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Motivation and Education: The Self-Determination

Perspective
Edward L. Deci , Robert J. Vallerand , Luc G. Pelletier & Richard M. Ryan
Published online: 21 Nov 2011.

To cite this article: Edward L. Deci , Robert J. Vallerand , Luc G. Pelletier & Richard M. Ryan (1991)
Motivation and Education: The Self-Determination Perspective, Educational Psychologist, 26:3-4, 325-346, DOI:
10.1080/00461520.1991.9653137

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 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 26(3 & 4), 325-346
Copyright O 1991, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Motivation and Education: The

Self-Determination Perspective

Edward L. Deci
University of Rochester
Robert J. Vallerand
University of Quebec at Montreal
LUGG. Pelletier
University of Ottawa
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Richard M . Ryan
University of Rochester

Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991), when applied to the
realm of education, is concerned primarily with promoting in students an
interest in learning, a valuing of education, and a confidence in their own
capacities and attributes. These outcomes are manifestations of being intrin-
sically motivated and internalizing values and regulatory processes. Research
suggests that these processes result in high-quality learning and conceptual
understanding, as well as enhanced personal growth and adjustment. In this
article we also describe social-contextual factors that nurture intrinsic moti-
vation and pralmote internalization, leading to the desired educational out-
comes.

In their formative first two decades, individuals spend about 15,000 hr in

schools. Thus schools represent a primary socializing influence that has
enormous impact on the course of people lives and, in turn, on society.
Ideal school systems are ones that succeed in promoting in students a
genuine enthusiasm for learning and accomplishment and a sense of
volitional involvement in the educational enterprise. It is this interest and
volition, we suggest, that lead students to display greater flexibility in

Requests for reprints should be sent to Edward L. Deci, Department of Psychology,

University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627.
 problem solving, more efficient knowledge acquisition, and a strong sense
of personal worth and social responsibility.
The central features of optimal learning are conceptual understanding
and the flexible use of knowledge. In other words, understanding both the
relations among facts and the ways to find or generate facts are the learning
outcomes that we stress. The acquisition and retention of facts are
important but are by no means enough for excellent education. Corre-
spondingly, the central features of optimal adjustment are feeling good
about oneself and acting volitionally to satisfy one's own needs while being
attuned to and concerned about the social surround. Simply fitting in or
complying with social demands is a nonoptimal form of adjustment and
may even be counterproductive to personal and social development.
These broad learning and adjustment outcomes are what we seek to
promote in schools, and although these outcomes are sometimes considered
independent or even antithetical, a body of motivational research, guided
largely by self-determination theory (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991), has
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indicated that they are complementary when the school context stimulates
certain kinds of motivation in its students. The highest quality of concep-
tual learning seems to occur under the same motivational conditions that
promote personal growth and adjustment.

SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

Behavioral Regulation

Most current theories of motivation have the concept of intention (e.g.,

Lewin, 1951) at their core. They are concerned with factors that promote
(vs. fail to promote) people's understanding of behavior-outcome instru-
mentalities and engaging in efficacious behaviors to attain those outcomes.
This conceptual distinction between motivated and amotivated actions -in
other words, between intentional and nonintentional behaving -has been
described in various terms. These include personal versus impersonal
causality (Heider, 1958), voluntary responding versus helplessness
(Seligman, 1975), and internal versus external locus of control (Rotter,
1966).
Unlike most other theories, however, self-determination theory makes an
important additional distinction that falls within the class of behaviors that
are intentional or motivated. It distinguishes between self-determined and
controlled types of intentional regulation. Motivated actions are self-
determined to the extent that they are engaged in wholly volitionally and
endorsed by one's sense of self (Deci & Ryan, 1991), whereas actions are
controlled if they are compelled by some interpersonal or intrapsychic
 force. When a behavior is self-determined, the regulatory process is choice,
but when it is controlled, the regulatory process is compliance (or in some
cases defiance).
The dimension that ranges from being self-determined to being controlled
in one's intentional responding has also been described using the concept of
perceived locus of causality (decharms, 1968; Ryan & Connell, 1989).
When a behavior is self-determined, the person perceives that the locus of
causality is internal to his or her self, whereas when it is controlled, the
perceived locus of causality is external to the self. The important point in
this distinction is that both self-determined and controlled behaviors are
motivated or intentional but their regulatory processes are very different.
Further, as we show later, the qualities of their experiential and behavioral
components are accordingly different.

