DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ INTRINSIC INTEREST IN

READING CHALLENGING ARTICLES: AN APPLICATION

OF BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NEED SUPPORTS

Abstract
Intrinsic motivation in doing academic tasks were important
psychological aspects for improvement of students’ learning. However,
intrinsic motivation in reading research articles was observably low
among Cambodian undergraduate students. Therefore, developing or
sustaining their intrinsic motivation was a needed treatment to enhance
students’ learning. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) posited that
intrinsic motivation could be increased when students are satisfied with
Basic Psychological Needs (BPNs) which may be cultivated through
learning environments that make them feel competent, autonomous,
and relative to the others while doing an academic task. This study
intended to examine whether BPN supportive learning environment is
salient to increase intrinsic motivation in reading a research article. 27
participants who were undergraduate students and enrolled in a course
of community psychology were purposively selected to fill in a self-
administrative questionnaires of Intrinsic Motivation Inventory before
and after attending the reading activity. As a result, level of intrinsic
motivation in reading was increased in 10 units (64.74 to 74.44) after
the activity finished. It was concluded that BPN supportive learning
environment was important to increase or at least sustain intrinsic
motivation among these particular students. The implication of this
study result in the classroom practices was discussed under the SDT
perspectives.

Keywords: Intrinsic Motivation, Basic Psychological Needs

A. Introduction

Academic reading is a fundamental activity required for adult learners

to comprehend lesson concepts or serves for various academic purposes.
Observably, students in community psychology class seemed to be self-
demotivated when they had to read complex articles that were not in their
preferences. In fact, these students found themselves difficult to read
research articles probably due to limited reading experiences, language
barriers, feelings toward a particular reading environment. Consequently,
some of them decided to withdraw from the provided reading activities or
just continued with dissatisfaction. In reality, not all the assigned learning
tasks respond to all the students’ different interests. As a result, the students
who have less internal interest toward their learning tasks may engage
passively and pay less effort in completing tasks and in turn minimize the
possibility to achieve high performance. Therefore, how to develop students’
intrinsic interest in accomplishing challenging academic tasks has become a
major concern in learning and teaching areas.
Motivation was defined as one’s power to intensify and direct
behavior in a certain task accomplishment (Reeve, 2009a). In a motivational
process, energies sustained the interest toward a specific goal orientation.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations were generally known as the main sources
for task engagement, and internalization or integration was academically
understood as a process transforming amotivation and extrinsic motivation
to be proximally linear to intrinsic motivation. Internalization processes
facilitated learners' perceived learning tasks across a continuum ranging
from extrinsic motivational regulation to intrinsic motivational regulation
(Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Intrinsic motivation appeared when individuals’ interesting and joyful
behaviors in an activity were observed without any facilitation from external
forces (Deci & Ryan, 2000). People who were intrinsically motivated were
internally attached with curious and interested emotions explicitly observed
via their behaviors to explore and engage in the activities with a sense of
inherent fun, challenge, and excitement (Deci & Rayan, 1985).
In the reality of classroom settings, teachers usually forced students to
engage in learning projects with compensation of external motivation
sources; however, this way would not cultivate students’ inherent interest to
volitionally involve doing the tasks with sustainable engagement and better
performance. Students’ internal forces producing intrinsic motivation were
likely neglected to develop throughout a particular organized activity.
Students’ intrinsic motivation was assumed to be enhanced, facilitated, and
sustained through classroom activities supporting their basic psychological
needs (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) which were positioned in
one's inner self. Satisfying the basic needs, students may internalize their
interests redirecting toward a particular useful given class activities.
It was theoretically revealed that satisfaction of the three basic
psychological needs was all important to recruit intrinsic motivation in doing
a certain task with culture free and disregard of individual differences (Deci
& Rayan, 2000). However, how much importance of basic psychological
needs in modifying intrinsic motivation in a typical learning activity among
Cambodian population or context was remaining in question. Coming from
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective, individual intrinsic motivation
in doing an activity was observed when the psychological needs
(competence, autonomy, and relatedness) were adequately fulfilled (Deci &
Rayan, 2000; Baard, et. al, 2004). Additionally, the sustainability of intrinsic
motivation was conditioned by the satisfaction of those needs. According to
this theory, the high or low quality of intrinsic motivation a student possesses
depended on the extent to which the psychological needs were satisfied by
him/herself.
Teachers’ support of students’ basic psychological needs in autonomy,
competence, and relatedness facilitated students’ autonomous learning self-
regulation, academic performance, and wellbeing (Grolnick et al., 1991;
Niemiec & Ryan, 2009; Niemiec et al. 2006). The meaning of support in SDT
