Fostering university students' autonomous motivation through a societal impact project: a qualitative study of students' and teachers' perspectives

Yuanyuan Zhu*, Latifa Abidi, Hans Savelberg, S. Eleonore Kohler, Rashmi A. Kusurkar, Diana Dolmans

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

BackgroundFostering students' autonomous motivation is linked to numerous positive outcomes. However, stimulating autonomous motivation of students in health professions remains a challenge. According to the Self-Determination Theory, supporting students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence fosters their autonomous motivation. However, there is a lack of studies that explore how and why education might enhance students' autonomous motivation. We designed, implemented, and investigated an extracurricular project called the 'Societal Impact Project' (SIP) to support students' basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation through three principles, offering authentic and collaborative learning experiences as well as scaffolding. This study aimed to understand how and why the SIP with characteristics of authentic and collaborative learning, and scaffolding supports students' autonomy, relatedness, competence, and autonomous motivation from the students' and teachers' perspectives.MethodsFirst-year students following the bachelor programmes of Biomedical Sciences and Health Sciences participated in the project. Students and teachers took part in focus groups conducted after the project. We adopted thematic analysis.ResultsStudents reported that, firstly, having freedom was motivating, but students needed different adaptive degrees of guidance throughout the project. Secondly, working in small groups could be motivating or demotivating, but having peer connections and openly discussing difficulties made the groups strong. Thirdly, societal relevant problems stimulated motivation and learning as students recognized the real-life value of the problems, but the relevance of these problems to students' curriculum was not always clear to them.ConclusionsSIP reflected characteristics of the three educational principles, and students reported that these elements contributed to student's basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation. A careful balance is needed in terms of offering autonomy versus support. Furthermore, students faced difficulties in seeing the link between the societal relevant problems and their curricula.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1503
Number of pages13
JournalBMC Medical Education
Volume24
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Dec 2024

Keywords

  • Autonomous motivation
  • Basic psychological needs
  • Self-Determination theory
  • Health professions education
  • Qualitative study
  • Curriculum design
  • SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY
  • INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
  • 1ST YEAR
  • LEARNING-ENVIRONMENT
  • EDUCATION
  • DESIGN
  • ORGANIZATIONS
  • FACILITATION
  • COMPETENCE
  • CHALLENGES

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