ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the effects of students’ goal orientations and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation on student engagement and behaviour. Egalitarian teaching combines low levels of control with clear structure, so that students can autonomously observe routines that allow them to devote maximal time to learning. The environment refers to the physical structure of a setting, its organisation and its social climate. Within a classroom, one significant structural decision is about desk configurations. The preferred desk arrangement will depend on whether students will be working alone or cooperatively. Many of the recommendations for enhancing task relevance posed by humanism have been supported by educational research. Students with mastery goals apply themselves to tasks in order to gain skill and competence; in contrast, those who seek to excel compared with others are said to have performance goals. Students’ personal orientation is complemented by the orientation of their teachers.
