Motivation Digital Didaktik Digital læring

Self-Determination Theory and Learning

How to use SDT to create more motivating and effective e-learning experiences.

Self-Determination Theory and Learning

What is the most important theory of human motivation?

If you ask me, the answer is undoubtedly the self-determination theory (SBT) by Deci & Ryan.

Update: 13-03-2024. I was wrong: Self-determination theory is important, but is only the second most important theory of learning you need to know. Which theory it is, you can read more about here: The Key to Engagement: The Theory of System 1 and System 2 - where you also get the answer to why it is important to distinguish between engagement and motivation.

That said, this article you are reading now is still the most read article on the blog and a really good source of information about Self-Determination Theory and learning.

Self-Determination Theory is a highly relevant tool for anyone responsible for bringing out the best in people, whether you are a leader, coach, teacher or otherwise involved in learning and behavior. SBT can be used to explain why individual learning processes succeed or fail because it provides a hands-on understanding of how to support people's motivation.

In the first half of the article, I explain what Self-Determination Theory is about in general, and in the last half I focus on what we can learn about learning from Self-Determination Theory.

Basically, SBT says that there are two different types of motivation; one good and one less good, and that there are basically three psychological needs that influence our motivation.

In this article I will elaborate on what the two forms of motivation are.

I also provide recommendations on how you can work with the three psychological needs in practice to create motivation for development and learning. The recommendations can be used for coaching, digital learning and in a classroom, among other things.

Here is a table of contents - just so you know what you're getting into:

Part 1: What is motivation?

Part 2. Motivation and Learning

Well?

Let's get started.

How does motivation work?

The first thing you need to know about motivation is that there are basically two types of motivation:

Internal and external motivation (translated from intrinsic and extrinsic respectively).

Intrinsic motivation is the term for doing something out of pleasure because the action itself is interesting, fun, and generally satisfying in itself.

Extrinsic motivation is about doing something with the aim of achieving an external goal, such as passing an exam, winning bonus points in a customer club, badges in an app, or the like.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are found at different ends of a scale that ranges from full self-determination (intrinsic) to no self-determination (extrinsic). In between these two extremes, there are varying degrees of self-determination. This could be the case, for example, in situations where you don't really want to perform an action, but still recognize that the action has significance for you in the long term, e.g. "I really don't like math, but I can understand that it is important for me to learn".

In short: Is the action tempting to perform in itself, or am I only performing the action to obtain a reward or avoid a consequence?

One of the main points of self-determination theory is that intrinsic motivation is far more powerful than extrinsic motivation; the closer we can get to intrinsic motivation, the more willing we are to perform that action. You are naturally more motivated to perform actions that are inherently enjoyable or pleasurable—watching a movie, playing music, eating cake, being with good friends—than to do things for external reasons, like cramming for an exam you don't care about, doing the dishes, or waiting on the phone.

An important thing to note is that extrinsic motivation, such as rewards and punishment, often has a negative impact on both performance and intrinsic motivation.

This may surprise some people. At least it surprised me when I first read about it.

But it is good enough.

The phenomenon is called the over justification effect. An example: A group of researchers rewarded children for drawing. The children already liked drawing and therefore drew voluntarily before the experiment. When the reward was removed, the children drew less. The reward had therefore reduced their intrinsic desire to draw. The over justification effect does not only affect children but has been demonstrated in a wide range of cases, including in relation to salaries and bonuses. Further elaboration of the subject goes far beyond the scope of this article, but if you want to read more about it, you can read this article, where I have written about Gamification . Some of the techniques most frequently used within Gamification can actually have a negative effect on motivation and learning.

What are the most important psychological needs for motivation?

Now we know that motivation is important and that there are two different ways to motivate a person to perform an action. But what buttons can we turn on to create a motivating framework?

As I wrote in the introduction, according to self-determination theory, there are three psychological needs that affect how motivated we humans are:

  1. Autonomy,
  2. Mastery (Competence)
  3. Sense of purpose.

Self-determination

Self-determination describes the ability to voluntarily decide on oneself and one's actions. Self-determination does not mean complete independence from others, or that an individual must necessarily decide to do something different from everyone else. The important thing in relation to motivation is that the individual has the experience that what is happening is in accordance with what they themselves want.

Mastery

Becoming good at something is motivating in itself. That's why some people practice for hours to master playing the guitar, or dribbling a ball, just because it's "fun." Similarly, most people have probably experienced how children (of all ages) quickly become frustrated with having to practice if they don't experience progress.

