Perceived Autonomy Support in Primary Education in the Netherlands: Differences between Teachers and Their Students

Abstract

Student autonomy is a much discussed topic in educational practice and research. In this study, primary schoolteachers reported what they do to support the autonomy of their students and students mentioned how they perceivedautonomy in the classroom. From the findings of a focus group, consisting of 10 teachers from the upper years, sixaspects of autonomy were extracted: freedom of choice, self-insight, self-expression, curiosity, independence andproblem solving. Then, 77 teachers and 497 students completed a questionnaire with items on these six aspects. Thisquestionnaire study shows that both teachers and students indicated that class work is mostly focused on studentindependence and the least on freedom of choice. Students and teachers differed in the extent to which this was thecase: teachers were much more positive about the extent to which they work on their students' autonomy than theirstudents. This applied to all six distinct aspects of autonomy support.