To What Extent Does An Autonomy-Supportive Classroom Aid Student’s Development Of Intrinsic Motivation? - A Brief Summary of a Practice Based Inquiry

So glad to be writing this summary of a recent practice-based inquiry, it opened my eyes so much to the research into motivation and the psychological underpinnings of effective pedagogy and practice. This is a very shortened version of the research conducted in my classroom.

Introduction

It was quite some time ago that I delved into the research into intrinsic motivation and how the pedagogy of the teacher, or more general conditions of the classroom, can help increase intrinsic motivation. It was discussed in a previous blog that when students (and teachers) feel like they have autonomy during their learning, it can help support the growth of intrinsic motivation.

There have been many studies already that cite the benefits of these so called "autonomy-supportive" classrooms on student motivation. The most noteable that I found was a paper by Morris et al. (2022) who reviewed many different studies that were conducted on specific interventions that aimed to increase autonomy of students, all finding significant results when assessing increases in intrinsic motivation in the same students post-intervention. Research projects such as these sparked a curiosity within myself to explore my own teaching and classroom environment. After all, I have some students who are greatly motivated, whilst others are perhaps not so much.

It led therefore to the current project, an inquiry into my practice and classroom, assessing the following research questions:

1. To what extent is my classroom autonomy supportive? 

2. What are the current levels of intrinsic motivation in my classroom? 

3. Is there a correlational relationship between autonomy-support and intrinsic motivation in my classroom? 

Methodology

This practice-based inquiry was exploratory in nature, with the sole of purpose of investigating the current context before any interventions are carried out. Two questionnaires were adminstered to 27 students from my Year 12 Psychology class, the Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ) from Williams & Deci (1996) and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) from Ryan (1982).

Findings & Critical Reflection

Results showed moderately high average scores for both autonomy (M = 5.48, SD = 0.77) and intrinsic motivation (M = 5.53, SD = 0.48). However, autonomy scores showed greater variation. While students felt emotionally supported—100% agreed that I answered questions carefully—fewer felt they had genuine choice in lessons, with 37% scoring 4 or below on items relating to decision-making.

A Pearson correlation revealed a moderate, positive relationship between autonomy and intrinsic motivation (r = 0.67, p < .001), suggesting that more autonomy support is linked to greater motivation.

These findings reflect positively on my classroom climate but highlight areas for growth—particularly around offering more student choice. While emotional support is strong, building in more autonomy through decision-making could enhance intrinsic motivation even further.

Implications for future practice

This inquiry confirms that autonomy-supportive teaching is linked to greater intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2020; Morris et al., 2022). As a result, I plan to embed more opportunities for student choice and decision-making in my psychology lessons. For example, allowing students to design small-scale research projects could enhance ownership, curiosity, and enjoyment.

That said, balancing freedom with structure is crucial. Tasks will need to be carefully scaffolded to ensure clarity and support. Time constraints remain a challenge, but recent AQA specification changes may offer more flexibility to trial autonomy-supportive approaches.

Beyond my own classroom, these findings have implications for the wider school context. Autonomy-supportive strategies can improve school culture and staff wellbeing (Assor et al., 2018), and in my role as Assistant Director of Sixth Form, I can help initiate conversations around CPD and classroom autonomy. However, institutional barriers—such as top-down CPD focused on behaviour and assessment—may limit implementation.

Finally, while this quantitative study provided useful insight, future research could adopt a mixed-methods approach to better understand student perspectives and refine autonomy-based strategies further.