A Multi-Level Model of Motivation
Now that you have some understanding of basic psychological needs, types of motivation, and regulatory styles, let’s use the adapted version of the multilevel model (Vallerand, 1997) above to explore the relationships between many of the concepts we’ve discussed thus far. First, the three types of motivation (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation) exist at three levels: Global, Contextual, and Situational.
Global Level
At the top, global factors like orientation styles, which reflect tendencies or characteristic ways of perceiving and responding to environmental cues, operate at the most general level, meaning they tend to facilitate or hinder basic psychological need satisfaction and, therefore, motivation (including thoughts, feelings, and actions), across types of domains and situations.
Contextual Level
In the middle, regulatory styles (for example, teaching styles), which reflect either intrinsic motivation or varying degrees of internalized extrinsic motivators, operate at the contextual level within different life domains, such as academics, friendships, and hobbies. How might various actors and their incentives and behaviors in different domains affect an individual’s motivation?
Situational Level
The bottom area of the diagram indicates the most specific level. Here, situational factors like the demands of the specific activity (such as rewards, deadlines, evaluation, and competition), setting, and time all interact to facilitate or hinder need satisfaction and motivation.
For example, all else being equal, we would likely expect to observe differences in a student’s needs satisfaction and motivation when comparing a prescriptive writing assignment (activity) during a language arts class (setting) for educational purposes (domain) versus a friendly game of basketball (activity) in the student’s neighborhood after school (setting) for leisure (domain).
Bidirectional Relationships
Another feature of this diagram worth noting is the bidirectional relationships that exist between levels of the model, meaning that motivation at a particular level is influenced by other factors at the same level and by motivation at the next higher (or more general) level (Ryan & Deci, 2018, p. 233).
For example, a student’s motivation in the educational domain is likely influenced both by their orientation style and the general level of autonomous-support they experience in school. Likewise, when a student experiences greater autonomy support in a specific academic activity, like reading, they may gradually develop more autonomous motivation for schoolwork in general, and this could eventually influence that student’s orientation style. Here, again, this point reinforces the positive impact educators can have on the present and future lives of their students by creating opportunities that foster autonomy, competence, and belonging across academic and social contexts.
Finally, as we previously discussed, basic needs satisfaction and motivational qualities have profound emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences as reflected in student and educator performance and wellbeing.
Self-Reflection: Although the influence of educators and other school staff may be limited to particular settings and tasks, relationships between factors within the same level and across different levels of the multilevel model are reciprocal in nature. Therefore, it’s important to consider, and address when possible, the conditions present at other levels of this model. For instance, how might you introduce positive narratives about students’ personal, family, and cultural values, experiences, and practices to address controlled or amotivated orientations at the global level? Or how might building autonomy-supportive classroom environments and trusting relationships with students address students’ negative attitudes about school at the contextual level?