was not relatively taped in the external control such as rewards, monitoring
and evaluation, and supervising provision to reinforce learning, but it was the
organizing activities and teacher beliefs that would cultivate students’
inherent interest and autonomous behavioral enhancement in learning
(Rayan & Brown, 2005).
The constructs of universal psychological needs were distinguished
differently in their operational definitions although they needed to be
integrated together in a motivation process. The need for autonomy referred
to the experience of behavior as volitional and reflectively self-endorsed
(Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). For example, students were autonomous when they
willingly devoted time and energy to their studies. The need for competence
referred to the experience of behavior as effectively enacted (Niemiec &
Ryan, 2009). For example, students were competent when they felt they were
able to meet the challenges of their schoolwork. The need for relatedness was
defined as an individual’s inherent tendency of connectedness with a sense of
belongingness and communion to a working group and feelings of being
supported and cared for by others (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In the
classroom setting, students experience relatedness when they are respected
and valued for their works.
Psychological need supportive activities were designed to pursue a
particular achievement outcome. According to Niemiec and Ryan (2009),
supporting the need for competence referred to the introducing challenging
activities that allowed students to exercise and expand their abilities. In
reading research articles, it was a reading exercise which comprehensively
explored the main sections in the articles such as research problems,
theoretical and literature reviews, methods, and findings. The students were
given the form listing those sections with a clear explanation of what each
section was about. Moreover, the students were given feedback to promote
success and efficacious emotion. It was not the feedback which tended to
evaluate students’ competence of reading but it was the one that provided
the necessary information on how to undertake the task effectively.
Supporting the need of autonomy involved the activities assigned to students
with minimized pressure of taking evaluation and without a sense of using
forces (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). They were engaged in reading with freedom
of choices and voices of making decisions. They were given a right to choose
the reading articles which they were familiar with and select their own
strategies to work on it.
According to the above concept and practices of SDT, the
sustainability of intrinsic motivation was conditioned by the satisfaction of
the needs of competence and autonomy. Both basic needs had to be
collocated in maintaining the intrinsic motivation since a student who had
solely the need of competency would not sustain their intrinsic motivation
when there was an absence of the need of autonomy (Deci et al., 1999;
Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). It was suggested that practitioners should design
learning activities combining supports that fulfill the two needs together to
intensify learning interest of the learners.
In addition to the existing knowledge that focused on the two types of
basic psychological needs, the researcher also assumed that relatedness
supportive activities or behaviors should be embedded as the third
supportive components to increase intrinsic motivation in reading research
articles. It would be proposed to be tested because there was an explanation
that relatedness could be integrated to boost up intrinsic motivation and
subjective well-being when learners had a sense of interrelationship and felt
belonging to the group (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Furthermore, social
support from teachers and peers had an effect on students’ motivation to
engage in learning English among South-East Asian college students (Ke &
Aruta, 2017).
 Supporting the need for relatedness was the activity in which students
felt socially connected, cared for by others (Bowlby, 1979; Ryan, 1995), and
belong to the group (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). In reading a journal, the
activities were designed to provide students the experiences of being
respected, accepted and valued for their reading tasks from the teacher. The
connection among students and teachers to facilitate the reading task was the
essential learning behaviors. From the teacher's positive and encouraging
behaviors, students were allowed to ask for clarification and supervision
when they were facing challenges. Furthermore, they were motivated to have
group discussions, shared experiences and even completed their work as a
pair or group according to their preference.
The purpose of the study was to examine the development of intrinsic
motivation in the journal reading activities among undergraduate students
before participating the reading activity and after involving designed
learning activity—supporting the needs combining autonomy, competence,
and relatedness support. How this supportive learning environment
contributed to increasing or sustaining intrinsic motivation in reading
research articles among Cambodian college students would be the main
research question in this study.
It was hypothesized that the level of intrinsic motivation of students
who participated in the reading activity which the combining supports was
treated would be higher than the one at the early phase. The increase in the
level of intrinsic motivation in reading after offering the three supportive
learning environments would be observed since the three types of need
supports had to be formed together as a model to address low learning
interest problems in the reading task. Moreover, socially desired
interrelationships may be needed in addition to feeling competent and
autonomous for these particular students. Connectedness and collaboration
among people in the class may enhance their internal motivation to do
challenging academic tasks.
B. Method

