Self-Determination Theory and Flow Theory propose that perceived autonomy fosters the positive qualities of motivation and flow-experience. Autonomy-support can help to maintain students' motivation in very interesting learning activities and may lead to an increase in the positive qualities of motivation in less interesting learning activities.…

Animal and plant species identification is often emphasized as a basic prerequisite for an understanding of ecology and training identification skills seems a worthwhile task in biology education. Such identification tasks could be embedded into hands-on, group-based and self-determined learning: a) Teaching and learning should make use of a small…