Open AccessPerceived Autonomy Support in Primary Education in the Netherlands: Differences between Teachers and Their Students
Author(s) -
Wilfried Admiraal,
Gera Nieuwenhuis,
Yvette Kooij,
Tineke Dijkstra,
Ingrid Cloosterman
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
world journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1925-0754
pISSN - 1925-0746
DOI - 10.5430/wje.v9n4p1
Subject(s) - autonomy , psychology , curiosity , independence (probability theory) , mathematics education , class (philosophy) , focus group , pedagogy , social psychology , sociology , mathematics , political science , statistics , artificial intelligence , computer science , law , anthropology
Student autonomy is a much discussed topic in educational practice and research. In this study, primary schoolteachers reported what they do to support the autonomy of their students and students mentioned how they perceivedautonomy in the classroom. From the findings of a focus group, consisting of 10 teachers from the upper years, sixaspects of autonomy were extracted: freedom of choice, self-insight, self-expression, curiosity, independence andproblem solving. Then, 77 teachers and 497 students completed a questionnaire with items on these six aspects. Thisquestionnaire study shows that both teachers and students indicated that class work is mostly focused on studentindependence and the least on freedom of choice. Students and teachers differed in the extent to which this was thecase: teachers were much more positive about the extent to which they work on their students' autonomy than theirstudents. This applied to all six distinct aspects of autonomy support.