Self-Determination Theory as a Guide to Fostering Environmental Motivation

Fostering environmental motivation to perform proenvironmental behaviors is an implicit goal of most environmental education (EE) programs. However, an inadequate amount of research has offered insight into how educators can foster environmental motivation through instruction, and the few studies that address this topic share a single theoretical perspective. The present author explored self-determination theory (SDT) as an alternative research paradigm to fostering environmental motivation in the EE classroom. The author describes SDT's theoretical underpinnings, discusses its potential application to EE, and proposes 3 potentially fruitful avenues of research.