Sense of belonging

Humans have a universal need to interact with, be connected to, and experience care from and for others. A majority of the choices we make can be fundamentally explained in terms of these needs - for example, we are motivated by performing actions that strengthen our social relationships, give us social status, or otherwise affirm our belonging to those around us.

The three psychological needs in practice

All three psychological needs do not have to be present at the same time or to the same extent. For example, going door to door to collect money for a cause that you think is meaningful can feel very motivating, even though there is typically not much self-determination or competence involved. Similarly, you may also find that people who do routine work become much more motivated if you give them influence over how they complete the task.

A look at our instincts: Why does the brain work the way it does?

In the book "Dr. Zukaroff's Testament", brain researcher Peter Lund Madsen explains that the brain is constantly trying to answer two questions;

"Where am I?" and "what should I do?"

In other words, the brain is constantly orienting itself.

This orientation process plays well with the three psychological needs of self-determination theory:

  1. If you learn skills, practice them, and through that master different things, you will be better equipped to answer the question "What should I do?".
  2. By confirming and strengthening the sense of belonging in the social network you are in, it becomes easier to answer the question “Where am I?”.
  3. The individual needs autonomy to be able to act freely in accordance with the two questions - therefore self-determination is a kind of guarantee that the brain can 'answer' freely.

If we look at the three psychological needs in self-determination theory through an evolutionary lens, it also makes good sense, as all three psychological needs provide an advantage in terms of survival.

If we learn to master a given technique, such as fishing, it will increase our chances of survival. So we are hardwired to learn and master new things because they increase our chances of survival.

At the same time, we are coded to be social, to do things for or with others. Functioning in a group is also something that increases our chances of survival.

Finally, it is quite reasonable to say that we lose motivation to do something if we are restricted in our self-determination to master skills or find meaning in social life. Lack of self-determination will in the long run affect our ability to survive, as it reduces our flexibility to act in accordance with our own interests. Therefore, we have evolved to seek out and stay in situations where there is an appropriate mix of the three parameters.

We no longer live on the savanna, but the same instincts are still always present within us, even though we live a modern life.

In practice, this means that the brain resists situations that do not meet the three needs. This resistance has been described in psychology with a term called reactance . The word describes the reluctance that one can experience when one's self-determination is threatened either by others or by oneself. This is seen, for example, in people if one tells them to stop smoking, start exercising or eat healthier. One can also experience reactance as a response to one's past 'self' deciding that "I'm going for a run on Sunday morning". When one then wakes up on Sunday morning, one can feel with one's present self aversion to doing something that one does not feel like doing at the moment. The brain would much rather do something nice. Cake now, exercise tomorrow.

What role does motivation play in learning?

Let's delve more deeply into the connection between motivation and learning.

One of the biggest names in research into motivation and behavior is BJ Fogg from Stanford University. Fogg has created a model that illustrates the perhaps obvious truth about the connection between motivation and behavior; if you are sufficiently motivated, you can perform even very demanding actions. Similarly, the less motivated you are, the easier the task must be before you can get yourself to lift a finger.

In short: Motivation is the only thing that leads to voluntary intentional action.

The same applies to learning:

Motivation is the rocket fuel for learning. If you are truly motivated to learn something, you can learn very difficult things from even poor materials, and vice versa; it may be impossible to learn anything at all from the best materials in the world if you are not sufficiently motivated to do so.

Motivation alone is not enough to ensure learning, but without motivation, it is not possible. If you have a handle on SBT, you can begin to design targeted learning that increases your students' motivation to perform and learn.

How can self-determination theory be used to create good learning?

Most people who work with creating learning are familiar with the many pieces of advice that, at one level or another, are about motivating the audience: "Make e-learning interactive", "Ask the audience questions", "Make it social", etc. Unfortunately, sometimes the advice becomes an end in itself, and then you can, for example, end up with interactivity for the sake of interactivity, as I have described in the article Flick 2 Learn. Why interactive e-learning is not always engaging e-learning'. To summarize the problem here: It is not enough to include elements that in themselves seem to function in accordance with the three psychological needs, the focus should be on using them meaningfully in the context in which they are part of.

Danish researcher Louise Klinge has studied how the three psychological needs of self-determination theory affect student motivation in classroom teaching practice. One important point she makes is that when a teacher talks too much, they actually limit the students' autonomy, and thus reduce the students' motivation to learn.

Here are her recommendations:

  • Accommodate students' initiatives, suggestions and questions (Autonomy, Mastery)
  • Involve students and let them contribute to the teaching (Autonomy, Mastery, Sense of Cohesion)
  • Don't talk for too long at a time (Autonomy)
  • Let students help each other (Sense of togetherness)
  • Make sure students feel good together (Sense of togetherness)

These are just a few examples of the different needs in practice.

