Background. Physical activity (PA) in children and youth is a necessary behaviour for health across the lifespan. Play and leisure time PA has also been declared as a right for children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canadian levels of inactivity are highly concerning, with only 25% of children and youth aged 10-17 meeting national guidelines for PA behaviours in Canada. In 2020, COVID-19 pandemic regulations have additionally reduced the engagement of children and youth with leisure time PA. Rationale. Understanding key theoretical models of motivations and behavioural regulations for PA is necessary to developing appropriate interventions and strategies for targeting inactivity and ultimately changing PA behaviour for a healthier life. There is a gap in the literature regarding motivation for leisure time PA of children and adolescents, based on self-determination theory (SDT), and potential age and gender moderation or mediation. Objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate motivations for PA of children and youth, and any interactions between age and gender, utilizing Organismic Integration theory (OIT), a sub-theory of SDT. Design. The study was a cross-sectional design. Participants. Participants were children and youth aged 11-14 years, living in Canada at the time of questionnaire completion. The questionnaire was distributed from April 2020 to August 2020, and COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were in place during this period. Methods. Motivations and regulations were assessed online using the Behavioural Regulations in Exercise Questionnaire version 3 (BREQ-3) and PA was assessed using the Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire (LTEQ). Results. Higher levels of PA intensity were correlated with more autonomous forms of regulations and motivation, whereas lower levels of PA intensity were not significantly correlated with more controlled forms of motivation. No BREQ-3 variables predicted PA intensity after controlling for age and gender, therefore mediation analysis was not completed. Gender moderated the relationship between integrated regulation and PA, explaining 7-8% of the variance. Males had significant prediction from integrated regulation (ß= 5.80, p<.01), whereas females did not (ß= 1.34, p=.210). Sub-analyses revealed no BREQ-3 variables significantly predicted different levels of strenuous or moderate PA, yet greater scores of the relative autonomy index (RAI), a general measure of autonomous motivation, predicted higher levels of PA intensity. Conclusion. The study supported some facets of SDT theory. Autonomous forms of motivation correlated with higher levels of PA behaviour, and a generalized measure of autonomous motivation predicted PA intensity levels. However, controlled forms of motivation did not predict lower levels of PA intensity, which is not consistent with theory but somewhat consistent with empirical findings. Gender was the key predictor of PA outcomes, indicating other variables beyond motivation and regulations should be further explored regarding children and youth’s motivations for leisure time PA, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. / Graduate / 2022-03-04

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From the perspective of self-determination theory this studyexamines whether affective memories of fictional reading and early reading activities have an impact on the reading motivation in lateradolescence. This studyalso highlightsstudentssuggestions on how teachers can enhance reading motivation.We conducted a survey with studentsin upper secondary school. The results showsome correlations between affective memories and motivation. Studentswith negative memories of reading tend to be more amotivated orhave controlled motivationto read, whilst studentswith positive and neutral memories tend to have more autonomous motivation. The studyalso noticed a difference between reading attitudes,whether the reading takes place in school or in the studentsspare time. The students suggestions on how teachers can motivate them to read are mostly related to (1) their own choice of literature and (2) an accessible wide range of literature that appeals to their interests. Many students also wish for their teachers to engage more in their personal reading interests. Our study has shown that reading as an activity is very complex and that teachers have an opportunity to affect the reading motivation,regardless of what memories the students have