Human Needs
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Most current theories of motivation focus on goals or outcomes and on the

instrumentalities that lead to these desired outcomes (e.g., Bandura, 1977;
Dweck, 1986; lEkcles, 1983). Such theories are concerned with the direction
of behavior (i.e., with the processes that direct behavior toward desired
outcomes), but they do not deal with the question of why certain outcomes
are desired. Therefore, they fail to address the issue of the energization of
behavior.
Unlike these other theories, self-determination theory does address the
energization issue as well as the direction issue, and it does so by postulating
about basic psychological needs that are inherent in human life. The theory
focuses primarily on three such innate needs: the needs for competence,
relatedness, and autonomy (or self-determination). Competence involves
understanding how to attain various external and internal outcomes and
being efficacious in performing the requisite actions; relatedness involves
developing secure and satisfying connections with others in one's social
milieu; and aut.onomy refers to being self-initiating and self-regulating of
one's own actions.
There are several reasons why the concept of needs, when employed in a
way that involves a small number of broad, innate needs, is useful (Deci, in
press). First, it gives content to human nature; in other words, it addresses
whether there are motivational universals in human beings. Second, it
provides a basis for drawing together and integrating a range of phenomena
that might not seem connected at a superficial level. Third, and most
important to this discussion, it allows one to specify the contextual
(conditionsthat will facilitate motivation, performance, and development.
Simply stated, motivation, performance, and development will be maxi-
mized within social contexts that provide people the opportunity to satisfy
 their basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy.
Opportunities to satisfy any of these three needs contribute to people's
being motivated (as opposed to amotivated); however, opportunities to
satisfy the need for autonomy are necessary for people to be self-determined
rather than controlled.

Self-Determination: Intrinsic and Extrinsic

Motivation

Intrinsically motivated behaviors are engaged in for their own sake- for the
pleasure and satisfaction derived from their performance. When intrinsi-
cally motivated, people engage in activities that interest them, and they do
so freely, with a full sense of volition and without the necessity of material
rewards or constraints (Deci & Ryan, 1985). The child who reads a book for
the inherent pleasure of doing so is intrinsically motivated for that activity.
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Intrinsically motivated behaviors represent the prototype of self-

determination-they emanate from the self and are fully endorsed.
Extrinsically motivated behaviors, on the other hand, are instrumental in
nature. They are performed not out of interest but because they are believed
to be instrumental to some separable consequence. In early research on
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (e.g., Deci, 1971), the two forms of
motivation appeared to be antagonistic, and thus extrinsically motivated
behaviors were assumed not to be self-determined. More recently, however,
theory and research have suggested that there are different types of
extrinsically motivated behaviors and that these types differ in the extent to
which they represent self-determined versus controlled responding (Ryan &
Connell, 1989). Deci and Ryan (1985) identified four types of extrinsic
motivation: external, introjected, identified, and integrated forms of regu-
lation. Their argument was built around the concept of internalization.

Internalization. Internalization is a proactive process through which

people transform regulation by external contingencies into regulation by
internal processes (Schafer, 1968). For example, a boy who is not interested
in learning the capitals of states would not be intrinsically mo'tivated to do
so, and his learning would require contingent consequences such as praise
from the teacher. Internalization is the process through which the regula-
tion of the boy's geography learning could become internal and no longer
require external contingencies. In self-determination theory, internalization
is viewed as a motivated process. We believe (a) that people are inherently
motivated (out of the three basic needs) to internalize and integrate within
themselves the regulation of uninteresting activities that are useful for
effective functioning in the social world and (b) that the extent to which the
 process of internalization and integration proceeds effectively is a function
of the social cointext.
Optimal internalization results in regulations' being fully integrated into
the self, although there are also less optimal forms of internalization (Ryan,
1991). Self-determination theory posits that the four types of extrinsic
motivation result from the internalization process's having been
differentially effective. The resulting regulatory styles thus fall at different
points along an autonomy continuum that describes the extent to which
they have been iinternalized and integrated.

External regulation. External regulation refers t o behaviors for which

the locus of initiation is external to the person, for example, the offer of a
reward or the threat of a punishment. A student who does an assignment
for teacher's praise or to avoid parental confrontation is externally regu-
lated. The behavior is performed because of an external contingency, and
these contingencies are considered the loci of initiation and regulation.
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External regula.tion represents the least self-determined form of extrinsic

motivation.

lntrojected regulation. Taking in but not accepting a regulation as

one's own is the! basis of introjected regulation. Such regulation involves
internalized rules or demands that pressure one to behave and are buttressed
with threatened sanctions (e.g., guilt) or promised rewards (e.g., self-
aggrandizement). Introjected regulations, although within the person, are
not part of the integrated self (Deci & Ryan, 1991), so behavior regulated by
introjects is not considered self-determined. A student who gets to class on
rime to avoid feeling like a bad person is regulated by introjects. The
student has not identified with the regulation, so it has not become part of
the self, and punctuality is not really by choice. Instead, it results from
internal coercion. In short, although introjected regulation is internal to the
person, it bears more resemblance to external control than to self-
determined forms of regulation because it involves coercion or seduction
and does not entail true choice.

