to be an adaptive developmental
process. However, SDT posits that internalization occurs only if the needs for relatedness,
competence, and autonomy are supported by the environment.
Motivating learning environments according to Self-determination Theory

The main principles of designing motivating learning environments according to SDT concern
supporting the students’ basic psychological needs. It is through supporting these needs that
teachers promote students’ intrinsically motivated engagement, or their internalization of the
value of behaviors that are not intrinsically motivating (i.e., towards identified and integrated
regulation). Supporting autonomy nurtures students’ need for self-determination, providing
structure nurtures the need for competence; and promoting interpersonal involvement nurtures
relatedness (Reeve, 2004).
In the past two decades, self-determination researchers have identified educational practices that
support students’ psychological needs (Reeve & Jang, 2006). Reeve (2010) recommended: (1)
taking the students’ perspective; (2) nurturing students’ inner motivational resources; (3)
providing explanatory rationales for requests; (4) using noncontrolling, informational language;
(5) displaying patience and allowing time for self-paced learning; (6) acknowledging and
accepting expressions of resistance and negative affect; and (7) promoting the development of
autonomous capacities. These practices are premised to promote a sense of self-determination;
internalization of motivational regulation for activities that are not intrinsically motivating;
enhancing students’ capacities to exercise their autonomy in other settings; and preventing
students from developing a sense of coercion and of being controlled (Reeve, 2004, 2010; Reeve,
Deci & Ryan, 2004).
Taking the students’ perspective involves imagining what students would perceive, feel, and do
in relation to the educational activity they are about to engage in. It constitutes an essential
prerequisite for being autonomy supportive, and provides the foundation to the other self-
determination promoting practices (Reeve, 2010).
Nurturing students’ inner motivational resources refers to designing learning activities that build
on students’ intrinsic motivation, interest, curiosity, and desire for increasing competence.
Teachers are encouraged to plan activities that trigger challenge-seeking and build on students’
interests. An important element is providing students with choice over both content and mode of
engagement. Yet, not all choices promote self-determination and adaptive motivation (Katz &
Assor, 2007); students may feel overwhelmed or threatened from choices, particularly if the
options are not normative or valued by them or their culture (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000). In order
to support students’ need for autonomy, the choice options should be relevant to their lives; in
order to support their need for competence, there must to be a range of sufficiently complex
options; and in order to support their need for relatedness, the options must be congruent with the
students’ social relationships and culture.
In addition to avoiding choices that are irrelevant or threatening, teachers should also avoid
controlling practices such as pressuring students by using directives and commands, demanding
compliance, or making desired consequences contingent on students’ engagement (Reeve, 2010).
This last recommendation stands in clear contradiction to assumptions about the nature of
motivating learning environments according to the behaviorist approach to motivation. Over the
years, there has been much debate between proponents of behaviorism and SDT about the
benefits and detrimental effects of using external rewards, with each side employing extensive
analyses of empirical findings to support its argument (e.g., Cameron, 2001; Cameron & Pierce,
1994; Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999a, 1999b, 2001). Clearly, at the foundation of this heated
debate are two very different sets of assumptions about the nature of human motivation.
While not endorsing behavioral contingencies, SDT theorists acknowledge the occasional need
to require students to engage in behaviors for which they have little interest or do not like. It is in
these situations that providing explanatory rationales is particularly important (Reeve, 2010).
Giving a reason for the activity promotes students’ understanding of the activity’s value, thus
allowing them the opportunity to internalize that value and become more autonomously
regulated. Teachers should avoid providing directives without explanations; and, clearly, avoid
assigning activities or creating rules that cannot be supported with a good rationale.
The fourth instructional behavior involves using noncontrolling and informational language
when communicating requirements to students or when addressing problems. Teachers should
avoid judgmental, rigid and pressuring language that is likely to send students a controlling
message.
Displaying teacher patience allows time for individual, self-paced learning to occur. Teachers
should provide students with time to explore materials, set and pursue their own goals, monitor
and revise their work, and make modifications to enhance interest and satisfaction. Teachers
should also avoid intruding on students, pushing a solution, or doing the work for students
(Reeve, 2010).
Acknowledging, accepting, and even welcoming students’ expressions of negative affect

conveys acceptance of their negative emotions and attitudes as valid reactions to requests and
requirements. It allows teachers to acknowledge students as agents in their learning, and then
either modify the activity or explain the rationale for it. This practice assists students in moving
from feeling controlled and resistant to feeling more autonomous and self-determined. If
unaddressed, negative feelings are likely to interfere with the students’ motivation and learning.
Promoting the development of students’ autonomous capacities is a relatively recent domain of

