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Abstract
Although autonomy-supportive teaching has been linked with increased student performance, this contention has not yet been explored in an experimental study. This article presents a small, pre/post control group experimental study evaluating the effect of procedural and cognitive autonomy-supportive teaching on student learning and motivation during a 7th-grade reform-based science lesson on motion. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, the 4 treatment conditions featured high and low levels of procedural and cognitive autonomy support. As hypothesized, there was no effect of procedural autonomy support. However, to the authors’ surprise—and in contrast with their hypotheses—students in the low cognitive autonomy-supportive conditions learned significantly more, perceived significantly more choice, and rated instruction as more positive than did students in the high cognitive autonomy-supportive conditions. Results are framed in the context of achieving reform in science teaching.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was carried out while Erin Marie Furtak was a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Educational Research, with the support of a German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The authors thank Hendrik Lohse, Karsten Krauskopf, Valeska Pannier, Chiara Mecagni, and Alina Ganopolskaia for their invaluable assistance in planning for and executing the fieldwork, as well as the staff and students from the participating schools where we completed the pilot and experimental studies. Particular thanks go to Ilonca Hardy, who helped with the conceptualization of the project and data analysis approaches. Deborah Morrison, Sarah Roberts, and Heidi Iverson performed final coding of lesson transcripts, and Rich Shavelson advised on statistical analysis approaches.