The impact of the perceived support of basic psychological needs and of the perceived relevance of contents on students' self-determined motivation in mathematics instruction

The present study investigates the impact of the perceived support of three basic psychological needs and of the perceived relevance of contents on students' self-determined motivation in mathematics instruction. The impact of the individual and the shared perception was explored in multilevel analyses taking into consideration the cultural background and the gender of the students. The relationships are analyzed with regard to two different mathematical topics (word problems and Pythagorean theorem). The research questions were empirically tested in a Swiss-German study with 20 Swiss and 20 German classrooms of eighth and ninth grade (N = 1015 students). The results show that the individual perception of support and relevance of content has an important impact on self-determined motivation in both mathematical topics. In contrast, the impact of the shared perception seems to depend on the mathematical topic.