inquiry in SDT and its application to education is in its early stages (Reeve, 2010). The idea is
that teachers not only promote their students’ autonomy perceptions and need satisfaction, but
should also support students’ capacities to exercise their autonomous resources. This may
involve encouraging students to reflect on and deliberate their needs, interests, values, and
behaviors (Assor, 2012; Madjar, Assor & Dotan, 2010)—a recommendation akin to
McClelland’s emphasis on motivational change through self-transformation.
SDT has been applied to small-scale educational settings, as well as to whole school
environments (e.g., Connell, Klem, Lacher, Leiderman & Moore, 2009; Feinberg et al., 2006).
Such programs support psychological needs, not only of students through re-designing
instruction, but also of the administrators and teachers in the change process itself. The programs
involve teaching the SDT principles to school staff, and collaborating with them in ways that
support their own autonomy, competence, and relatedness while planning and implementing the
reform (Deci, 2009).
Despite the evidence that has accumulated to support SDT, and the relative success in applying
principles for designing learning environments (see Deci, 2009), self-determination theorists
acknowledge that “supporting or promoting autonomy in others is not as straightforward as it
might first appear to be” (Reeve, 2004, p. 197). This is because the sense of self-determination is
based in people’s subjective experiences—their perceived locus of causality of action, level of
volition, and perceived choice. The environmental conditions that facilitate such subjective
experiences may differ for different types of tasks, at different levels of skill acquisition, among
different students, in different subject domains, across different cultural groups, and in the
multiple configurations that may result from the interactions of these characteristics. Therefore,
whereas SDT provides solid, general principles and specifies particular practices for learning
environments that should promote students’ self-determination, it is nevertheless clear that there
is no absolute recipe for such design. Educational practices would have to be modified to fit the
idiosyncrasies of administrators, teachers, and students, and their cultural interpretations and
values.
Motivation as Based in the Relation between the Person and Content: Interest
Interest may be the most popular way by which educators construe student motivation. To many,
it is interest that represents the desired motivational phenomenon of focused engagement in an
activity or content. However, the motivational literature includes a diversity of approaches to
conceptualizing interest. Some approaches, for example, view interest as a form of intrinsic
motivation, and emphasize primarily its emotional component of enjoyable immersion in an
activity (Prenzel, 1992; Ryan & Deci, 2000). More recent conceptualizations of interest highlight
the emotions as well as the cognitive processes that are involved in interest (Krapp, Hidi &
Renninger, 1992; Renninger & Hidi, 2011). These recent definitions differ from conceptions of
intrinsic motivation, for example as they are depicted in SDT, by emphasizing the person’s
focused attention on and engagement with a particular content (Hidi, 2006; Hidi & Renninger,
2006). This recent conceptualization reflects different assumptions about the role of the
environment in motivation from those of the previous perspectives reviewed in this chapter as it
highlights the environment’s role in the connection between the person and a particular topic or
activity.
Underlying assumptions of the Interest perspective

Interest has been used to refer to several motivational phenomena, including: (1) a lasting
preference for certain content or activity; (2) the phenomenological state of attention,
concentration, and emotional connection with an activity or content; and (3) features of
environments that elicit the state of focused attention and emotional engagement with the content
(Hidi, 2006). Most prevalently, the literature has focused on two broad types of interest:
individual interest and situational interest (Schiefele, 2009). Individual interest refers to people’s
long-term, deep concern for particular content that they value and are knowledgeable about or
skilled at (Renninger, 2000). In comparison, situational interest refers to engagement that is

triggered by something in the environment, when people do not necessarily value or have prior
knowledge of the content. Rather, some feature of the situation—often unrelated to the content—
elicits affect and attention, and encourages the person to stay engaged with the content during the
situation (Hidi, 2006).
Among the different models of interest (Alexander & Grossnickle, this volume; Renninger &
Hidi, 2011), the most elaborate currently is Hidi and Renninger’s phase model of interest
development (Hidi, 2006; Renninger, 2009; Hidi & Renninger, 2006). The model postulates a
process that begins with triggered situational interest, continues with maintained situational
interest, follows to a phase of emerging individual interest, and ends with well-developed
individual interest. Importantly, Hidi and Renninger (2006) emphasize the role of the context in
interest development and argue that “without support from others, any phase of interest
development can become dormant, regress to a previous phase, or disappear altogether” (p. 112).
Motivating learning environments according to the Interest perspective

Designing motivating learning environments that promote interest involves applying research
findings on the role that environmental features play in situational and individual interest. These
include environmental characteristics that: (1) trigger situational interest; (2) maintain it; (3)
support the emergence of individual interest; and (4) promote its development. Bergin (1999)
provided a comprehensive list of environmental features that trigger and promote situational
interest, including hands-on experience, social interaction, games and puzzles. Other triggers
pertain to epistemic factors, such as sense of novelty, ambiguity, or surprise. Presenting content
with humor, using fantasy, in narrative form, or by modeling also seems to trigger situational
interest. Certain content, such as death, danger, injury, sex, and scandal, also seems to have the
propensity to pique interest (Bergin, 1999).
Once triggered, situational interest can be maintained by environmental features such as hands-
on experience in project-based activities and social interaction in cooperative tasks or one-on-one

