Academics' perceptions of students' motivation for learning and their own motivation for teaching in a marketized higher education context.

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 0370636 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2044-8279 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00070998 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Br J Educ Psychol Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: <2012-> : Chichester : Wiley-Blackwell
Original Publication: Edinburgh : Scottish Academic Press

Faculty* ; Students*; Learning/*physiology ; Motivation/*physiology; Adult ; England ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Personal Autonomy ; Qualitative Research ; Social Perception

Background: The marketization of higher education (HE), which positions students as consumers and academics as service providers, may adversely affect students' motivation for learning and academics' motivation for teaching. According to self-determination theory (SDT), high-quality forms of motivation are achieved when individuals experience fulfilment of three psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
Aims: This study applied SDT to examine academics' perceptions of whether the marketized HE context in England, UK, supported or undermined these three psychological needs for their students and for themselves. It also examined their perceptions of the impact that this context had on their teaching.
Sample: Participants were 10 academics teaching at five post-1992 HE institutions in England, UK.
Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted and subsequently analysed using thematic analysis.
Results: Academics observed that students identifying as consumers seemed to display lower levels of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. This contributed to an HE environment that diminished the academics' own psychological needs. Although some felt able to improve student motivation through their teaching, others felt demotivated and disempowered by top-down pressure from managers and bottom-up pressure from students.
Conclusions: The marketized HE context may undermine high-quality motivation for students' learning and academics' teaching. Academics should be supported to teach in ways that facilitate competence, autonomy, and relatedness in their students and themselves.
(© 2019 The British Psychological Society.)

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Keywords: approaches to learning; higher education; intrinsic motivation; self-determination theory; student ‘consumer’; thematic analysis

Date Created: 20191210 Date Completed: 20210607 Latest Revision: 20210607

20221213

10.1111/bjep.12332

31814108