Does the overwhelming idea of freedom to choose in regards to major have an underlying hindrance on student autonomy?
Evans, M. and Boucher, A. R. (2015), Optimizing the Power of Choice: Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning. Mind, Brain, and Education, 9 (2015). 87–91. Wiley Online Library. Web. 2 Mar. 2016.
This section of the book discusses supporting student autonomy in learning. It starts off by talking about how many students find the classroom contradictory to their motivation to learn and this this decrease in motivation tends to continue as they progress through school. One reason for this occurrence is that school environments provide students with fewer opportunities for choice and decision making. Choice, however, is very important to continuing motivation in student learning, but is often withheld from students in the classroom. The self determination theory of motivation emphasizes the role of autonomy in promoting intrinsic motivation. Motivating choices are said to be those that fulfill the student's need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When students feel autonomous, they are more likely to be engaged in learning and see value in their learning. Choice can benefit learners when regarded in two primary ways. It can be understood as the presence of options and as the act of choosing, which foster's an individual's sense of free will. What students perceive as highly motivating is the extent to which the available choices relate to the student's personal values and goals. To be intrinsically motivated to engage in a learning task, a student must feel that they are capable of achieving success and competence within that task, accompanied by appropriate resources necessary for completion of that task. However, when it comes to choice, there is such a thing as too much choice, which can become overwhelming and inhibit engagement. This causes something called "choice overload" where people tend to opt out of making the decision or have someone make the decision for them. Overall, the idea of choice must be relevant and meaningful, competence enhancing, and provided in just the right amount to be intrinsically motivating for students.
This source brings up some exciting new points that I had not thought about in regards to choosing a major until now. I went into this article thinking there were no abstract reasons for a students choice in major other than simply personal factors and/or financial factors. However, after reading this article, I have discovered there are psychological reasons that can impact a student's autonomy when choosing a major in regards to the characteristics of choice. First off, when a student is presented with choices that relate to their goals and are meaningful to them, they are more likely to have a sense of autonomy when choosing. When it comes to major, if a student is not presented with a major that aligns with their career aspirations, they can end up settling for something less than sufficient to their needs, which would ultimately decrease their motivation for learning. This can have an overall affect on university culture by creating a student body that has little motivation to learn or make new discoveries in their various fields of study. In addition, choices presented to a student must be in the appropriate amount to increase motivation and autonomy. If there are too many majors to choose from, such as at a big school as Mizzou, students may feel overwhelmed and opt for their parents to choose their major instead. This brings about the new idea to me that parents may be responsible for an increase in STEM majors because when students feel too overwhelmed by all the choices, their parents are going to choose the major where the student will be the most financially successful, which is characteristically in the STEM fields. I disagree with the source when it says that students must be provided with the resources necessary to complete a task. The whole point of learning is to challenge yourself to find and discover new answers on your own, not be provided them. In higher education, this is reflected in that the STEM majors are some of the most difficult concepts to grasp and answers aren't simply given to students, so why would this field be increasing in major if students lacked motivation to find the answers themselves, as this source says they would? This source allows me to answer the question for this blog post in that yes, overwhelming choice in regards to major can hinder student autonomy by allowing parents to choose for them or settling for something they don't actually want to learn about.
This source responds to my other sources by confirming that parental STEM occupations and parental income have an influential role on student's choice of major. Likely parents in STEM fields would choose a major for their kids that is related to theirs and that they know would result in financial success for their student. Therefore, source number two's study that shows these two factors as positively correlational to a choice of STEM major is confirmed as being valid by source 3. I tend to agree more with source 3 because I am a very psychologically-oriented person as opposed to hard facts, so I believe that the factors discussed in this source would be more able to predict student autonomy in choosing a major rather than other previously discussed factors.
This source has led me to ask the new question of how does university culture reflect student autonomy in regards to choosing a major? I think my research is going in this direction due to its alignment with my research question and the brief mentioning of this topic in source 3. Also, I now have answers regarding factors that influence student's choice of major as well as autonomy, and a hint as to how both of these influence university culture.
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