Identified regulation. Identified regulation occurs when the person

has come to value the behavior and has identified with and accepted the
regulatory process. With identification, the regulatory process has become
more fully a part of the self, so the person does the activity more willingly.
Behaviors thus regulated are considered more autonomous or self-
determined than are behaviors regulated by external contingencies or
introjects, because identification allows the person to feel a sense of choice
or volition about behaving. An example would be a student who willingly
does extra work in mathematics because the student believes it is important
 for continuing to succeed at mathematics. The motivation is extrinsic
because the activity is performed primarily because of its usefulness or
instrumentality for the goal of improving math performance and succeeding
in future endeavors, rather than because it is interesting. Nonetheless, the
behavior is relatively self-determined because the student does it willingly,
for personal reasons, rather than external pressure.

Integrated regulation. The most developmentally advanced form of

extrinsic motivation is integrated regulation. In this case the regulatory
process is fully integrated with the individual's coherent sense of self; that
is, the identifications are reciprocally assimilated with the individual's other
values, needs, and identities. For example, a teenager may have one
identification with being a good student and one with being a good athlete.
It is quite possible that these two identifications could seem conflicting to
the student and thus cause tension, even though both are valued by the
student. Only when the two identifications have become integrated, when
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they have become harmonious with each other and with the rest of the
student's sense of self, will the internalization process be complete. When
regulatory processes are integrated, behavior is an expression of who the
individual is-of what is valued by and important to the individual.
Behaviors regulated by integrated processes are fully self-determined and
appear primarily in adult stages of development.
Integrated regulation bears some relation to intrinsic motivation because
both are forms of autonomous self-regulation. Accordingly, the qualities
that are associated with intrinsically motivated behavior - such as behaving
willingly, being creative, and displaying conceptual or intuitive under-
standing-can be used as objective markers of the extent to which an
extrinsic regulation has become fully integrated. However, intrinsic moti-
vation and integrated regulation are different. Intrinsic motivation is
characterized by interest in the activity itself, whereas integrated regulation
is characterized by the activity's being personally important for a valued
outcome.
Recently, various questionnaires have been constructed to assess regula-
tory styles (e.g., Blais, Sabourin, Boucher, & Vallerand, 1990; Ryan &
Connell, 1989; Vallerand, Blais, Brittre, & Pelletier, 1989; Vallerand &
O'Connor, 1991). These questionnaires differ in the age of subjects toward
whom they are geared, in the domains to which they refer, and in how many
of the six motivational constructs (viz., amotivation, external regulation,
introjected regulation, identified regulation, integrated regulation, and
intrinsic motivation) they assess. Still, the various scales have the same
theoretical underpinnings and have yielded complementary results.
The two scales most relevant to the current discussion of motivation in
education are the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire (ASRQ; Ryan &
 Connell, 1989) and the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS; Vallerand et al.,
1989). The ASRQ was designed primarily for students in late elementary
and middle sch~ools.It includes four subscales measuring the external,
introjected, and identified forms of extrinsic motivation and also intrinsic
motivation. It focuses on students' motivation to do school-related activities
(thus, it does not assess amotivation) and asks them to endorse the degree
to which various reasons are true. Integration was not included in the
ASRQ because it was assumed these students were too young to have
achieved a sen:s~eof integration with respect to these activities. The scale
presents a stem followed by several reasons, for example "I do my
homework because": ccI'llget in trouble if I don't" (external); "1'11 feel bad
about myself if I don't do it" (introjected); "It's important to me to do my
homework" (identified); and "I enjoy doing my homework" (intrinsic).
The AMS (Varllerand et al., 1989) also assesses external, introjected, and
identified regulation and intrinsic motivation, but also measures
arnotivation. The AMS was designed for use with college students and uses
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a format similar to that used by Ryan and Connell(1989) in the ASRQ. In

the following sections, we review studies that have used these questionnaires
as well as other methods relevant to self-determination.

