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Psychological needs and music engagement intentions: a self-determination theoretical perspective on the motivation to continue in music

Researchers of student motivation have often explained students’ desire to engage in various activities in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Babad, 1993; Legutki, 2010; McPherson, 2000; O’Neill, 1999). However, there is a perpetuating absence of a unifying and theory-based understanding of motivation in music education that illustrates the need for the current study. Using self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000) as the theoretical framework, I examined (a) the association between fulfillment of psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) experienced by high school orchestra students and their perceived level of autonomy-supportive learning, and (b) the connection between different qualities of self-determined motivation (i.e., external, introjected, identified, and intrinsic regulation) and students’ intentions to engage in music learning in the future. This cross-sectional quantitative study incorporated an author-designed instrument, which was an adaptation of Basic Psychological Needs Scale (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and Self-Regulation Questionnaire-Learning version (Black & Deci, 2000). I surveyed 706 high school orchestra students in the Midwest, and the response rate was 99.7%.
The findings indicate that autonomy (β = .37), competence (β = .17), and relatedness (β = .14) positively predicted music students’ overall outlook on their autonomy-supportive learning. Identified regulation and intrinsic regulation positively predicted music students’ short- (β = .23, β = .34), medium- (β = .15, β = .29), and long-term intentions (β = .25, β = .25) of music engagement, indicating that there is a connection between autonomous regulation in music students and their future engagement intentions. External regulation (β = -.10) negatively predicted short-term intention only, indicating that there is a connection between extrinsic motivation and low intentions to continue must learning. This study provides evidence to support self-determination theory as a viable approach for understanding student motivation in the field of music education. Future research recommendations and implications for teaching are also provided.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/19550
Date07 November 2016
CreatorsLiu, Mark Yun-Wu
Source SetsBoston University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis/Dissertation

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