Participation in sport has well-documented physical, psychological and social benefits that can lead to positive youth development (c.f., Eime, Young, Harvey, Charity, & Payne, 2013; Hebert, Møller, Andersen, & Wedderkopp, 2015; Vandell, Larson, Mahoney, & Watts, 2015) as well as youths’ thriving (Zarrett & Lerner, 2008). However, evidence continues to demonstrate that the number of sport participants in Canada and Japan continues to decline (Canadian Heritage, 2013, Statistics Canada, 2019; Nippon Junior High School Physical Culture Association, 2017). Such trends indicate the importance of understanding the psychological factors and the mechanisms of the relationships which may be important in determining how to keep young people in sport and optimally functioning. As thriving has been a popular topic in psychology research for two decades (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), recent evidence suggests that the concept of thriving is a positive predictor of desired outcomes such as retention, well-being, and performance (e.g., Porath, Spreitzer, Gibson, & Garnett, 2012; Ren, Yunlu, Shaffer, & Fodchuk, 2015). Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017), a well-cited tenet explaining human motivation and function, has concomitantly been utilized to explain the relationship between motivational factors and thriving (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Spreitzer & Porath, 2014). Since motivation is a key element for sport continuation and positive functioning (Roberts, 2012), the current dissertation focused on the investigation of the psychological mechanism underlying youth athletes’ thriving by examining self-determination theory. The overall purpose of this dissertation was to examine the psychological mechanism underlying thriving within a youth sport context. To do so, the current dissertation involved three different studies. Study 1 investigated the mechanism underlying youth athletes’ thriving with specific consideration regarding personal predictable factors and the consequences. Study 2 tested the buffering effect of mental toughness on the negative indirect relationships between basic psychological need thwarting and important outcomes for youth athletes’ positive functioning (intention to continue, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress) through thriving. Study 3 examined how personal and social factors are related to thriving, in turn associating with important outcome variables of interest. In Study 1, the results revealed that basic psychological need satisfaction are positively associated with intention to continue in sport, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress through thriving. Furthermore, both hedonic and eudaimonic motives were indirectly related to thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction. Lastly, hedonic and eudaimonic motives were positively related to intention to continue in sport, subjective well-being in sport, and goal progress through basic psychological need satisfaction and thriving. The findings from study 1 contribute to nurturing the body of literature in the self-determination theory by presenting a comprehensive model to enhance the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of thriving within the youth sport context. In addition, hedonic and eudaimonic motives have been rarely applied to the sport context and the youth participants in particular. As motives are more broadly defined than the reasons for behaviors (Cambridge University, 2001), the present study indicated that youth athletes’ motivational orientations (e.g., hedonic seeking or eudaimonic seeking for their sport participation) would have important meanings in their sport participation to increase the experience and thriving and positive functioning. In Study 2, the results demonstrated significant moderating effects of mental toughness on the indirect associations between basic psychological need thwarting and the outcomes through thriving. In other words, the negative impacts of basic psychological need thwarting on important outcomes were weakest for those participants who showed high mental toughness and strongest for the individuals with low mental toughness. The results demonstrated novel findings in that the mediating role of thriving between a motivational factor and outcome variables were moderated by the degree of mental toughness. Lastly, in Study 3, the results demonstrated that the social factors (i.e., autonomy supportiveness of both coaches and parents) were positively related to thriving and intrinsic regulation three months later through increased basic psychological need satisfaction. Additionally, hedonic motives did not predict thriving while eudaimonic motives indirectly predicted thriving and intrinsic regulation through basic psychological need satisfaction. Eudaimonic motives, but not hedonic motives, positively predicted intrinsic motivation three months later through basic psychological need satisfaction. Although previous research demonstrated significant relationships with high degrees of self-determined motivation regulation (e.g., intrinsic regulation) and both hedonic and eudaimonic experience (i.e., Waterman et al., 2008), our research demonstrated only eudaimonic motives were positively related to intrinsic regulation. Furthermore, the study found that hedonic motives did not indirectly predict thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction while eudaimonic motives predicted thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction. Since both social factors were significantly associated with intrinsic regulation and thriving through basic psychological need satisfaction, hedonic motives were not an important predictor of the enhancement in youth athletes’ intrinsic regulation and thriving when comparing with another personal factor (eudaimonic motives) and the social factors (i.e., autonomy supportiveness of coaches and parents). Overall, this thesis provides a greater theoretical understanding of the comprehensive mechanism underlying thriving within a youth sport context by using a theory of motivation. As the dissertation examined both personal and social factors affecting youth thriving, the results provide insight into the ways in which youth can thrive and thus, implications are also drawn for important stakeholders in sport.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / There is a gap in our knowledge and understanding of perceptions of political activities, including the influence of education policies, by young adult Black males. There is a gap in our understanding of the formation of perceptions and attitudes. The purpose of this study is to gain a perspective of the perceptions of young adult Black male students regarding civic and political activism. By increasing our knowledge of Black students’ experiences and motivations, in relation to perception development, there could be lived experience-based pedagogy that encourages Black young adults to engage politically in a greater proportion. Additionally, such knowledge could provide insight toward being enabled to effectively react to perceived injustices and intolerant outcomes.

