| Motivation has long been of concern to educators as studies have linked the level of self-determination with psychological and academic outcomes. Motivation studies in education tend to suggest that controlling teaching strategies undermine learner motivation. However, the findings in other educational fields may not be fully applicable in interpreter training, because it is different from other teaching activities as it focuses on the acquisition of professional skills with tedious training. Therefore, the effects of controlling teaching behaviors on interpreting learners need further examination and studies.The present study adopts the self-determination theory (SDT) as its theoretical framework to explore the effects of controlling teaching strategies on postgraduate interpreting learners’motivation and the psychological needs that facilitate motivation internalization (needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy). The study is composed of one experiment with three sub-studies. The experiment creates controlling conditions for the experiment group and independence-supportive environment for the control group. A carefully-designed questionnaire is used in sub-study 1 and sub-study 2 to assess learners’motivation and their psychological needs before and after the experiment. Then, sub-study 3 interviews several participants to explore the reasons underlying the changes in learners’motivation and their psychological needs.Results show that controlling teaching strategies can facilitate the motivation internalization of learners with less self-determined forms of motives but may undermine the motivation of those who already enjoy high-levels of self-determination; such strategies can also significantly improve interpreting learners’perceived competence and may lead to positive outcomes in perceived autonomy. Pedagogical proposals are also made based on the findings from the 3 sub-studies. |
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