MOTIVATION AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES

In several recent studies, self-determined motivation has been linked to

various educational outcomes across the age span, from early elementary
school to college students. Some of these studies (e.g., Daoust, Vallerand,
& Blais, 1988; Vallerand, 1991; Vallerand & Bissonnette, in press) have
shown that students who had more self-determined forms of motivation for
doing schoolwork were more likely to stay in school than students who had
less self-determined motivation. Others (e-g., Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, in
press; Pintrich ,& De Groot, 1990) have linked intrinsic motivation and
autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation to positive academic perfor-
mance.
Earlier, we identified conceptual understanding and personal adjustment
as the most important educational outcomes. Several recent investigations
have focused on the relation of motivation to these outcomes. Grolnick and
Ryan (1987) and Grolnick et al. (in press) found that elementary school
students who reported more autonomous motivation for doing schoolwork,
in general, evidenced greater conceptual learning and better memory than
did children who reported less autonomous motivation. An experiment by
Benware and Deci (1984), showed similar results with college students.
Students who learned text material in order to put it to use reported more
intrinsic motiva1,ion for learning and showed greater conceptual under-
 standing than did students who learned the material in order to be tested.
Similarly, Grolnick and Ryan (1987) found that asking elementary students
to learn material in order to be tested on it led to lower interest and poorer
conceptual learning than did asking students to learn the material with no
mention of a test, even though the test condition led to short-term (less than
1 week) gains in rote recall that had dissipated 1 week later.
Gottfried (1985, 1990) measured intrinsic motivation for specific subjects
such as mathematics and reading for early-elementary, late-elementary, and
junior high students. She reported significant positive correlations between
intrinsic motivation and achievement (as measured by standardized achieve-
ment tests and by teachers' ratings of achievement). Relations between
intrinsic motivation and academic performance were also found in comple-
mentary studies by Lloyd and Barenblatt (1984) and Haywood and Burke
(1977).
Other studies have focused on personal adjustment- that is, on affective
outcomes - as predicted by motivational variables. For example, Vallerand
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et al. (1989) found that students who had greater intrinsic motivation and
identified regulation showed more positive emotions in the classroom, more
enjoyment of academic work, and more satisfaction with school than did
students whose motivational profiles were less autonomous. Ryan and
Connell (1989) also found positive correlations between autonomous regu-
latory styles and enjoyment of school, whereas they found the more
controlling regulatory styles to be associated with greater anxiety and
poorer coping with failures. Finally, Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, and Ryan
(1981) found a positive link between student's intrinsic motivation and
self-esteem.
It appears from these and other studies (e.g., Connell & Wellborn, 1990)
that students who are intrinsically motivated for doing schoolwork and who
have developed more autonomous regulatory styles are more likely to stay
in school, to achieve, to evidence conceptual understanding, and to be well
adjusted than are students with less self-determined types of motivation. It
therefore seems worthwhile to explore the social-contextual conditions that
facilitate self-determined forms of motivation.

SOCIAL-CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON STUDENTS

A great deal of research in the last two decades has explored how various
aspects of the social environment affect people's intrinsic motivation and
autonomous self-regulation and, in turn, the quality of their performance.
A central hypothesis of self-determination theory is that social contexts that
support people's being competent, related, and autonomous will promote
intentional (i.e., motivated) action, and furthermore, that support for
 SELF-DETERMINATIONTHEORY 333

autonomy in particular will facilitate that motivated action's being self-

determined (rather than controlled). Thus, for example, supports for
competence (e.g., positive feedback) will enhance motivation in general but
will enhance ind.rinsic motivation and integrated internalization only if it is
administered in a way that is autonomy supportive (Ryan, 1982). Similarly,
supports for relatedness (e.g., the interpersonal involvement of parents and
teachers) will enhance motivation in general but will enhance intrinsic
motivation and integrated internalization only if the involved others are
autonomy supportive (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). To the extent that social
contexts do not allow satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs for
competence, rdatedness, and autonomy, they will diminish motivation,
impair the natuiral developmental process, and lead to alienation and poorer
,z95%9rwa?rh?.
Research tesitiing these hypotheses has been done in the laboratory, as well
as in classroom~ziand homes. In some studies the effects of structural factors
or situational events, such as rewards and deadlines, have been explored,
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whereas in others the influence of general interpersonal climates has been

considered. In the majority of studies, intrinsic motivation has been the
dependent variable, although in more recent research internalization has
been explored by focusing on identified or integrated regulation as outcome
variables.

Support for (Competence and Relatedness

According to self-determination theory, supports for competence (e.g.,

optimal challenges and performance feedback) and for relatedness (e.g.,
parental involvement and peer acceptance) facilitate motivation. However,
such supports will facilitate intrinsic motivation and integrated internaliza-
tion only to the extent that they are accompanied by autonomy-supportive
rather than controlling interpersonal contexts. Although considerable work
remains to be done, several studies that we will now review provide some
support for these assertions.
The effects of supports for competence and relatedness on motivation
and internalization have been investigated in a variety of studies. For
example, positive feedback has generally been found to increase intrinsic
motivation because it enhances perceived competence (e.g., Blanck, Reis, &
Jackson, 1984; Harackiewicz & Larson, 1986; Vallerand, 1983), although
studies have shown that this enhancement occurs only when the feedback is
accompanied by support for autonomy (Fisher, 1978; Ryan, 1982). When
the general context is controlling, controlled forms of extrinsic motivation
are more likely to result (Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1991). Thus, for
example, congratulating students for having done well at a self-initiated
educational activity is likely to promote feelings of competence and intrinsic
 334 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN
I

motivation, whereas praising them for doing what they "should" have done
or what you told them to do is likely to lead to their feeling controlled,
which in turn would reduce intrinsic motivation and strengthen
nonautonomous forms of extrinsic motivation.
Negative feedback, whether interpersonally administered or self-
administered in the form of failure, has generally been found to decrease
intrinsic motivation by decreasing perceived competence (Deci, Cascio, &
Krusell, 1973), and some studies indicate that lowered perceived compe-
tence can leave people feeling amotivated and helpless (Boggiano & Barrett,
1985).
Vallerand and Reid (1984, 1988) found higher levels of intrinsic motiva-
tion after positive than after negative feedback, and path analyses showed
that perceived competence mediated between the feedback and the changes
in intrinsic motivation. Field studies have also linked perceived competence
to intrinsic motivation and to identified self-regulation in both regular
education (Grolnick et al., in press; Vallerand et al., 1989) and special
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education students (Deci, Hodges, Pierson, & Tomassone, in press).