One thing I really like about self-determination theory is that it is just as applicable to public education as it is to what you might call corporate learning.

Here are some tips that can hopefully serve as inspiration for learning that meets your students' psychological learning needs - I have divided the different tips under each of the three needs:

Autonomy and learning

Trust your learners’ input and willingness to learn. Whether you’re developing classroom instruction, e-learning, or other digital learning, you should respect your learners’ need to have influence over how they learn, and assume that they actually want to learn—if what they’re presented with is relevant to them. Few things are as demotivating as being mistrusted, undervalued, and forced to do something—a checkmark in an LMS or spreadsheet is no guarantee that someone has learned anything.

Avoid cognitive overload. The learners' need for self-determination should be balanced with the risk of cognitive overload, which is a situation where learners are offered more choices than they can handle. In other words, in any learning situation, one should consider whether the level of self-determination is too high or too low, and how this affects the recipient's motivation.

Make learning flexible and easy to navigate. If you are designing e-learning – in fact, any form of digital learning – you can accommodate learners’ need for self-direction by giving them the ability to start, stop, pause, rewind and fast-forward through the material. You should also give them the ability to skip pages and sections, or jump to sections they are particularly interested in. For learners to feel they have enough knowledge to make good autonomous decisions, they also need to know “where they are” in the content and how much is left.

Make sure to align expectations. You should make sure from the very beginning that they understand what they are expected to learn. Doing this creates a clear framework so that students avoid having doubts about the relevance of what they are learning. This also has an impact on their perception of cohesion.

Mastery and learning

Not too easy, not too hard. People have a need to feel competent, but also to become competent. Make sure that the relationship between the student's ability and the difficulty of the task is appropriate. If the task is too easy, the student will feel belittled and bored. If it is too difficult, the student will feel stupid and frustrated. Striking the right balance is of course easier said than done, but if you know your target audience, this should be high on the priority list. The theory of Predictive Coding provides a good explanation of why this is the case. I have written about predictive coding in the article: Your brain is NOT a computer - about Predictive Coding .

Let them figure things out for themselves. Rather than telling them everything, give students the opportunity to figure things out for themselves. Again, this should be balanced with the risk of making the content too difficult.

Let your students practice and give them feedback. One of the best ways to help your students retain their learning is to practice. Whether it’s about fire safety, GDPR compliance or math, there are few things that can beat good practice. You can’t expect people to remember something thoroughly just because you’ve told them something once. Make the practice even more meaningful by giving them constructive feedback – that way they can experience getting better and find out how they can improve further.

Sense of belonging and learning

Make it meaningful. Make sure that the students understand why it is important for them - or for other people - that they learn what you want them to learn. What makes something meaningful can vary greatly from person to person, so it is useful to consider whether it is possible to make it meaningful in several different ways at the same time.

Make it social. People are more motivated to learn when what they are doing is put into a social context. Get people to work together with other people. Note that social elements often fall flat if students do not experience a purpose or use for the social. When working with digital learning, for example, it is not enough to simply provide a discussion forum. If students are going to use it, they need to be helped to get started, and it must be made clear what purpose the social elements serve.

Make it come alive. Avoid having the learning material simply convey facts that you expect people to remember. Use storytelling. For example, tell stories about how people are affected by what they are going to learn. Use pictures or videos of people (maybe colleagues?) in your content, and possibly have them explain what is to be learned. This way, what is learned becomes more tangible and interesting at the same time, and your students are better equipped to use the new knowledge in practice.

Here at last...

The above does not constitute a definitive list of all the recommendations that can be derived from self-determination theory - there is simply no room for that in a blog post! Hopefully, I have nevertheless illustrated how self-determination theory can be used as a practical tool when designing learning.

I would love to hear from you if you have ideas on how to support each of the three psychological needs in learning design.

Do you want to? learn more?

Maybe you could be interested in our Course in (digital) didactics - Learn to design good learning.

In this course you will learn how to develop learning that captures your recipients' attention and works with their motivation to learn. The course is also for those of you who teach in a classroom or online and need a professional boost.

Do you want to? learn more on your own?

If you are interested in reading more about motivation and learning, these articles may interest you.

If you want to know more about digital learning and e-learning, you can start with our E-learning FAQ

Are you looking for help with developing e-learning , or would you like a course on e-learning where you learn how to create e-learning yourself - we can also help you.

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