tutoring (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Other features that promote maintenance of situational
interest are positive emotions, feedback that highlights developing competence, and relevance of
the content to the self (Bergin, 1999; Hidi & Renninger, 2006).
The development of maintained situational interest into emerging individual interest is primarily
self-generated; however, the environment can be structured to support this process (Hidi &
Renninger, 2006). Support may include providing models who manifest individual interest in the
content and promoting deeper content understanding or skill development (e.g., by encouraging
self-generated questions and providing opportunities for investigating them; Hidi & Renninger,
2006). Other important environmental strategies include supporting links between the content
and students’ personal or group goals and highlighting opportunities for people to pursue the
topic of interest (Bergin, 1999).
The achievement of well-developed individual interest is also primarily self-generated (Hidi &
Renninger, 2006). However, strategies that are effective in promoting change from maintained
situational interest to emerging individual interest may also support the development of the
emerging interest into a well-developed individual interest. Thus, providing models for students
to identify with, providing opportunities to extend their knowledge, and supporting more
comprehensive links between the content and students’ emerging identity will likely support the
development of well-developed individual interest (Flum & Kaplan, 2006).
Similar to the recommendations for designing motivating learning environments in the other
motivational theories, applying understandings from the domain of interest is not
straightforward. For example, different students may require different supports to move among
the various phases of interest development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Even though many
students’ interest may be triggered by novelty or surprise, students are likely to differ in what
they find novel or surprising. Although most students are likely to experience positive emotions
when receiving feedback about their developing competence, some students’ interest may benefit
more from teacher modeling and scaffolding, others’ may be more affected by peers and either
cooperative or competitive learning experiences, and yet other students’ interest may be
optimally developed with individualized tasks. Clearly, because individual interest is
idiosyncratic, teachers would be challenged to cater to the interests of all their students.
Motivation as Based in the Individual’s Subjective Meaning-Making: The Social-Cognitive

Approach
The most prevalent scientific approach to motivation in education currently relies on social-
cognitive processes (Pintrich, 2003). It emerged during the general shift in psychology during the
1960s and 1970s, from a focus on biological and unconscious needs and drives to cognitive
processes (Weiner, 1990). The foundational process is individuals’ subjective meaning-making
that centers on the formation of perceptions or beliefs, which, in turn, guide decision-making
about action (Barone, Maddux, & Snyder, 1997). Several social-cognitive motivational models
and constructs were developed over the past decades. Despite differences in their emphases, all
assume that motivation is based in individuals’ meaning-making systems and, specifically, that
perceptions and beliefs about the goal and the potential success of action is central to motivation.
Underlying assumptions of Social-cognitive theories

The basic assumption of social-cognitive theories of motivation is that individuals are motivated
to engage in activities when they perceive the task to have value, adopt a goal for the task, and
believe they have the ability, skills, and resources to succeed in achieving the goal. The various
theories vary in their emphasis on the primacy of distinct perceptions and of different meaning-
making processes for instigating and maintaining behavior. For example, attribution theory
emphasizes the cognitive processes by which people make meaning from successes and failures,
and focuses on individuals’ beliefs about the causes of these events. These causal attributions
elicit affective reactions and lead to the formation of outcome expectations, which in turn
motivate choice and action (Graham, this volume; Weiner, 2010). The self-theory perspective
(Dweck, 2000) emphasizes a particular dimension of these attributions—people’s beliefs about
whether ability is fixed or malleable—as the primary basis for their meaning-making about
achievement situations. Expectancy-value theory emphasizes the person’s competence beliefs, as
well as the perceived personal value of engagement in the task (Eccles, 2009; Wigfield, Tonks,
& Klauda, this volume). Somewhat differently, self-efficacy theory emphasizes individuals’ self-
beliefs about having the skills and resources to succeed at a task as the core of the motivational
process (Bandura, 1997; Schunk & DiBenedetto, this volume; Schunk & Pajares, 2008), and
self-concept theory focuses on peoples’ broader self-perceptions of ability (Hattie, 2014; Marsh
& Shavelson, 1985). Other social-cognitive models emphasize individuals’ construction and
adoption of a goal—a cognitive representation of a desired state—as the primary motivating
process (Boekaerts, 2009; Elliot, 2005; Hofer & Fries, this volume; Locke & Latham, 2002;
Wentzel, 2000). And there are social-cognitive models that emphasize peoples’ construction of a
more overarching meaning of achievement situations and engagement for understanding
motivation. For example, achievement goal theory focuses on individuals’ purpose, or goal
orientation, which constitutes an integrated system of beliefs about the nature of ability, causal
attributions, self-perceptions, and goals, as the primary explanatory process of motivated action
(Ames, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Kaplan & Maehr, 2007; Nicholls, 1989; Senko, this
volume).
Each of the social-cognitive models has a rich theoretical and empirical literature that elaborates
on its central processes and explains how these processes operate to motivate peoples’ behavior.
Nevertheless, all of these different models share the premise that the central basis for motivated
behavior is the meaning construed by individuals—cognitive-affective schema encompassing
beliefs and perceptions about themselves, their environment, and the task—which guides
interpretation of events and decisions about choice of action, standards of success, effort
expenditure, and persistence.
Aligned with their various emphases on different motivational perceptions or beliefs, social-
cognitive models also highlight different factors that can influence these perceptions. Some
models view meaning-making as influenced heavily by individuals’ stable prior schemas, such as
their chronic beliefs about the nature of ability, or their implicit needs (e.g., Dweck, 2000; Elliot
& McGregor, 2001). Other models emphasize situational cues that trigger changes in self-
perceptions and goals (e.g., Bandura, 1997; Nicholls, 1984). And yet others highlight the role of
the broader context (Ames, 1992) or the culture (Eccles, 2009; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986) in
framing the schema people construct about the purposes of engagement, self-perceptions, and
action possibilities in that situation. The environment plays a crucial role in each of these
theories, as it influences the meanings individuals infer from practices and social interactions,
which communicate the value of the domain and the task, how success is defined, the likelihood
of success, and possible courses of actions (Kaplan & Maehr, 2002).
Motivating learning environments according to the Social-cognitive approach

