From student-to-student confirmation to students’ self-determination: an integrated peer-centered model of self-determination theory in the classroom

In the current study, we applied self-determination theory within a cross-sectional research design to test a latent variable model in order to explore how peer relationships in the classroom might impact students’ autonomous motivation. Using a sample of 342 U.S. college students, we investigated how student-to-student confirmation might indirectly influence students’ intrinsic motivation to learn through the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs for competence and relatedness. Results of a latent variable model suggest that students who receive confirmation from their classmates experience greater perceptions of competence and relatedness in the classroom. More importantly, through the satisfaction of these needs, student-to-student confirmation appears to have a positive indirect effect on students’ intrinsic motivation to learn independent of their satisfaction for autonomy. Findings from our study align with the theoretical assumptions of confirmation and the propositions of self-determination theory. Self-determination theory scholars have long called for the strategic use of needs-supportive instruction to stimulate greater autonomous motivation within students. Perhaps it also behooves instructors to promote conditions and opportunities in which students are more likely to experience confirmation from their fellow classmates and thereby experience more needs-satisfying interactions.