The study uses single-group interpreted time-series experimental

research design to test the set hypothesis. An outcome variable—intrinsic
motivation in reading—was investigated to identify its variations when the
BPN supportive based learning environment—predicting variables—would
be treated as an intervention. The outcome variable is examined two times by
using a self-administrative questionnaire: (1) before the intervention that
supports the basic psychological needs, (2) after the reading activity was
immediately ended. Basic psychological needs were examined before and
after the intervention as a manipulation check.

1. Participants

27 RUPP’s college students who were year four students and enrolled
in a course of Community Psychology in the first semester of academic year
2021-2022 were invited as participants in this study. Among those, the
number of female participants (23) were predominant male participants
(04). Purposive sampling method was applied to select participants who
would be assigned to engage in reading a research article as a small part of
the course activities. The invited participants attended a session facilitated in
a way that the class behaviors (competence, autonomy, and relatedness)
were supported.

2. Procedures

First, the participants were informed in advance about reading

activity as part of the course in the course orientation session—November
22, 2021. The course was conducted on Monday every week. Several reading
research articles relative to the course topic were provided to the
participants a week before the activity. The participants were allowed to
download further articles if needed. Participants were required to read those
articles before class. A day before the reading activity, the participants were
asked to fill in the self-administrative questionnaire covering intrinsic
motivation in reading and satisfaction of basic psychological needs via online
which consent form was attached at the early section of the questionnaire.
Then, they attended the reading session a day after –November 29, 2021.

The reading activity was placed to the class, and the relatedness,
competence and autonomy supportive facilitation would be treated. Learning
procedures were designed in a way that relatedness, autonomy, and
competence concepts were integrated in classroom practices to cognitively,
emotionally, and behaviorally support the reading activity of the participants
(Appendix 1). Immediately after the session was finished, the same
questionnaire of intrinsic motivation in reading and satisfaction of BPN
would be administered by the students themselves. Since reading a research
article is considered as a difficult task, 90 minutes was given to conduct each
session. The levels of intrinsic interest in reading would be compared to
investigate their differences in each test-taking phase.

3. Measures

Reading-task focused intrinsic motivation was an outcome variable. It

was investigated by using an Intrinsic Motivation Inventory scale (IMI)
(McAuley, et al.,1987). IMI measures intrinsic motivation in doing a task was
a four-dimensional scale consists of 16 total items such as interest-enjoyment
consists of 4 items (e.g. This reading task did not hold my attention.);
perceived competence contents 4 items (e.g. I could not read this research
article very well.); effort-importance with its 4 items (I did not try very hard
at reading this research article.); pressure-tension includes its 4 items (e.g. I
felt tense while reading this research articles.). The four dimensions were
computed into a single scale with acceptable reliability (α = .65).

A 24 items-scale of satisfaction of PBN covered autonomy,

competence, relatedness (Chen, et al., 2015) was used to examine the
participants’ satisfaction of PBN for a manipulating check in this study. In
these participants, the reliability of the instrument (α = .68) was optimal.

Negatively worded items were rescaled prior to the analysis of the

data. A 7 rating scale (1 not at all true to 7 very true) is used to test intrinsic
interest and satisfaction of BPN in reading.

Back translation procedures would be applied to translate the original

questionnaire which was in English into Khmer language. Before putting the
instrument for translation, the researcher adjusts the term “playing
basketball”—the originally used term of the scale—to become “reading
research article” to suit the activity of this study.