Because various social-cognitive theories highlight different primary meaning-making processes,
they differ in terms of environmental elements posited as influencing motivational meaning-
making. For example, self-efficacy theory attends to vicarious experiences of observing similar
others’ success at a task, as well as social persuasion by significant others, as influencing
individuals’ self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997; Usher & Pajares, 2008). In comparison, a
central environmental feature affecting motivation in self-theory perspectives is persuasive
environmental prompts (e.g., written information, verbal messages from teachers, peers, or
parents) that inform people’s beliefs about the nature of ability (Blackwell, Trzensniewski &
Dweck, 2007). Expectancy-value theory points to socializers’ (e.g., teachers, parents, siblings,
peers, curricular materials, media) messages about social roles and expectations for people
holding these roles (e.g., being a girl; Eccles et al., 1983).
Arguably the social-cognitive theory with the most comprehensive perspective on the role of the
learning environment in student motivation that has been put to educational practice is
achievement goal theory (Ames, 1992). Achievement goal theory, which focuses on individuals’
purposes for engaging in the achievement task as the basis for their motivation, emphasizes the
environment’s goal structure as influencing students’ construction of these purposes (Ames,
1992; Patrick, 2004). Goal structure refers to “the ways in which certain kinds of instructional
demands, situational constraints, or psychosocial characteristics” (Ames, 1992, p. 263) of the
learning environment combine to send messages to students about what is valued, how ability is
defined, and what constitutes success (Kaplan, Middleton, Urdan & Midgley, 2002; Meece,
Anderman & Anderman, 2006).
Achievement goal theory has mostly emphasized the desirability of adopting a mastery goal
orientation—engagement in tasks with a purpose of meaningful learning, improvement, mastery
of knowledge and skills, and development of interests (Maehr & Zusho, 2009; Senko, this
volume). Hence, motivating learning environments are considered to be those where goal
structures make salient messages about the value of deep understanding, personal improvement,
and mastery of knowledge. Several facets of the learning environment that send these meaning-
related messages are represented by the acronym TARGETS: the academic Task; Authority
students have over their learning; what students are Recognized for; criteria by which students
are Grouped; standards and procedures of student Evaluation; how Time is used; and the nature
of Social relationships and interactions (Ames, 1992; Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
Design principles within TARGETS that promote mastery goal orientation are also assumed to
promote task value, interest, adaptive causal attributions, and self-efficacy (Urdan & Turner,
2005). These principles include: (1) Task – designing moderately challenging academic tasks
that are interesting, diverse, novel, infused with humor, relevant to students’ experiences, that
involve active student participation, help students develop and pursue proximal and achievable
goals, and allow students control over mode of engagement and type of product; (2) Authority –
providing students opportunities to develop skills and assume leadership roles, make choices,
and participate in decision-making about their learning; avoiding controlling or coercive
language and instructional practices; (3) Recognition –employing recognition practices that
emphasize effort, strategy use, improvement, academic daring, creativity, and achievement
measured on criterion rather than on social-comparative or normative standards; (4) Grouping –
grouping students on the basis of interest rather than ability, and use collaborative instructional
methods; (5) Evaluation – evaluating performance relative to absolute rather than normative
criteria, provide accurate, informational feedback focused on strategy use and competence
development, measure progress and improvement, and use formative assessments focusing on
developing skills and the process of learning, rather than just on outcomes such as test scores or
relative performance; (6) Time – using time and schedules flexibly to provide opportunity for
meaningful and lengthy exploration and learning; and (7) Social relationships – promoting
teacher-student interactions that are supportive, caring, and warm, that foster student
responsibility, and that promote respectful student interaction and constructive student conflict-
resolution (Ames, 1992; Kaplan & Maehr, 1999; Patrick, 2004). Importantly, these different but
interdependent facets of the learning environment are assumed to work in concert to emphasize
mastery purposes for engagement; conflicting messages across different facets blur the message
and undermine the environment’s effectiveness at promoting students’ motivation (Ames, 1992).
Whereas research and interventions in classrooms and schools have supported these motivational
principles (Ames, 1992; Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Pintrich, 2003), many of them are based on the
assumption that teachers and even principals have the freedom and the time to make radical
comprehensive changes in the academic tasks, schedule, grouping, and evaluation systems.
Unfortunately, except for small private schools or educational programs, such recommendations
are very hard to apply, particularly in light of current education systems that use rewards and
punishments to control school life and policies, and that require students to participate in
activities that are in direct conflict with many of these recommendations (Nichols & Berliner,
2007; Urdan & Turner, 2005).
Motivation as Participation in Communities of Practice: The Sociocultural Approach

