title: Autonomy, competence, and social relatedness in task interest within project-based education.
abstract: To prepare students for instructive collaboration, it is necessary to have insight into students' psychological needs and interest development. The framework of self-determination theory was used to conduct a field experiment involving 114 students in vocational education. These students followed a practical business course which required they work in small learning groups. During the course, students were asked to complete the Quality of Working in Groups Instrument, an online measure of how strong autonomy, competence, social relatedness, and task interest are fulfilled. SEM showed that students' psychological needs were jointly and uniquely related to task interest over time. The significance of this on-line test for the assessment of interest within project-based education is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Sciences, University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 38, 9712 TJ Groningen, The Netherlands. a.e.m.g.minnaert@rug.nl
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Minnaert
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boekaerts
authors.forename: Cornelis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: de Brabander
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010379:Peer Group; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011584:Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*