学習者の動機づけと心的欲求との関係

In an educational setting, it is hard to make students act independently and be highly motivated. Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000a) is a useful theory to investigate autonomic learners’ motivation. Ryan and Deci (2000a) explain Organismic Integration Theory, a second sub theory within Self-Determination Theory, which details the different styles of extrinsic motivation (external, introjected, identified, and integrated regulations) by the degrees to which they are self-determined. They also postulate that three psychological needs (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) are needed to facilitate integration of extrinsic motivation. Therefore we designed two questionnaires to explore the learners’ motivation and then examined the relation between the learners’ motivation and the three psychological needs and the effect of group activities in English composition class on these psychological needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the following two research questions: (1) How does the learners’ motivation relate to the learners’ psychological needs in Self-Determination Theory? (2) In English composition class utilizing group activities, which psychological need emerges as stronger among three psychological needs? The study was conducted by Japanese senior high school students. The participants were asked to answer two questionnaires to measure four types of motivation and three psychological needs. They also completed a free-description formula after group activities. Analyses of variance confirmed that the inclination of psychological needs differs depending on the styles of the learners’ motivation, and that relatedness among the three psychological needs emerges as stronger than other psychological needs in English composition class utilizing group activities, which infers that the autonomy support and quality of relatedness through group activities and pair work effect to enhance the relatedness of the psychological needs. Discussion examines empirical and practical implications of relatedness as a key predictor of students’ academic motivation and performance.