Over the past couple of decades there has been increasing interest in conceptualizing motivation
in line with sociocultural perspectives (Hickey & Granade, 2004; McCaslin, 2004, Turner, 2001;
Walker, Pressick-Kilborn, Sainsbury & MacCallum, 2010). Sociocultural theories consider
people’s action to be indistinguishable from the environments and cultures they participate in.
These perspectives were adopted by learning researchers in the 1970’s and 1980’s (e.g., Ferrara,
Brown, & Campione, 1986), and have become a dominant perspective in the learning sciences
(Brown, 1992). However, with few exceptions (e.g., Sivan, 1986), motivation researchers
adopted sociocultural perspectives only much later. One possible reason being that in
sociocultural perspectives, learning and motivation are not distinct; they are perceived to co-
occur in the students’ participation in an activity, and the term ‘motivation’ is seldom used.
Like social-cognitive theories, sociocultural models of motivation focus on interpretations and

meaning-making that come from experiences (Bruner, 1996). Social-cognitive theories, though,
focus on individuals’ meaning-making, and consider the messages in learning environments that
primarily influence individual students’ interpretations of themselves and their contexts. In
contrast, sociocultural theories consider people’s interpretations of themselves and others to be
construed inextricably within the shared beliefs, values, and interpretations of the wider cultural
context. This conceptualization of motivation challenges the rigid distinction between individual
students and their social and physical environment that is common in other motivational
perspectives. Conceptualizing the person and context as interdependent implies that they cannot
be decomposed into distinct entities. This has important implications for analysis and
recommendations for practice. For example, sociocultural researchers do not examine
“independent effects” of “individual” and “context” (such as in regression analysis). And, most
relevant to the current chapter, they consider motivational phenomena as highly contextualized,
which challenges traditional views of generalizability and ways to institute educational changes,
as we highlight later in this section.
Underlying assumptions of the sociocultural approach

In the sociocultural approach, the environment is an inherent, integral, and inseparable feature of
students’ motivation (Turner & Patrick, 2008). Rather than locating the source of motivation in
the environment, as in the Behaviorist approach; in the individual, as in the Implicit Need,
Humanist, and Social-Cognitive approaches; or in the interaction between the person and the
environment, as in the Interest approach; the sociocultural approach contends that students’
motivation is inseparable from nature of the activities and the available resources within the
social contexts (Wenger, 1998). Whereas there are various strands of sociocultural motivation
theories (Nolen & Ward, 2008), they all share several fundamental assumptions about the source
and nature of motivation.
First, in the sociocultural perspective, motivation is equated with engagement in a particular

activity. Motivation manifests and develops through students’ situated participation in specific,
organized cultural practices of activities that occur in particular contexts or communities of
practice (Hedegaard, 1992; Hickey & Granade, 2004). Through their participation, students
appropriate or integrate the content knowledge (e.g., history; math) and thinking habits of that
community of practice (e.g., history class; math class) with that community of practice’s goals,
values, and modes of engagement (e.g., understanding genealogy through personal projects in
history; passing a math exam). As situations differ, so too does motivation—not just the amount,
but how it is expressed. For example, children’s motivation for reading—their perceptions and
beliefs about being capable in reading, the goals of learning to read, and the effort and actions
involved in learning to read; indeed, their overall meaning of the action of reading—is quite
different in classrooms where reading activities are based on decontextualized worksheets
compared to those where reading involves communicating meaningful, personally-generated
information (Nolen, 2001).
Second, students’ participation or engagement in activities is mediated by available cultural

