ABSTRACT
In the last three decades, research anchored in self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) emphasized the importance of autonomous motivation for students’ adaptive functioning and well-being in school. Although motivation is sometimes treated as a singular construct, SDT argues that people are moved to act by different types of factors (Deci & Ryan, 2000). When autonomously motivated, people perceive themselves as the “origin” of their own behavior, whereas in controlled motivation, they perceive themselves as “pawns” subjected to the play of forces imposed by others. Given the importance of autonomous motivation for outcomes such as class engagement and students’ well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2009), a large body of research explored its antecedents, focusing mainly on teachers’ practices (Assor, Kaplan, & Roth, 2002; Jang, 2008; Jang, Reeve, & Deci, 2010; Reeve, 2002).