The effects of adults' interpersonal involvement or relatedness on
children's intrinsic motivation and autonomous self-regulation have been
explored in only a few studies. There is some evidence that when children
are denied the interpersonal involvement they desire, they can lose intrinsic
motivation (Anderson, Manoogian, & Reznick, 1976). Field studies on
interpersonal involvement, using interview and questionnaire methods,
have also indicated that parents and teachers who are more involved with
their children have children who are more motivated and self-determined,
particularly when the involvement is accompanied by autonomy support
(e-g., Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Grolnick et al., in press).

Support for Self-Determination

Many researchers have explored the effects of autonomy-supportive versus

controlling influences on intrinsic motivation and the internalization of
regulations. In one set of studies, contextual events such as the offer of a
reward, the imposition of a deadline, or the provision of choice were
manipulated to examine their effects on intrinsic motivation or internaliza-
tion. The results suggest which contextual factors tend, on average, to be
autonomy supportive and which ones tend to be controlling. They also
show that the interpersonal context, as operationalized by the experiment-
er's interpersonal style, can moderate the effects of specific external events.
Thus the effects of specific events such as performance-contingent rewards
or limits might be different, depending on whether the experimenter
administers them with an autonomy-supportive or a controlling style or
intent. A second set of studies was done in schools and homes to investigate
 SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 335

the relation bletween general interpersonal contexts (as assessed with

questionnaires or interviews) and the intrinsic motivation or internalization
of students in those settings. Let us briefly consider each set of studies.

Effects of external events. Rewards such as prizes and money are

often used in homes and schools as a means of motivating desired
behaviors. Their effects on intrinsic motivation have been explored in
several studies. These studies showed that when students received rewards
such as monetary payments (Deci, 1971), good-player awards (Lepper,
Greene, & Nisbett, 1973), or prizes (Harackiewicz, 1979) for participating in
an interesting activity, they tended to lose interest in and willingness to work
on the activity aifter the rewards were terminated, relative to students who
had worked on the activity in the absence of rewards. Similar results were
found when people performed an interesting activity in order to avoid a
negative consequence (Deci & Cascio, 1972).
The use of promised rewards or threatened punishment is an ubiquitous
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motivational strategy. Research on intrinsic motivation (e.g., Ryan, Mims,

& Koestner, 1983) and internalization (e.g., Freedman, 1965) has consis-
tently shown, Ihowever, that although these contingencies may serve to
control behavior while they are operative, they also tend to undermine
intrinsic motivation for interesting tasks and to impede the internalization
of regulations for uninteresting tasks (Deci et al., 1991).
Performance evaluations are common in school systems and may take the
form of grades, verbal feedback, or written appraisals. Studies have
increasingly indicated that when evaluations are emphasized or made salient
they will undermine intrinsic motivation (Smith, 1974), conceptual learning
(Benware & Deci, 1984), and creativity (Amabile, 1979). The same has been
found for surveillance (e.g., Lepper & Greene, 1975).
Other external events designed to motivate or control people -including
deadlines (Amalbile, DeJong, & Lepper, 1976), imposed goals (Mossholder,
1980), and competition (Deci, Betley, Kahle, Abrams, & Porac, 1981;
Yallerand, Gauwin, & Halliwell, 1986; Vallerand, Hamel, & Daoust,
1991)-have similarly been found to decrease intrinsic motivation. The
theme common to all of these findings is that each of the mentioned events
is typically used to pressure a target person to think, feel, or behave in a
specific way. Not surprisingly, then, the event's presence typically signifies
to the target person that he or she is being controlled. Being controlled by
an external contingency tends to diminish an individual's sense of auton-
omy. It fosters an external perceived locus of causality and thus decreases
intrinsic motivation and/or forestalls internalization.
One might aslk whether there are any specifiable contextual events that
will promote the experience of self-determination and thus enhance intrinsic
n~otivationor facilitate integrated internalization. Two such events have
 336 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN

been identified. Zuckerman, Porac, Lathin, Smith, and Deci (1978) found
that when college students were given choices about what tasks to engage
and how much time to allot to each, they were more intrinsically motivated
than were subjects who were assigned the tasks and times. Similar results
were obtained with children by Swann and Pittman (1977). Further, in a
study of internalization, Deci et aI. (1991) found that highlighting choice
rather than using a controlling style contributed to subjects' internalizing
the regulation of an uninteresting activity.
Other research has also indicated that when asking people to do an
uninteresting behavior or to do an interesting behavior in a way that is
different from how they want to do it, acknowledging their feelings of not
liking the task or not liking the requested way helps them to feel self-
determined. This resulted in maintained intrinsic motivation (Koestner,
Ryan, Bernieri, & Holt, 1984) and increased internalization (Deci et al.,
1991). These studies suggest that in educational settings providing students
with the opportunity to participate in the decision process relative to
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educational activities tend to encourage the self-determined regulation of

those activities, which in turn is likely to produce beneficial learning and
adjustment outcomes.