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Covid-19 pandemin satte stort tryck på den redan överbelastade hälso- och sjukvården.För landets alla vårdanställda innebar det en påfrestande arbetssituation. Syftet var attundersöka vårdanställdas upplevda arbetsmotivation under och efter pandemin. Studienhar sin teoretiska utgångspunkt i motivationsteorin Self-Determination theory för attförklara samt analysera vårdanställdas upplevda arbetsmotivation. En kvalitativ studiehar genomförts med insamlingen av empiri från åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer. Ettmålstyrt urval användes och avgränsades till vårdanställda som arbetat patientnära underpandemin och arbetar kvar inom vården. Resultatet visade att största förändringen varhögre upplevd kompetens efter pandemin. Arbetsmotivationen som respondenternaupplevde grundade sig i en inre känsla av meningsfullhet och att göra skillnad därpandemin resulterade i minskad upplevd autonomi för hälften av respondenterna.Sammanhållningen under pandemin hade ökat arbetsmotivationen och minskat efter.

I detta examensarbete har vi gjort en undersökning av attityder och förväntningar kring lärande i fysik och matematik hos en grupp gymnasieelever på NV-programmet. Vi har sökt sammanlänka dessa attityder och förväntningar med elevernas motivation så som vi tolkar den utifrån en specifik teori som benämns ”self determination theory”. Detta är en teori inom psykologin som beskriver olika typer av motivation och hur dessa är knutna till välbefinnande och kreativitet hos individer.Vi har samlat in data i form av intervjuer och enkätsvar. Dessa data har vi analyserat på tre olika sätt. Ur dessa analyser växer en relativt koherent bild fram, där huvuddragen i denna bild är den av en större grupp elever som kan beskrivas som välmotiverade men där den underliggande karaktären på motivationen kan beskrivas som ett mellanläge mellan externt motiverad motivation och en motivation karakteriserad av inre vilja. En mindre grupp är inte fullt så motiverade och deras motivation karaktäriseras av att den i huvudsak drivs av yttre faktorer; studierna är något som måste genomföras för att nå mål som inte är direkt relaterade till själva ämnena. Ett fåtal individer uppvisar en motivation som är mer kopplad till lärandeprocessen i sig som man fann tillfredsställande. Vi har också funnit, att av de faktorer vi studerat, så är förväntningarna på yrkeslivet och förväntad vidare utbildning det som tydligast korrelerar med karaktären på motivationen. Vi diskuterar också några eventuella möjligheter som detta öppnar för pedagogisk vidareutveckling samt några möjliga vägar för vidare forskning.

I december 2019 erkändes Covid-19 som en pandemi. Distansarbete gavs ut som en rekommendationen till individer som har möjlighet att arbeta hemifrån, och arbetsgivare blev ansvarig för att det digitala ledarskapet fungerar. Syftet med denna kvantitativa studie var att undersöka om distansarbete och transformativt digitalt ledarskap predicerar arbetsmotivationen. Urvalet kategoriserades till två grupper, utifrån arbetstagare som arbetade med relationsinriktade yrken samt ekonomi och it. Totalt genererades 79 st fullständiga enkätsvar där deltagarna var i åldrarna 21-60 år. En digital enkät konstruerades som var baserad på The Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS) samt Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Data analyserades i SPSS genom två multipla hierarkiska regressionsanalyser, där resultatet visade endast ett signifikant resultat vilket var att transformativt ledarskap positivt predicerar intrinsikal arbetsmotivation.

Studiens övergripande syfte var att skapa en förståelse för hur användare upplever HRIS i deras arbetsvardag genom att ta reda på hur sambandet mellan motivation och användande såg ut för digitala HR-system med utgångspunkt ur makroteorin Self-Determination Theory. Undersökningen hade ett pedagogiskt perspektiv med syfte att kunna dra slutsatser för att möjliggöra en lärandemiljö som bidrar till en hög motivation inom användandet av digitala HR-system. Genom en enkätundersökning besvarad av chefer och HR-personal i organisationer som använde ett digitalt HR-system för personaladministration kartlades motivationen till att använda systemet. Utöver motivation undersöktes även hur andra faktorer som stöd från organisationen, kön, ålder och personalansvar påverkade upplevelsen. Resultatet visade på tydliga korrelationer mellan en hög motivation och ett högt stöd från organisationen i tillämpningen av systemet. Vidare visade resultaten på positiva samband mellan kompetens och användning vilket tydde på att användarvänlighet och att känna sig kunnig i systemet var viktiga aspekter att ta hänsyn till inför en implementering eller arbete med redan implementerat system. Kön och ålder visade sig också vara faktorer som påverkar hur en användare upplever och motiveras till användning av systemet. Sammanfattningsvis visade undersökningen att HRIS innebar en effektivisering och positiv upplevelse för medverkande respondenter, samt en hög motivation till att använda systemet. Detta leder i sin tur ledde till autonomi och självbestämmande i medarbetarens arbetsvardag och därmed positiva värden för såväl individ som hela organisationen.