4. Data Analysis

The collected data was cleaned and checked its normality. Then, the
mean scores of students’ intrinsic motivation in reading in the pre-testing
phase were compared to identify the usefulness of intervention to increase or
sustain the student's intrinsic motivation in the reading activity. Level of
satisfaction of BPN (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) was checked to
reveal whether there is a change in between the pre-reading to post-reading
phase. The increase in the mean scores of intrinsic motivation after attending
the activity compared to those observed before the intervention showed
significantly important intervention which BPNs were supported at while-
reading phase.

C. Results

This study was to investigate whether the BPN supportive learning

facilitation contributed to increasing or sustaining the intrinsic motivation of
students who were involved in reading activity.

Table 1. Observed Values of Intrinsic Motivation and Satisfaction of BPNs

Values N Pre-reading Phase Post-reading Phase

 M SD M SD

Values of intrinsic motivation 27 64.74 7.75 74.44 10.40

Values of satisfaction of BPNs 27 52.22 6.17 54.40 8.57

As shown in Table 1, the average scores (M = 74.44; SD = 10.40) of

intrinsic motivation at the post-test phase were increased over 10 units
compared to those at pre-test phase (M = 64.74; SD = 7.75). Moreover, a 2-
unit change (52.22 to 54.40) in values of satisfaction of BPNs from pre-
reading phase to post-reading phase indicated the increase of satisfaction
that seemed to be consistent to that of intrinsic motivation.

The above statistic revealed that the increase in values of intrinsic

motivation observed after the BPNs in reading were embedded in the reading
activity. Statistically, BPN supportive learning environment was salient to
development of intrinsic motivation in this study.
D. Discussion
Intrinsic motivation in reading research articles among these
participants was promoted when BPN supportive classrooms were
facilitated. This result indicated significant contribution of BPN support on
the students’ intrinsic motivation. Although the intensity of motivation and
satisfied level of BPNs were not highly observed after the treatment of BPN
supports, the researcher considered that the treatment was useful to sustain
the students interest when they were challenged with the difficulties in
reading (Baard, et. al, 2004). The students kept reading with some
remarkable outputs after terminating the class activities. Without sufficient
BPN support offered by the class, the students may not enjoy, challenge, and
pay attention in such difficult activities, or they just forced themselves to
participate in the activity to fulfill the class requirements with dissatisfaction
and boredom. The positive intrinsic motivation dimensioned in interest-
enjoyment, perceived competence, effort-importance, and pressure-tension
(McAuley, et al.,1987) was a power of motivation that inherently attached
with the individual learners when he/she engaged the activity.The students
who may or may not appreciate and involve to the academic task depended
heavily on how much the task responded to their intrinsic preference,
reading journals. Intrinsic motivation was rarely observed for complex
learning activities such as reading research articles for most of these
particular students.
Development of intrinsic motivation is hardly applicable in a short-
term learning intervention due to its innateness. However, the teacher needs
to develop his/her students in daily classes. As shown in this study result, the
integration of positive supports of BPNs in reading can assist the students to
regulate their consciousnesses on the required activity and regulate their
motivation processes from amotivation (dislike the activity) to intrinsic
motivation (like the activities). The students may be satisfied with the
reading challenges when they were supported by optimal challenge, feedback
that promotes self-efficacy, positive performance feedback because these
supports made them feel capable to read the article (Deci et al., 1999).
Therefore, they were able to work on it, decided to engage, and continue to
finish it. Moreover, when the students were provided opportunities for
choices, acknowledged feelings, and offered explanations or rationales, they
would enjoy the class and engage to read until the end of the class (Niemiec &
Ryan, 2009). They were satisfied with the task because they were free to
work on it. Influenced by collective culture, Cambodian students may be
joyful to challenge the complexity of reading articles when they felt that what
they were doing was being cared for and mutual respected (Ryan, 1995).

E. Concluding Remarks

Developing and sustaining intrinsic motivation in doing academic

tasks were important psychological aspects for students’ learning. Although
the motivation could dramatically emerge in a given sufficient time, the
teacher has to alter the mindset of students who were not intrinsically
motivated to help his/her students learn better. Rather to treat the students
with rewards and effective teaching methods, the teacher may organize class
environments in which competence, autonomy, and related supports are
integrated. These climates can partially build up students’ satisfaction of
their psychological needs which in turn develop intrinsic motivation.

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