Browsing by Subject "Autonomy Support"

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    How Do Parents Affect Preschoolers' Self-Regulation? Establishing the Role of Autonomy Supportive Parenting
    (2017-06) Meuwissen, Alyssa
    The development of skills needed to regulate one’s own behavior are increasingly recognized as crucial for children’s successful development, and promoting these skills in early childhood has become a high priority. Parents are thought to be a primary influence on the formation of these skills. This study was an experimental investigation of the parenting behavior known as autonomy support and its effect on children’s self-regulation. We observed parents (half mothers, half fathers) interacting with their 3-year-old children (N pairs = 128). Parent and child typical behavior was measured at baseline. Then, in the manipulation phase, parents were randomly assigned to receive instructions to interact with their child in either a high autonomy supportive or highly controlling way. Child behavior was again measured at post-test. Results showed that mothers and fathers had similar parenting quality at baseline and there were few differences in their effect on child self-regulation. In the manipulation phase, parents in both conditions were able to change their behavior based on the instructions given. Changes in parenting affected child behavior during the manipulation puzzle, although it did not affect child post-test behavior. These results indicate that parent autonomy support is a promising target for interventions focused on improving child self-regulation skills.
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    Reframing the autonomy support problem: a new framework for analyzing adult-child problem solving interactions in naturalistic settings.
    (2023-04) Baker, Justin
    A central question in the study of autonomy support (Grolnik, 1989) is how adults structurechildren’s learning while also preserving their sense of self-determination. In recent years, researchers have made strides in describing what types of parental and teaching behaviors constitute autonomy support, developing detailed coding schemes for evaluating how supportive adults interact with children in researcher-defined, goal-oriented tasks (Whipple et al., 2011). In two case-driven studies, I expand on the construct of autonomy support by studying adult-child problem solving interactions in more open-ended, naturalistic task environments. In Study 1, I analyze video of parent-child outdoor play, utilizing interaction analysis (IA, Jordan and Henderson, 1995) to capture in detail participants’ moment-to-moment contributions to the problem solving process. The outcome is a framework capable of mapping dyadic problem-solving interactions at a more granular level, including tracking who leads each part of the interaction, and what learning goals are being oriented to. In Study 2, I apply that framework to the pedagogical perspectives of teachers in an elementary charter school that expressly values children’s self- determination. In interviews, the teachers described their approaches to achieving important learning outcomes while embracing children’s naturalistic learning behaviors, and the Study 1 problem solving framework is used to generate insights into the teachers’ strategic approaches. The findings of the two studies suggest the existence of inherent tradeoffs between various potential goals and time horizons for adult-child learning interactions, and raise considerations for future research into autonomy support, while the problem solving framework demonstrates potential for developing practical tools that could eventually directly support adults and children in reflecting on their co-learning processes.