Allowing choice and nurturing an inner compass: Educational practices supporting students' need for autonomy

This chapter focuses on seven practices of autonomy support which are likely to promote two major components of the need for autonomy: (a) lack of coercion and optional choice and (b) formation and realization of an inner compass: Authentic, direction-giving values, goals, and interests. A special emphasis is put on research pertaining to three autonomy supportive practices which are assumed to support formation and realization of authentic, direction-giving values, goals, and interests, whose impact on perceived autonomy was not sufficiently examined so far: (a) IVD - intrinsic value demonstration, (b) SVE - support for value/goal/ interest examination, and (c) FIV - fostering inner-directed valuing processes. The autonomy supportive practices that foster the development of stable authentic values and goals might be especially important in western countries, in which postmodern moral relativism and the abundance of information and options make it particularly difficult for youth to form stable and authentic values and goals.