Using Self-Determination Theory to Examine Student Responses to Five-Minute Self-Regulation Strategies in the Engineering Classroom

Contribution: This Work-in-Progress paper shares the pilot effort of an engineering educator partnering with an academic support service director to implement a series of five-minute interventions introducing students to self-regulation techniques in a classroom environment. The ability of self-regulation is approached as both as a fundamental criteria of learning motivation and as a valuable skill in its own right. Background: Engineering stress culture is increasingly recognized as negatively affecting engineering students. This paper investigates whether spending the first five minutes of each class teaching and modeling a series of research-based self-regulation techniques could have positive benefits toward promoting student's basic psychological needs (BPN) of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Through Self-Determination Theory, BPN have been connected to learning and motivation. Research Question: Which, if any, of the basic psychological needs would students express as addressed by short in-class self-regulation interventions? Methodology: Semi-structured interviews of volunteer participants yielded rich, detailed data that was analyzed through a deductive thematic approach. Limitations of the study include its small sample size. Findings: The results suggest positive promotion of each of the BPNs, with particularly powerful feedback about the students' perception of relatedness.