resources or tools. These include ideational tools like goals, norms, standards, expectations,
affordances, and constraints; tangible tools such as physical resources and available technology;
and language—an especially central cultural tool. Tools (e.g., a phonics worksheet) guide
learners in adopting the goals, values, and definitions of success inherent to the activity in that
context. They also shape the self-perceptions and self-definitions of different students who
participate in different ways (Wertsch, 1991); seeing oneself as a “good reader” depends on
“what counts” as reading and on how reading is “done” in the particular context (Bruner, 1996).
The third assumption of sociocultural motivational perspectives is that the goals, values, and
modes of participation, and hence, students’ motivation, are continuously negotiated among all
participants through various modes of social interaction (Lave & Wenger, 1991; McCaslin, 2004;
Wertsch, 1991). These activities reflect culturally-shared beliefs and values, which may change
over time as the culture itself changes. Beliefs may include what constitute “basic skills” (e.g.,
keyboarding, cursive writing) or “elementary” rather than “advanced” knowledge (e.g., syntax),
and when it is desirable for students to reach particular benchmarks (e.g., fluent reading,
speaking a second language).
Students’ engagement may reflect different motivational manifestations (McCaslin, 2004). One
clear distinction is between Engaged Participation, which refers to students’ action that is
consistent with the intentions of the activity organizers (e.g., the curriculum), and
Nonparticipation, which refers to students’ action that involves goals, values, self-perceptions,
and behaviors that are at odds with those desired by the community of practice or the activity
organizers. There are varieties of participation and nonparticipation modes, all with important
consequences for the way that students engage, learn, express their motivation, and form their
identities in specific communities (Hickey & Granade, 2004; McCaslin, 2009). For example,
legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) refers to engagement on the edge of
the community of practice, with students actualizing goals, values, and self-perceptions that
might not be central to the intended practice, but are still constructed to be in line with the
practice (e.g., paying attention but not actively participating in a discussion). In comparison,
marginal nonparticipation refers to engaging in activities that are considered antagonistic to the
community’s central activities (e.g., being disruptive). In peripheral nonparticipation, students
also engage in activities other than those central to the community of practice, but this
engagement does not conflict with (but, nor does it support) the normative activity’s goals and
values (e.g., doodling while not paying attention; McCaslin, 2009; Wenger, 1998).
A fourth central assumption of the sociocultural perspective is that appropriation and negotiation
of the meaning of participation takes place within students’ Zone of Proximal Development
(ZPD)—the difference between the meaning of engagement that students could be said to hold
independently and the meaning that students can only construe and perform with more expert
others (e.g., teacher, peer). Changes in engagement, and hence in motivation and learning, occur
through joint participation with others who guide engagement and scaffold meaning-making
about the goals and the use of the tools in the activity (Hedegaard, 1990; Wertsch, 1991).
Sociocultural theorists consider students’ mode of participation to be ever-changing.
Participation may be on a trajectory towards or away from appropriating the goals, values, self-
perceptions, and actions held to be central to the community of practice (Hickey & Granade,
2004).
Motivating learning environments according to the sociocultural approach

According to sociocultural motivational perspectives, individuals’ motivation cannot be
understood in generic, decontextualized terms—it is inherently contextualized. Therefore, a
particular program that was successful in promoting students’ motivation in one context is not
expected to necessarily produce similar results in another context. Accordingly, principles of
creating motivating learning environments involve studying and modifying motivational

processes in the context; for example, by undertaking design experiments or conducting action
research—cycles of observing the nature of motivation in the particular context, implementing
change through introducing different types of activities, and following with further
contextualized observations and change (Brown, 1992; Fishman, Penuel, Allen, Cheng &
Sabelli, 2013). The objectives of these motivational interventions are more localized and modest
compared to those that stem from other approaches to motivation, with the exception, perhaps, of
the behaviorist approach.
When designing activities for intervening in motivational processes, sociocultural theorists aim
for teachers and students to work in their motivational ZPD (Hickey & Granade, 2004;
McCaslin, 2009; Moll, 1990; Newmann, Griffin & Cole, 1989). The assumption that the ZPD
constitutes the central mechanism for motivational change implies the incorporation of
substantial opportunities for social interactions among teachers and students to negotiate, provide
guidance, engage, and appropriate the goals, values, artifacts, and practices embedded in the
activities (Newman et al., 1989).
Sociocultural theorists note that different cultural activities (e.g., tests versus collaborative
inquiry projects) have different goals and, hence, call for different types of engagement and
motivation. Such a perspective seems agnostic with regard to the desirable type of motivation
(e.g., intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, mastery or performance goal orientations) and to imply
that adaptive motivation involves appropriation of the particular goals, values, and modes of
action of the community of practice. However, more recently, sociocultural theorists have argued
for incorporating an ideological stance that, rather than mere socialization into the community of
practice, emphasizes promotion of engagement that empowers students to transform those
communities and practices (Engeström, 2005; Hickey & Granade, 2004; Sannino, 2011;
Stetsenko, 2008). This approach advocates for designing activities that support students’
negotiation of the meaningfulness of activities, with the goal of intentionally promoting students’
participation in changing the activities, and hence, their own motivation. Features of activities
that promote such intentional negotiation of engagement are similar to practices supportive of
students’ need for autonomy in SDT and include steps that encourage students to (1) critically
assess the activities; (2) express positive but also disagreement, negative emotions, and
resistance to engaging in the activities; (3) generate new foci and modes of engagement in the
activity, and (4) commit to and engage in the newly generated activities. Engeström and his
colleagues (Engeström, Sannino & Virkkunen, 2014) term such intentional students’
participation “transformative agency.”
Motivating Learning Environments: Critical and Future Directions

