Promoting Students' Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: A Review of Different Types of Interventions

Students differ in whether they learn for the sheer joy of learning or primarily to avoid failure. The difference can be partly explained by intrinsic motivation—a driver of engagement, persistence, and psychological well-being that is not fixed but shaped by the learning environment itself. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this review synthesizes research on educational interventions designed to cultivate students' intrinsic motivation, spanning five categories: need-supportive teaching, competence-supportive practices such as structure and feedback, instructional-method redesigns such as problem- and project-based learning, technology-based approaches such as gamification, and teacher-focused interventions targeting teachers' own behavior and motivation. Across these approaches, one pattern stands out: need-supportive interventions—particularly autonomy support combined with structure—carry the strongest theoretical and empirical support, while other interventions succeed only insofar as they satisfy students' psychological needs within a given context. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness thus provide a common framework for understanding how diverse educational practices influence motivational outcomes. Yet the evidence base remains fragmented: inconsistent conceptualizations of intrinsic motivation, considerable heterogeneity across intervention designs, and a scarcity of long-term data limit what can be concluded with confidence.