Interpersonal contexts. For people involved in the educational pro-

cess, it is undoubtedly disconcerting to recognize that many of our standard
educational structures and practices tend, on the average, to be experienced
as controlling and to have negative consequences for the development of
autonomous self-regulation. Accordingly, one might wonder how to use
these motivationally relevant events and structures in ways that do not have
the widely repIicated negative effects.
The answer to this question, we believe, lies in the fact that situational
events such as rewards and feedback are administered by people within a
general interpersonal ambience. Several laboratory studies have shown that
the interpersonal style a person uses in administering events greatly
influences the events' effects.
In these laboratory studies, events such as positive feedback (Ryan,
1982), performance-contingent rewards (Ryan et al., 1983), and limits
(Koestner et al., 1984) were administered in one of two ways-with
language and style that were controlling and pressuring (using words like
should and must) or with language and style that were noncontrolling and
implied choice. The results consistently showed that the manner of presen-
tation was important. For example, even though positive feedback tends to
enhance intrinsic motivation, it decreased intrinsic motivation if it was
presented in a controlling manner, and even though rewards tend to
diminish intrinsic motivation, they maintained or enhanced it if the
language or style of presentation was nonpressuring and signified compe-
 SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 337

tence. A noncontrolling style of presentation has also been shown to

contribute to the internalization of regulations and to subsequent autono-
mous self-regulation (Deci et al., 1991). It thus seems possible that many
motivational techniques that tend to be controlling can be used in ways that
are nondetrimental. This, however, requires that administrators of such
events be able to adopt the recipients' frame of reference and present the
events in a way that does not leave the recipients feeling like pawns
(decharms , 1968).

Classrooml climates. Results that complement these laboratory ex-

periments have been found in classroom contexts. For example, in one
study, Deci, Schwartz, et al. (1981) used an instrument to assess teachers'
styles, reasoning that some teachers are oriented toward supporting stu-
dents' autonomy whereas others are oriented toward controlling students'
behavior. Of course, teachers' orientations influence the general classroom
climate, and the results revealed that students in classrooms with autonomy-
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supportive teachers displayed more intrinsic motivation, perceived compe-

tence, and self-esteem than did students in classroioms with controlling
teachers.
In another study, Ryan and Grolnick (1986) assessed elementary school
students' perceptions of whether their teachers were controlling or au-
tonomy supportive in the classroom. Students who perceived their teachers
to be autonomy supportive reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation,
perceived competence, and self-esteem than did students who perceived
their teachers to be controlling.
Vallerand (1991) had high school students complete the AMS (Vallerand
et al., 1989) along with ratings of the teachers' autonomy supportiveness
and their ca~ntrollingness. Students' perceptions of the autonomy
supportiveness of the teachers were positively associated with the self-
determined fol-ims of motivation (viz., intrinsic motivation and identified
self-regulation),,and their perceptions of the teachers' controllingness were
positively associated with the non-self-determined forms of motivation
(viz., external regulation and amotivation).
Finally, in a study by deCharms (1976), some teachers were taught to be
more autonomy supportive, and this resulted in enhanced intrinsic motiva-
tion and increased achievement in their inner-city students compared with
the students of teachers who had not received the training.

Home contexts. Children's motivation toward school activities is

influenced not only by their school experiences but also by their home lives.
Interview and questionnaire studies have revealed that parental styles
concerning autonomy support versus control (as well as involvement)
influence studerits' autonomous self-regulation of schoolwork and in turn
 their school achievement. Parents who were judged by expert raters to be
more autonomy supportive and involved (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989) or who
were perceived that way by their elementary school children (Grolnick et al.,
in press) had children who were more intrinsically motivated and more
autonomous in their self-regulation. These children of autonomy-
supportive and involved parents also performed better in school than did
children whose parents were more controlling and uninvolved.
Vallerand (1991) conducted a study with high school students that was
similar to the Grolnick et al. (in press) study with elementary children. In it,
he found that the more autonomy supportive the students perceived their
parents to be, the more self-determined were their motivational profiles; in
contrast, the more controlling the students perceived their parents to be, the
less self-determined were their motivational profiles. Thus, the effects of
home contexts parallel those of the school context.