Views on the characteristics of motivating learning environments depend strongly on ideology,
ontological and epistemological assumptions about the desired nature of motivated engagement
(e.g., following the teacher’s instructions vs. engaging in criticizing and modifying the teacher’s
activity), and assumptions about the source of motivation, its malleability, and its mechanisms of
change. The apparent implication is that those interested in investigating and designing
motivating learning environments should consider their ideological stance and align themselves
with a particular set of assumptions, endorsing either the individual or the context as the primary
source of motivation, either stability or malleability as characterizing motivational phenomena,
and either the incentive structure or discourse as the primary mechanisms of motivational
change. However, as researchers and educators have come to understand, such dichotomous
distinctions fail to capture the complexity, richness, and dynamic nature of motivational
phenomena (Pintrich, 2003). At different times and in different contexts, students may be
motivated by different processes; sometimes primarily by implicit associative emotions, at other
times by the very salient contextual incentives; in some lessons by valuing the content or
experiencing a sense of belonging to the group, and in other lessons by feedback that affects their
self-efficacy or by a teacher that entices them to negotiate the terms of the assignment. Pintrich
(2003) noted that the implications of the dynamic nature of motivational phenomena “is that
there is no single right way to design classrooms to foster motivation and learning and that all
motivating classrooms do not have to be designed, organized, and structured in the same way”
(p. 672).
How, then, might educators, curriculum designers, administrators, and researchers approach the
question about the role of the learning environment in students’ motivation? Viewing
motivational processes as complex and dynamic presents a somewhat different set of
assumptions about the source, malleability, and mechanisms of change of motivational
phenomena compared to those of most contemporary motivational theories. This set of
assumptions derives from an emerging scientific paradigm that is broadly called “Complexity
Science” (Waldrop, 1992). Complexity science concerns complex phenomena—phenomena that
are highly dynamic, non-linear, non-deterministic, and interdependent with their environment,
like the economy, the weather, language, or the brain. Complex phenomena are made of
numerous interdependent components that can include varying types, strengths, and directions
(e.g., amplifying and reducing; Rowland, 2007). Complex dynamic systems are in a continuous
state of emergence, with the connections among the components continuously reforming. The
emergence is founded on the previous state of the system and the nature of the connections
among the components, but is influenced strongly by contextual characteristics. If the context is
similar to that in previous states of the system, the phenomenon will appear stable. If the context
is different, the phenomenon will appear malleable (van Geert, 2003). In recent decades,
researchers have considered complex systems to reflect psychological concepts and phenomena
such as cognition, personality, development, emotion, identity, organizational behavior, culture,
education, and more recently, motivation (Kaplan, Katz & Flum, 2012; Kaplan, 2014, 2015).
When viewed as a complex phenomenon, motivation can be considered to constitute a complex

