Fostering and Capturing Children’s Inner Motivation to Learn in the Early Primary Classroom in England
type: CreativeWork
description: Children are born naturally curious and eager to learn, but as they go through school this inner motivation to learn diminishes. Yet children’s inner motivation to learn is essential to deep learning, positive attitudes to school and wellbeing. Self-Determination Theory suggests that supporting children’s need for autonomy – that is to say the feeling that actions stem from internal sources rather than being imposed externally – is essential to supporting inner motivational resources. This thesis is concerned with how teachers may be able to support children’s autonomy and inner motivation in the early Primary classroom in England and how we may be able to capture changes in children’s inner motivation in those settings. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, I used interpretive methods to understand teachers’ attempts to provide greater opportunities for children’s autonomy in Year 1 classrooms through a professional development programme. This programme was developed by a team of researchers at the PEDAL centre using a Community of Practice model and involved nine teachers in trying out strategies to support children’s autonomy. Through stories of change, I show that teachers’ use and interpretations of the strategies varied, and this was affected by the teachers’ school context and their own beliefs. Through thematic analysis, I show that the classrooms in the study functioned as ecosystems of teacher control, which was itself under pressure from top-down directions through governmental policies and institutions as well as senior leaders. This resulted in a teaching mindset focused on strict learning objectives which left little space for children to take ownership of their learning. Despite this, teachers were sometimes able to provide pockets of space for children’s autonomy, though these took diverse forms. The extent of these spaces for autonomy depended on individual school and classroom contexts. The proposed model – pockets of space within an ecosystem o…
abstract: Children are born naturally curious and eager to learn, but as they go through school this inner motivation to learn diminishes. Yet children’s inner motivation to learn is essential to deep learning, positive attitudes to school and wellbeing. Self-Determination Theory suggests that supporting children’s need for autonomy – that is to say the feeling that actions stem from internal sources rather than being imposed externally – is essential to supporting inner motivational resources. This thesis is concerned with how teachers may be able to support children’s autonomy and inner motivation in the early Primary classroom in England and how we may be able to capture changes in children’s inner motivation in those settings. It is divided into two parts. In Part I, I used interpretive methods to understand teachers’ attempts to provide greater opportunities for children’s autonomy in Year 1 classrooms through a professional development programme. This programme was developed by a team of researchers at the PEDAL centre using a Community of Practice model and involved nine teachers in trying out strategies to support children’s autonomy. Through stories of change, I show that teachers’ use and interpretations of the strategies varied, and this was affected by the teachers’ school context and their own beliefs. Through thematic analysis, I show that the classrooms in the study functioned as ecosystems of teacher control, which was itself under pressure from top-down directions through governmental policies and institutions as well as senior leaders. This resulted in a teaching mindset focused on strict learning objectives which left little space for children to take ownership of their learning. Despite this, teachers were sometimes able to provide pockets of space for children’s autonomy, though these took diverse forms. The extent of these spaces for autonomy depended on individual school and classroom contexts. The proposed model – pockets of space within an ecosystem o…
author: Le Courtois, Soizic
language: eng
keywords: teaching, motivation, Primary school, engagement, young children, love of learning, play-based learning, autonomy
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2022-01-24
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:28Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.84458