Autonomy-Supportive Teaching Brings Out the Full Benefits of the Physical Education Course
摘要
We created the autonomy-supportive teaching (AST) workshop based on self-determination theory principles and empirical findings. Its purpose is to help teachers develop a highly autonomy-supportive motivating style. The “support” within autonomy support involves taking the students’ perspective, supporting interest and intrinsic motivation, supporting value and internalization, and replacing existing controlling instructional behaviors with autonomy-supportive alternatives. In a series of over two dozen randomized control trials conducted in the PE setting, our program of research shows that teachers who participate in the AST workshop become increasingly able to produce three categories of benefits—student benefits (e.g., need satisfaction, classroom engagement), classroom benefits (e.g., supportive peer climate, prosocial behavior), and teacher benefits (e.g., teaching efficacy, job satisfaction). Teachers in the no-intervention control condition do not produce these same benefits. This leads to the conclusion that the standard physical education (PE) course needs a crucial catalyst to realize its full benefits—namely, the presence of a highly autonomy-supportive teacher.