Record: Gina Riley, “Differences in Competence, Autonomy, and Relatedness between Home Educated and Traditionally Educated Young Adults” in International Social Science Review 90, no. 2 (2015): 1-27. [Article]
Summary: In this study, Riley, an assistant professor in Hunter College’s graduate department of special education, seeks to determine whether homeschooling or traditional schooling does a better job satisfying the factors that facilitate intrinsic motivation.
Individuals are intrinsically motivated when they perform actions solely for inherent satisfaction. According to Deci and Ryan’s Cognitive Evaluation Theory, intrinsic motivation is facilitated by competency, autonomy, and relatedness. To find out if homeschooling does a better job facilitating intrinsic motivation, Riley compares the competency, autonomy, and relatedness of homeschooled young adults to their public schooled peers.
First we must define the three components that develop intrinsic motivation:
- Competency. A sense of competency is fostered through success and overall positive feelings about an activity.
- Autonomy. The Cognitive Evaluation Theory states that intrinsic motivation is enhanced when an individual is given a sense of choice, an acknowledgement of feelings, or an opportunity for self direction. It is decreased when a reward is offered as an incentive.
- Relatedness. Children with strong interpersonal relationships with their parents, teachers, and peers tend to be more motivated and self-directed.
Riley sent a survey to 500 young adults with at least a high school diploma (ages 18-25). Of these, 250 were homeschooled and 250 were traditionally schooled. To count as homeschooled, the participant had to have been homeschooled for a minimum of six years. However, the response rate was 20%. Riley was able to attract 58 homeschoolers and 41 traditional schoolers for a total of 99 respondents. The respondents were 1/3 male, 2/3 female, and they were recruited through listservs, Yahoo groups, and the Walden University Participant Pool. The competency, autonomy, and relatedness of the participants were measured using the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS).
After explaining method Riley discusses her results. The average competency score was 5.27 for public schoolers and 6.27 for homeschoolers. Public schoolers had 4.75 for autonomy versus the homeschoolers’ 6.02. Finally, for relatedness public schoolers scored 5.86 while homeschoolers scored 6.07. After a series of statistical tests, Riley determines that homeschoolers had a statistically-significant, larger average for competence and autonomy. There was no statistical difference between the relatedness satisfaction of the two groups. Thus, Riley’s findings do suggest that homeschoolers have higher levels of competence and autonomy satisfaction, which would lead to higher levels of intrinsic motivation.
The study is limited by its sampling. The sample size is small, and it was also a volunteer sample, so it is likely biased toward homeschoolers who had more positive experiences. In terms of demographic data, Riley only asked for age and gender. It does not control for variables like ethnicity, income, higher education level, or parental education level.
Intrinsic motivation tends to be highly correlated with academic, occupational, and social success. While previous homeschooling research has linking homeschooling with increased intrinsic motivation, this is the first study to view it more methodically from the perspective of the Cognitive Evaluation Theory and its components of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
Appraisal: Riley’s other studies focus on unschooling, so it seems that her views here are affected by that theory of learning. For example, she makes statements like, “One of the most impressive strengths of home education lies in the fact that, in many cases, the entire process revolves around a child’s intrinsic motivation to learn” (pg. 3). While homeschooling likely requires more intrinsic motivation than traditional schooling, it would seem to be an overstatement to claim that intrinsic motivation is the dominant force in many or most cases of homeschooling. In her own research, Riley claims that about 10% of the homeschooling population identifies with the unschooling ideology in which students are in complete charge of their own education.
This study is significant because it breaches a relatively unexplored aspect of homeschooling outcomes. Self-motivation is certainly one of the perceived benefits of homeschooling. However, the sampling, as discussed above, is too problematic to draw any meaningful conclusions from. There are too many confounding variables that could have skewed the results. Also, Riley says that she found the homeschoolers through listservs and Yahoo groups. Listservs and Yahoo groups tend to attract groups of very likeminded individuals that would not represent homeschooling as a whole. Without knowing the specific groups that she used and their demographic characteristics it is impossible to know what biases may or may not be built into the results (though she is likely correct that it attracted homeschoolers with more positive experiences).
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