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| Source of regulation of action | Description | Example |
| “Pure” extrinsic motivation | Person lacks the intention to take any action, regardless of pressures or incentives | Student completes no work even when pressured or when incentives are offered |
| Very external to person | Actions regulated only by outside pressures and incentives, and controls | Student completes assignment only if reminded explicitly of the incentive of grades and/or negative consequences of failing |
| Somewhat external | Specific actions regulated internally, but without reflection or connection to personal needs | Student completes assignment independently, but only because of fear of shaming self or because of guilt about consequences of not completing assignment |
| Somewhat internal | Actions recognized by individual as important or as valuable as a means to a more valued goal | Student generally completes school work independently, but only because of its value in gaining admission to college |
| Very internal | Actions adopted by individual as integral to self-concept and to person’s major personal values | Student generally completes school work independently, because being well educated is part of the student’s concept of himself |
| “Pure” intrinsic regulation | Actions practiced solely because they are enjoyable and valued for their own sake | Student enjoys every topic, concept, and assignment that every teacher ever assigns, and completes school work solely because of his enjoyment |
What are some teaching strategies for supporting students’ needs? Educational researchers have studied this question from a variety of directions, and their resulting recommendations converge and overlap in a number of ways. For convenience, the recommendations can be grouped according to the basic need that they address, beginning with the need for autonomy.
A major part of supporting autonomy is to give students choices wherever possible (Ryan&Lynch, 2003). The choices that encourage the greatest feelings of self-control, obviously, are ones that are about relatively major issues or that have relatively significant consequences for students, such as whom to choose as partners for a major group project. But choices also encourage some feeling of self-control even when they are about relatively minor issues, such as how to organize your desk or what kind of folder to use for storing your papers at school. It is important, furthermore, to offer choices to all students, including students needing explicit directions in order to work successfully; avoid reserving choices for only the best students or giving up offering choices altogether to students who fall behind or who need extra help. All students will feel more self-determined and therefore more motivated if they have choices of some sort.
Teachers can also support students’ autonomy more directly by minimizing external rewards (like grades) and comparisons among students’ performance, and by orienting and responding themselves to students’ expressed goals and interests. In teaching elementary students about climate change, for example, you can support autonomy by exploring which aspects of this topic have already come to students’ attention and aroused their concern. The point of the discussion would not be to find out “who knows the most” about this topic, but to build and enhance students’ intrinsic motivations as much as possible. In reality, of course, it may not be possible to succeed at this goal fully—some students may simply have no interest in the topic, for example, or you may be constrained by time or resources from individualizing certain activities fully. But any degree of attention to students’ individuality, as well as any degree of choice, will support students’ autonomy.
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