Students’ Autonomous and Controlled Motivation in Different School Contexts: The Role of Trust

Abstract

Given the importance of relatedness for study motivation, motivation might be associated with faculty trust in students and, as such, with schools’ student composition. Representative Flemish data of 5162 students and 1247 teachers in 57 Flemish secondary schools, gathered at the end of the 2013/2014 school year (April–May 2014), reveal that the association between faculty trust in students and students’ autonomous motivation goes through students’ trust in teachers. In schools with a higher socioeconomic student composition, students are less autonomously motivated, but this does not show because faculty trust is high, which generates more autonomous motivation—via students’ trust in teachers.

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge the project “Teaching in the bed of Procrustes,” financed by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (Project Number: SBO 110020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mieke Van Houtte

Mieke Van Houtte is a full professor and head of the research team CuDOS (Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium). Her research interests cover diverse topics within the sociology of education, particularly the effects of structural and compositional school features on several diverse outcomes for students and teachers, and sexual minorities. She is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.