1University of Bergen, Norway
The notion that motivation is imperative for students’ psychological well-being and academic functioning is central to Self-Determination Theory (SDT). According to SDT, different types of motivations can co-occur to a various degree with separate outcomes, depending on the extent of experienced degree of autonomy. In the current study, we investigate how making a learning exercise more relevant for higher education STEM students can affect aspects of student functioning mediated through motivation. In a randomized experiment, results indicate that the students who received a more “relevant” assignment (experimental group) experienced more autonomous forms of motivation relative to the students who received a “generic” or “traditional” exercise (control group). Further, the experimental group reported higher levels of vitality and effort relative to the control group. Using a pre-and post-test design measuring changes in emotional affect during the learning activity, we found that the control group reported an increase in negative affect and a decrease in positive affect. Finally, path analysis showed significant relationships between the type of assignment provided and motivation and student functioning.
Keywords:
self-determination theory, Autonomous Motivation, Vitality, autonomy support, intrinsic motivation, Emotional affect, stem
Citation: Johansen MO, Eliassen S and Jeno LM
(2023).
“Why Is This Relevant for Me?”: Increasing Content Relevance Enhances Student Motivation and Vitality.
Front. Psychol.
14:3644.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1184804
Received: 12 Mar 2023;
Accepted: 13 Sep 2023;
Published online: 28 Sep 2023.
Copyright: © 2023 Johansen, Eliassen and Jeno. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mr. Marius O. Johansen, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, marius.johansen@uib.no