dynamic system with components that include implicit needs, the environmental incentive
structure, subjective meaning-making, the content, characteristics of the activity, and interactions
with other people (Kaplan et al., 2012). As a complex dynamic system, motivation manifests
stability and also change; it involves agentic and also habitual behaviors; it manifests universal
processes, personality-based individual differences, and also contextual influences. The
complexity paradigm provides a conceptual basis to construct “integrated models of the
cognitive-motivational-affective self-system…that transcends some of the traditional false
dichotomies between stable-changeable, rational-irrational, consistent-inconsistent, conscious-
unconscious, controlled-automatic, and agentic-routinized descriptions of the individual”
(Pintrich, 2003, p. 680).
The implications of viewing motivation as a complex dynamic system for designing motivating
learning environments involve suspending overarching and cross-contextual assumptions of
absolute source, malleability, and mechanism of change, as well as expectations for deterministic
and linear effects of a particular intervention (Kaplan, Sinai & Flum, 2014). Instead, assumptions
about the dynamic and variable nature of motivation call for evaluating the characteristics of the
phenomena among the particular participants in the particular context at the particular time.
Designing environmental features with the intention of influencing motivation would perturb the
motivational system, with the goal of influencing its reemergence in a desirable direction
(Garner, 2014). The assumption that motivational phenomena are highly contextualized, and
their components interdependent, calls for collaboration and negotiation among the different
people in the environment so as to define the motivational phenomenon of interest and its
desirable features, identify its salient components, consider the practical affordances for
intervention, and take account of ethical considerations of the design (Kaplan et al., 2012). The
assumption about the non-deterministic nature of complex dynamic systems calls for modest
anticipation of the effect of the design, with repeated cycles of evaluation and tweaking
environmental characteristics to address the continuously changing nature of the phenomena
(Kaplan et al., 2014). Thus, a central feature of motivating learning environments, according to
the complex dynamic systems approach, is that these environments need to be dynamic
themselves.
Conclusion
Our aim for this review was to highlight the contention that views of motivating learning
environments are based on epistemological, at times ontological, and often ideological,
assumptions concerning the nature of motivation—its source, malleability, and mechanisms of
change. These assumptions guide the conceptualization of motivation, its investigation, and the
consequent recommendations for applying the theoretical understandings and empirical findings
to educational practice. In some cases, there may be significant agreement between different
theories about the principles to apply so as to create motivating learning environments. This is
the case, for example, among the various motivational perspectives within the social-cognitive
approach, interest, and self-determination theory. In other cases, assumptions lead to quite
different, at times contradictory, recommendations for educational practice. This is the case, for
example, in the recommendations emanating from humanist versus behaviorist approaches to
motivation. And in some other cases, assumptions of different approaches may lead to diverging
but not necessarily contradictory recommendations for practice. This is the case, for example, in
the recommendations emanating from the sociocultural and social-cognitive approaches to
motivation. Choice of a particular set of principles in designing motivating learning
environments should follow an intentional explication of the definition of the desired educational
goals and motivation in the context, and of the assumptions about the nature of motivation. It
should also involve recognizing the dynamic and complex nature of motivational phenomena,
and incorporate formative assessments that systematically evaluate the effect of applying
particular design principles on students’ motivation and learning. Results of the assessments
should then contribute to re-examination of assumptions, goals, environmental design principles,
and their implementations in the particular context (Kaplan et al., 2012). (10,082 words)
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Learning environments and motivation

Chapter · January 2016

Avi Kaplan Helen Patrick

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A Complex Dynamic Systems Conceptualization of Identity and Motivation View project

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Learning Environments and Motivation

Keywords: Motivation, Environment, Learning, Practice

Avi Kaplan, Educational Psychology, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia PA

Learning Environments and Motivation

Learning Environments and Motivation

In education, the role of the environment in motivation is of utmost importance. Arguably,

embedded in a network of theoretical assumptions concerning the nature of motivation, and

Motivation as a Stable Individual Characteristic: Implicit Needs Theory

Underlying assumptions of Implicit Needs theory

Motivating learning environments according to the Implicit Needs perspective

Motivation as Shaped by the Environment: Behaviorism

Underlying assumptions of the Behaviorist perspective

Whereas classical conditioning is based on an association between an environmental stimulus

Motivating learning environments according to the Behaviorist perspective

Behaviorism provides an analytical, empirically-driven, systematic set of principles for applying

Motivation as Based in Organismic Human Needs: Self-Determination Theory

Underlying assumptions of Self-Determination Theory

Motivating learning environments according to Self-determination Theory

Deci & Ryan, 2004).

Acknowledging, accepting, and even welcoming students’ expressions of negative affect

Promoting the development of students’ autonomous capacities is a relatively recent domain of

Underlying assumptions of the Interest perspective

skilled at (Renninger, 2000). In comparison, situational interest refers to engagement that is

Motivating learning environments according to the Interest perspective

on experience in project-based activities and social interaction in cooperative tasks or one-on-one

Motivation as Based in the Individual’s Subjective Meaning-Making: The Social-Cognitive

Underlying assumptions of Social-cognitive theories

Motivating learning environments according to the Social-cognitive approach

2007; Urdan & Turner, 2005).

Motivation as Participation in Communities of Practice: The Sociocultural Approach

Like social-cognitive theories, sociocultural models of motivation focus on interpretations and

Underlying assumptions of the sociocultural approach

First, in the sociocultural perspective, motivation is equated with engagement in a particular

information (Nolen, 2001).

Second, students’ participation or engagement in activities is mediated by available cultural

Motivating learning environments according to the sociocultural approach

creating motivating learning environments involve studying and modifying motivational

Motivating Learning Environments: Critical and Future Directions

When viewed as a complex phenomenon, motivation can be considered to constitute a complex

Alschuler, A. S. (1973). Developing achievement motivation in adolescents: Education for

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

of Behavioral Education, 19(1).

Psychology, 39, 378-385.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing

Psychologist, 41, 99-110.

revisited. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishers.

3-25). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Maslow, A. (1962). Towards a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Nostrand.

schools? Teachers College Record, 74(2), 129-146.

73). New York: Academic Press.

Denver, Colorado, USA.

Applied Behavior Analysis, 44, 109-119.

literature and future directions. Review of Educational Research, 78, 751-796.

perspective. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 105-115.

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