ArticleScience advances2024
Choosing to learn: The importance of student autonomy in higher education.
Article in Science advances, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- High school science fair: Characterizing student communication and presentation practices and their association with SEF outcomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- High school science fair: Characterizing student communication and presentation practices and their association with SEF outcomes.PloS one · 2026Article
- The impact of elective physical education on high school students' core PE competencies: a quasi-experimental study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Mechanism-aware personalized learning intervention for short- and long-term academic outcome modeling.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Teaching strategies for promoting female college students' physical activity.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- High school science fair: What students say-mastery, performance, and self-determination theory.PloS one · 2025Article
- Study and personal resources of university students' academic resilience and the relationship with positive psychological outcomes.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite strong evidence that autonomy enhances motivation and achievement, few interventions for promoting student autonomy in higher education have been developed and empirically tested. Here, we demonstrate how two autonomy-supportive policies effectively increase classroom attendance and subject mastery. First, in a randomized controlled field study, we explored the effect of allowing students to choose whether to make their attendance mandatory (i.e., a component of their course grades). We found that nearly all students used the opportunity as a pre-commitment device and were subsequently more likely to attend class than were students whose attendance had been mandated. Second, in a multi-year cohort study, we explored the effect of allowing students to opt out of a challenging, high-effort assessment stream, finding that students given greater autonomy invested more effort into their assignments and attained greater proficiency with the material. We discuss other opportunities for applying choice architecture to improve learning, motivation, and well-being in higher education.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.