The Social Context as a Determinant of Teacher Motivational Strategies in Physical Education



THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 4

Within the SDT framework, the social context has previously been shown to be
related to teachers’ use of motivational strategies. Pelletier, Seguin-Levesque and Legault
(2002) reported that various pressurizing constraints at work were negatively related to the
degree of autonomy support teachers provided (e.g., providing students with choice and a
meaningful rationale). Nonetheless, some constraints may be more pertinent to teachers than
others. For example, the teachers quantitatively reported very little pressure to conform to
colleagues’ teaching methods, but a high degree of pressure to complete the curriculum. In
view of this, further, in-depth investigation of the different aspects of the teaching context is
required.

Other studies have shown that the more teachers feel that they are responsible for
student performance standards, the more controlling they are towards students and less
effective they are in their teaching (Deci, Spiegel, Ryan, Koestner, & Kauffman, 1982; Flink,
Boggiano, & Barrett, 1990). However, in these studies, the teaching context has been
artificially created by the experimenters, often in laboratory environments. Hence, studies
that shift the context from the laboratory to the everyday contextual events that teachers’ face
are required to explore whether the processes found in experimental designs occur in
teachers’ lived experiences. If these processes do occur, what do the teachers, as living
beings, feel about them?

As well as pressures that generally stem from higher authorities in the school system
(e.g., responsibility for student performance), studies including Pelletier et al. (2002) have
proposed that teachers are influenced by their perception of students’ motivation and
behavior. For instance, positive teacher beliefs about student motivation have been found to
be associated with more autonomy supportive, emotionally involved and structured teaching
environments, compared to negative teacher beliefs (Taylor, Ntoumanis, & Standage, in
press). Similarly, when teachers have positive achievement expectations of their students,



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