Lepinoy Anouk, Lo Bue Salvatore, Vanderlinde Ruben
Behavioral Sciences Department, Royal Military Academy, Brussels, Belgium.
Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Mil Psychol. 2021 Oct 28;34(1):98-109. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2021.1973793. eCollection 2022.
Military academies request initiatives for better pedagogy to keep their cadets motivated and successful. Following the self-determination theory, one could promote autonomous motivation by fulfilling the three basic psychological needs of students: the need for autonomy, relatedness and competence. In this qualitative research, we investigated which motivational critical events go together with a perception of high or low autonomy, relatedness and competence. To this end, we organized four focus groups with participants from the two faculties of the Royal Military Academy of Belgium (RMA): Social and Military Sciences (SMS) and Engineering (ENG). Using the critical incident method, we searched for the facilitating and inhibiting events with regard to motivation within the learning environment. Thereafter, we used the constant comparison method as an analysis technique to link the critical events to one of the three basic needs. We found that a perception of high relatedness was the most effective in motivating SMS cadets, while the perception of high competence was the most effective in motivating ENG cadets. For both the SMS and ENG cadets, a lack of autonomy was demotivating. This study provides a model that suggests in which way context characteristics within a (military) learning environment meets students' basic psychological needs and how it is facilitating or inhibiting motivation in turn.
军事院校要求采取更好的教学方法，以使学员保持积极性并取得成功。根据自我决定理论，可以通过满足学生的三种基本心理需求来促进自主动机：自主需求、归属需求和能力需求。在这项定性研究中，我们调查了哪些动机关键事件与对自主性、归属感和能力的高或低认知相关。为此，我们组织了四个焦点小组，参与者来自比利时皇家军事学院（RMA）的两个系：社会与军事科学系（SMS）和工程系（ENG）。使用关键事件法，我们在学习环境中寻找促进和抑制动机的事件。此后，我们使用持续比较法作为分析技术，将关键事件与三种基本需求之一联系起来。我们发现，高归属感认知对激励SMS学员最有效，而高能力认知对激励ENG学员最有效。对于SMS和ENG学员来说，缺乏自主性都会导致积极性下降。本研究提供了一个模型，表明在（军事）学习环境中的情境特征以何种方式满足学生的基本心理需求，以及它又是如何反过来促进或抑制动机的。