Student Motivation: Future Directions

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From the outline of self-determination theory and the preceding review of

research on intrinsic motivation and internalization, several important
directions for future research are apparent. Let us consider a few.

Valuing. For students to be actively engaged in the educational en-

deavor, they must value learning, achievement, and accomplishment even
with respect to topics and activities they do not find interesting. Valuing
comes from internalization and integration (Ryan & Stiller, 1991). Unlike
most theorists, we assume people are motivated to internalize the regulation
of uninteresting behaviors that are valuable for effective functioning. An
initial laboratory experiment (Deci et al., 1991) and an initial field study
(Grolnick & Ryan, 1989) have shown that internalization will proceed most
effectively toward self-determined forms of regulation if (a) children
understand the personal utility of the activity, (b) they are provided choices
about the activity with a minimum of pressure, and (c) their feelings and
perspective are acknowledged. These factors support their self-
determination. When the value of an activity is internalized, people do not
necessarily become more interested in the activity or more 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 and
outcomes because the key to acquiring values is feeling free enough to
accept them as one's own. Valuing results from internalization and integra-
tion, which require that students are able to feel competent, related, and
autonomous while doing the activities.
 SELF-DETERMINATIONTHEORY 339

Development, Earlier in this article we discussed four regulatory

processes relevant to extrinsically motivated behavior (external regulation,
introjected regulation, identified regulation, and integration) and we dis-
cussed them i n terms of the different degrees of self-determination reflected
therein. In our empirical work thus far, we have treated these concepts as
individual difference variables, assessing the degree to which each person
expresses each type of regulatory style. We have done very little work on the
developmental emergence of these styles. It is unclear, for example, whether
there is a relatively invariant sequence in the emergence of these regulatory
styles or whether one style predominates over the others at particular ages.
It is surely the case that in older children and adults, internalization of a
particular regulation need not pass from one type to another. A person can
either introjeat or integrate a particular new regulation directly, in a short
amount of time, because of a readiness to do so. However, the development
of such a readiness may itself be part of a developmental sequence.
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Competence and autonomy. The concept of competence is central to

several current theories of motivation in education and has been formulated
in terms of having control over outcomes (Crandall, Katkovsky, &
Crandall, 1965), being self-efficacious (Bandura, 1977), having confidence
(Dweck, 1986), and having the strategies and capacities for success (Skin-
ner, Wellborn, & Connell, 1990). Our view also gives importance to
competence as a prerequisite for motivation, but we believe it is not a
sufficient condition for intrinsic motivation, self-initiation, and integration.
One can be highly competent and highly motivated, but be regulated
externally or by introjects and thus not be autonomous or self-determined.
In such cases, the person would be, in the words of deCharms (1976), an
efficacious "pawn." Ryan and Connell(1989) reported that, in late elemen-
tary school students, both the level of introjection and the level of
identification correlated positively and similarly with children's reports of
how hard they try in school and also with their parents' ratings of how
motivated they are. However, the two styles had other very different
correlations. Children who expressed more introjection also expressed more
school anxiety and self-blaming, whereas children who expressed more
identification also expressed more enjoyment of school and more positive
coping with failures. This points to the importance of looking beyond
competence and control over outcomes to the sources of initiation and
regulation in order to understand effective motivation in school. It points to
the importance of autonomy (Ryan, 1982).

Relatedness and autonomy. Ryan (1991; Ryan & Belmont, 1991;

Ryan & Lynch,, 1989) has suggested that autonomy develops most effec-
tively in situations where children and teenagers feel a sense of relatedness
 340 DECI, VALLERAND, PELLETIER, RYAN

and closeness to, rather than disaffiliation from, significant adults. A great
deal remains to be done to sort out the interaction between adults' being
involved with and related to children, on the one hand, and encouraging the
autonomy and self-initiation of those children, on the other. An under-
standing of the independent and interactive contributions of supports for
relatedness and autonomy to the development of motivation and self-
determination will require considerable empirical work.

INFLUENCES ON TEACHERS: EDUCATIONAL POLICY

It is clear from the research reviewed herein that teachers' behavior,

specifically, the degree to which they are autonomy supportive versus
controlling, has an important effect on students' motivation and self-
determination. Therefore it is important to understand whether any factors
(other than teacher individual differences) influence the extent to which
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they will act in autonomy-supportive versus controlling ways. Several

studies have been done to investigate this issue, and two important sources
of influence have been identified. The first source relates to pressures that
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 when
teachers are pressured or controlled by their superiors or by the system in
general, they are likely to respond by being more controlling with their
students. These researchers performed a study in which half the teachers
were pressured (by being reminded that it was their responsibility to be sure
their students performed up to high standards) and half were not. Results
indicated that teachers who had been pressured were dramatically more
controlling with their students than those who had not been pressured.
Fink, Boggiano, and Barrett (1990) did a complementary study and found
similar results. Further, in these studies there was evidence that when the
teachers became more controlling the students performed less well in
problem-solving activities, both during the teaching session and subse-
quently.
Pressure from administrators to make sure students perform up to
standards is just one kind of pressure that teachers experience. Government
agencies, parent groups, and other forces outside the school system bring
pressure to bear on school administrators and teachers alike, and all of
these intrusions on the teachers' sense of self-determination are likely to
lead them to be more controlling with their students. That, in turn, will have
negative effects on the students' self-determination, conceptual learning,
and personal adjustment.
 The other interesting source of influence on teachers' behavior is the
students themselves, or the teachers' beliefs about the students. In one
experiment, Jelsma (1982) found that when students (who were actually
experimental accomplices) were somewhat fidgety and inattentive during a
teaching session, their teachers became more controlling than when the
same students !were more attentive. It 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 more controlling behaviors from the teachers.
A recent experiment by Pelletier and Vallerand (1989) took this reasoning
one step further to test the self-fulfilling prophecy effect (e.g., Rosenthal &
Jacobson, 1968; Snyder, 1984) with regard to motivation. Pelletier and
Vallerand suggested that if teachers think some students are intrinsically
motivated and self-determined, the teachers will be more autonomy sup-
portive with those students, presumably believing the students will regulate
themselves. On the other hand, if the teachers think other students are
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extrinsically motivated and less self-determined, they will be more control-

ling with those students, presumably believing they have to make the
students perform. In the experiment, some "teacher-subjects" were told that
the students they were about to teach how to solve puzzles were extrinsically
motivated, whereas others were told that their students were intrinisically
motivated. Teachers who had been led to believe that the students were
extrinsically motivated were very controlling toward the students, which in
turn led the students to display low levels of intrinsic motivation toward the
puzzles. On the other hand, teachers who thought that they were interacting
with intrinsicalliy motivated students were more autonomy supportive, and
their students showed high levels of intrinsic motivation. Thus, the teachers'
beliefs about th~estudent's motivation (which had been randomly assigned)
actually created their own reality.

Educational Policy: Future Directions

Classrooms are embedded in schools; schools are embedded in communities

and society. As the aforementioned research by Deci et al. (1982) suggests,
pressures fromi schools, communities, and society for teachers to be more
accountable for students' achievement can lead teachers to be more
controlling and thus can be counterproductive for the goals of conceptual
understanding and personal growth. Maehr (1991) made the complemen-
tary point thatdassroom practices are dictated to a large degree by school
policies. From our perspective, the extent to which the school context is
more autonomy supportive, rather than controlling, will directly affect the
extent to which teachers support the autonomy of their students. This issue,
with its many ramifications, needs much further work, because the school
 system is clearly an appropriate level for much educational reform. This is
particularly so because the rhetoric from Washington continues to advocate
greater accountability, greater discipline, and increased use of standardized
testing, all of which are means of exerting greater pressure and control on
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 responsibility, is an
important developmental goal, and it is becoming increasingly clear that
promoting self-determination is the avenue to attaining outcomes such as
creativity (Arnabile, 1979), cognitive flexibility (McGraw & McCullers,
1979), and self-esteem (Deci, Schwartz, et al., 1981). In terms of education,
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it has become ever more apparent that self-determination, in the forms of

intrinsic motivation and autonomous internalization, leads to the types of
outcomes that are beneficial both to individuals and to society.
We believe that promoting self-determined motivation in students should
be given high priority in educational endeavors, and we have focused much
of this article on the important elements for doing that. The key elements
are what we refer to as autonomy support and interpersonal involvement.
When significant adults - most notably, teachers and parents -are involved
with students in an autonomy-supportive way, the students will be more
likely to retain their natural curiosity (their intrinsic motivation for
learning) and to develop autonomous forms of self-regulation through the
process of internalization and integration.
Autonomy support by adults begins with taking the child's frame of
reference. By understanding a child's motivational and cognitive starting
point, we can relate to him or her in a way that encourages internal
motivation for engagement in the education enterprise (Connell & Well-
born, 1990). The specific supports for self-determination we suggest include
offering choice, minimizing controls, acknowledging feelings, and making
available information that is needed for decision making and for per-
forming the target task. With a general attitude of valuing children's
autonomy and by providing the type of autonomy support just mentioned,
we stand the greatest chance of bringing about the types of educational
contexts that facilitate conceptual understanding, flexible problem solving,
personal adjustment, and social responsibility. This is so whether one's
analysis focuses on the classroom, the school system, or society.
 SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY 343
1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preparation of this article was supported in part by a research grant from

the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD19914)
to the Human Motivation Program in the Department of Psychology at the
University of Rochester and by research grants from Le Fonds pour la
Formation des Chercheurs et l'Aide d la Recherche (FCAR QuCbec), the
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Le
Conseil QukbCcois de la Recherche Sociale to Robert J. Vallerand.

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